You didn't get your builder's licence to spend your nights entering supplier invoices into Xero.
You didn't start a building company to chase subbies for dockets, reconcile POs in spreadsheets, or pay someone $65K a year to type numbers from one screen into another.
And yet — that's exactly what most builders in Australia are doing right now.
We know. Because we were one of them.
We've run real construction businesses. Resi builds. Commercial fit-outs. Multi-site operations. And we tried every single construction platform available in Australia.
Every. Single. One. Left us frustrated.
Too clunky. Too many clicks. Data entry that should've been automated years ago. Invoice processing that still needed a full-time admin just to keep up. Cost tracking that was always a week behind. And the Xero integration? Don't get us started.
The frustration of spending hours on admin after a day on the tools — or the cost of hiring office staff just to enter invoices and chase numbers — is what drove us to build something different.
We sat in an office watching someone manually type invoices into Xero for 3 hours a day and thought: this is insane.
So we built ViaBuild.
And it changes everything.
Full platform. No restrictions. No lock-in. Cancel any time.
Or even worse — a completely dysfunctional Americanised platform like Buildertrend that freezes every time you select something new on the page?
Software that was built for the US market, bodged together for Australia as an afterthought, with terminology that doesn't match, tax rules that don't work, and a user experience that feels like wading through wet concrete.
Here's what's actually happening in your business right now:
Your subbies email invoices. Someone in your office (or you, at 9pm) opens each PDF, types the supplier name, invoice number, date, line items, GST, and total into Xero or a spreadsheet. Manually.
Then they try to match it to a PO. Was it PO-0421 or PO-0412? Which job was it for? Was it the sparky for Lot 14 or the sparky for Smith Street? Better check three different spreadsheets.
Then they code it. What cost code? Which tracking category? Is this under budget? Over budget? Who approved this?
This process takes 3 to 5 minutes per invoice.
If you're doing 20 builds a year, you're processing 200+ invoices a month. That's 15 to 20 hours a month — just on data entry. Just on AP.
That's a part-time salary. Gone. On typing.
Scale that up. A builder doing 30+ homes a year has 3 or 4 people in the office just managing invoices, POs, and cost tracking. That's $200K to $300K a year in wages — for work that software should be doing automatically.
This is the problem that every construction software in Australia has failed to solve.
Until now.
Here's how ViaBuild works — and why it's different from everything else you've tried.
Step 1: You set up a dedicated accounts inbox. It takes 2 minutes. You get a unique email address like [email protected] — or point your existing accounts@ address to ViaBuild.
Step 2: Tell your subbies and suppliers to send invoices there. Do this once. They update their records. Done.
Step 3: There is no step 3. Invoices arrive. AI reads every line item, ABN, date, PO reference, and total. Automatically. Matched to the right PO, the right job, the right cost code.
Step 4: You approve with one tap. On your phone. From the ute. Between sites. Approved invoices push to Xero as draft bills with full cost code and tracking category mapping.
That's it.
What used to take 3 hours a day now takes 10 minutes of approvals.
One person can manage AP that used to take a team.
Builders using ViaBuild are turning 5-person office teams into 4. Fourteen-person teams into 10 or 11. That's not a software saving — that's $65K to $200K+ a year in wage overhead that goes straight back into your business.
| Supplier | Invoice # | Job | Amount | Status | Match |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aussie Timber & Hardware | INV-2847 | Lot 14 Bella Vista | $12,480.00 | Matched | PO-0421 |
| ProSteel Reinforcing | PS-91204 | 28 Smith St Reno | $8,750.00 | Review | 2 suggested |
| Spark & Wire Electrical | ME-5539 | Lot 14 Bella Vista | $3,200.00 | Matched | PO-0398 |
| ClearView Glazing | CVG-1178 | 12 Ocean Pde | $6,920.00 | Extracted | Pending |
| Austral Bricks | BW-44821 | The Terraces Ph2 | $22,100.00 | Variance | +8.3% over PO |
See it working on your first invoice in under 5 minutes.
ViaBuild scales with you. Same platform, different power — from your first reno to a network of prestige homes.
Set up the dedicated inbox, tell your subbies to send invoices there, and ViaBuild handles the rest. Free to start.
| Job | Budget | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 42 Maple St Extension | $185,000 | 72% |
| 15 River Rd New Build | $142,000 | 35% |
| 8 Park Ave Reno | $85,000 | 91% |
Multiple sites, subbies on every job, invoices from the sparky, the chippy, the plumber, the concretor. One person manages what used to take three.
| Cost Code | Budget | Committed | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Structural Timber | $1.08M | $1.06M | -1.9% |
| Electrical | $528K | $564K | +6.8% |
| Hydraulics | $672K | $691K | +2.8% |
Architect-designed homes, 30+ specialist trades, PC and PS sums that shift, clients who expect transparency on every dollar.
| Trade | Budget | Committed | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Structural Steel | $186K | $182K | -2.2% |
| Joinery & Cabinetry | $245K | $268K | +9.4% |
| Stone & Tiling | $128K | $131K | +2.3% |
Not just a tool for franchisees — a command centre for you. Live WIP, sales data, profitability benchmarks. Launch new franchisees 10x faster with bulk import, templating, and hands-on tech support.
| Franchisee | Active | WIP | Margin | Sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pacific North | 18 | $5.8M | 17.2% | $2.1M |
| Pacific Central | 14 | $4.2M | 16.1% | $1.4M |
| Pacific West | 22 | $7.6M | 14.3% | $3.2M |
| Pacific South | 11 | $3.1M | 11.8% | $0.8M |
Dedicated accounts inbox. Invoices arrive, get extracted, matched to POs, and routed for approval. Zero data entry.
