The part after the sale
Most of what gets written for paving contractors is about winning the job. This guide is about the rest of it. The customer signed, and now tons have to be placed, several crews who don't talk to each other have to show up in the right order, and somebody has to send an invoice that matches what was sold.
Contractors who run jobs well carry this sequence in their heads. The point of writing it down is so the job still runs when they're on another lot.
The day it's signed
The proposal is signed. Before anything moves, three things happen in the office.
Deposit and paperwork. If the contract calls for a deposit, collect it now, not "when we get there." On a commercial job with a GC, get the subcontract signed and the schedule of values agreed.
The proposal becomes the work order. Every quantity on the proposal becomes something a crew has to do: the tons, the milling depth, the yards of concrete, the stall count. This is the handoff that goes wrong most often, because it's where somebody retypes the numbers. The milling depth on the proposal should be the milling depth on the foreman's work order, without anyone copying it.
The customer gets a window. Not a date yet. A window the customer agrees to, with the weather terms written down.
Before the crew rolls
This is a checklist for a reason: the item you skip is the one that costs a day.
- Permits: figure out whether the job needs any, then pull them
- Utility locates called in through 811 if you're digging anywhere, with the ticket number written down
- Material lined up: mix reserved at the plant for the paving date, stone delivered for base work, ready-mix scheduled for the pour
- Subs confirmed for milling, trucking and striping, with dates
- Equipment reserved, including anything you're renting
- Traffic control plan if the job needs one
- The customer confirmed on the start date and told what they need to do: move the cars, tell the tenants, unlock the gate
Put a name next to every item. A checklist with names on it is how you avoid a crew showing up at a lot full of cars.
The week of
Now dates. Scheduling a paving company is a puzzle with a few hard constraints: the plant's hours, the weather, the crews you have, the equipment they need, and the order the work has to happen in.
The order is the part that's specific to this trade. On a lot that's getting milled and paved, then curb repair, then striping, the sequence is fixed. You can't stripe what isn't paved, and you can't pave against curb that isn't poured. Each trade is its own crew on its own days, and each depends on the one before it. Each foreman needs to see what's ready for them, and the owner needs to see all of it.
Weather goes on the schedule too. Asphalt generally wants 50°F and rising and a dry surface. Concrete below 40°F needs cold-weather protection or a different day. Sealer needs warmth and a dry forecast after it goes down. Check your specs and your material suppliers for the exact limits. A pour on a day with a 70 percent chance of rain isn't scheduled. It's hoped for. Have the backup date ready before you need it.
Look for double-bookings, too. The same roller on two lots on Tuesday is a problem you want to find on Friday, not Tuesday at 6 a.m.
On the lot
The crew is on site. This is where the money gets spent, and where the office usually knows least about what's happening. Three things should come off the lot every day.
Hours. Who was on the job and for how long. A paper sheet turned in on Friday is approximate at best. Crews clocking in on their phones on the lot is a fact, and it's on the job the same day.
Material. Tons placed, stone used, ready-mix yards. The plant tickets and receipts are the job's actual cost, and somebody should add them up while the job is still running, not when the monthly statement comes.
Progress. What got done, with photos. A daily log with a few pictures does two jobs. It tells the office what to schedule next, and it's the record when the customer asks six weeks later why the north end took two days.
When the lot isn't what you priced
It happens on most jobs. Soft base under the milling, a conduit in the curb line, a tenant who wants their entrance done last.
Each of those is a change order, written before the extra work starts and signed by the customer's named contact. The foreman shouldn't have to drive to the office to make that happen. The change order should go out from the lot with photos of the condition, and the customer should be able to sign it on their phone while the crew is still there.
Hold that part of the work until it's signed. The exceptions are narrow: safety, or a situation where stopping costs more than the change. Even then, get a written go-ahead and send the formal change order the same day. The change orders guide covers pricing them and getting the signature.
The punch list
The paving is down, the curb is poured, the lines are painted. Before anyone calls it done, walk it.
On a paving job the punch list is usually short and specific: a low spot at a drain, a raveled edge at a butt joint, an accessible stall symbol that's off center, a manhole ring that needs sealing. Walk it with the customer's contact, write each item down with a photo, assign it to the crew that owns it, and fix it fast. Then close each item with a photo of the fix.
A closed punch list is what protects you. When the customer calls later saying "you never fixed the...", the list answers them.
Sign-off
The customer, or their representative, signs that the work is complete. On residential work that can be a signature on a phone before the crew leaves. On commercial work it's tied to substantial completion and final completion, which are what start the clock on retainage.
Sign-off hands the job to the office: final invoice now, retainage request now, warranty clock starts now. Keep the job's photos where you can find them, because the warranty call will come, and someone will need to see what the lot looked like the day you left.
Closeout
Closeout is the office's part. It's where the job's paperwork is made to agree with itself.
- Final invoice sent, matching the signed proposal plus signed change orders
- Every change order accounted for: billed or credited
- Retainage requested, with the sign-off attached
- Sub invoices in and matched to the work they did
- All material tickets and receipts on the job
- Estimated cost against actual, line by line, with the yield written down
- A note on what the estimate got wrong and what the crew did well
The cost review is the step that pays for all the others, because it's where the next estimate gets better. Skip it and every job is the first job.
Where it breaks
The places jobs go wrong are consistent enough to name.
The retype. The proposal is in one file, the work order in another, the invoice