Budget vs Committed vs Actual. Variance alerts at 2%, 5%, 10%. Catch margin erosion before it's too late.
Laser-sharp, zero-lag plan takeoff. Quantities flow to estimates, estimates convert to budgets, budgets generate POs. Win the job — POs ready to send.
Every project from pre-construction to handover. Budgets, POs, invoices, VOs, daily logs, documents.
Clients pick products and colours. ViaBuild instantly calculates the variance against PC/PS allowances and generates post-contract variations. No manual pricing.
POs tied to jobs and cost codes. Committed costs update instantly. Incoming invoices auto-match.
Visual project scheduling with task dependencies. Assign work, track progress, keep builds on time.
Claim against HIA or MBA stages. Track retention, defects liability, remaining contract value.
Quote packages to multiple trades without revealing who else is pricing. Compare side-by-side.
Bills push to Xero with tracking categories. Contacts sync from HubSpot. Your tools, connected.
ViaSite site app for your supervisor — daily diaries, photos, defects, safety sign-in. All synced live.
Safety management built in — inductions, SWMS, toolbox talks, incident reports. Every project gets a branded QR site sign ($285) for visitor and subbie sign-in. No need for HazardCo or SafetyCulture — it's all in ViaBuild.
You know the feeling. You're mid-takeoff, measuring a slab on a 40-page plan set, and the software freezes.
Or it lags. Or the zoom is clunky. Or you accidentally click off the measurement and have to start again. Or the quantities don't flow through to the estimate properly and you spend 20 minutes debugging a formula that shouldn't exist.
We've used every estimating tool in Australia. They all have the same problem: they were built by software developers, not by estimators.
ViaBuild's takeoff and estimating engine was built differently.
It's laser sharp. Measurements snap to points with pixel-level accuracy. Zoom is instant. Pan is fluid. It doesn't freeze on a 200-page plan set. It doesn't freeze on anything — because we built it to handle the largest, most complex residential and commercial plans without breaking a sweat.
It's fast. Keyboard shortcuts for everything. Tab through measurements. Bulk-apply cost codes. Duplicate sections across jobs. What used to take a full day of estimating now takes half a day or less.
And it's connected. Your takeoff quantities flow directly into your estimate. Your estimate converts into a locked job budget. Your budget generates POs. When you win the job, your purchase orders are already set up and ready to send to your trades.
This is what happens when estimators build estimating software.
Here's a problem that every builder in Australia deals with — and that no other construction software has solved properly.
Your client picks their tiles. They change their mind about the tapware. They upgrade the kitchen stone from 20mm Caesarstone to 40mm Calacatta marble. They swap the timber flooring for engineered oak.
In every other system, here's what happens next:
Someone manually works out the price difference. They dig through the estimate. Find the original allowance. Look up the new product price. Calculate the variance. Create a variation. Send it to the client. Wait for approval. Then manually update the budget.
That's 30 minutes to an hour. Per selection change. On a custom home with 60+ selections, you're looking at days of admin work — just on colour and product changes.
We mapped this entire problem and solved it.
In ViaBuild, when a client makes a selection — or changes one — the system instantly calculates the cost difference against the original PC or PS allowance, generates the post-contract variation with the correct markup, and presents it for client approval. One click from the client. Budget updated. Variation tracked. Done.
Every other software provider clearly doesn't know how to do this.
We do. Because we've lived it.
Most software companies hand you a login, point you at some help articles, and wish you luck.
We don't.
When you come on board with ViaBuild, you're set up by real estimators and project managers — people who have run real jobs, won real tenders, and managed real builds. People with proven careers in construction, not kids fresh out of a computer science degree reading from a script.
They don't just show you which buttons to click.
They set up your cost codes properly. They structure your assemblies for maximum reuse. They configure your estimate templates so your takeoff flows through to POs with zero re-work. They set up your AP inbox and train your team on the approval workflow.
And here's the part that surprises people:
You might actually learn new tricks. Our implementation team includes estimators who have priced thousands of jobs across resi, commercial, and fit-out. They've seen what works and what doesn't. They'll show you how to structure your estimates so you produce quotes faster and more accurately than you ever have before.
This isn't a nice-to-have. It's included. Every plan — Starter, Professional, and Network — comes with onboarding from people who actually understand construction.
Because the best software in the world is useless if it's not set up right.
Onboarding by real construction professionals. Included on every plan.
Still on Databuild? We specialise in helping you transition to ViaBuild and increase your business efficiency by over 90%.
We know how painful it is to switch platforms. We know you're worried about losing data, about the downtime, about retraining your team.
That's why we do it for you. Completely free.
Suppliers, cost codes, products, assemblies, job history, templates — the lot. Our team handles it end-to-end. You don't lose a single day on the tools.
Run both systems side-by-side until you're confident. Then switch over.
No lock-in contracts. No risk. If ViaBuild doesn't solve your problems, walk away.
We're confident it will.
Everything you need to switch without lifting a finger.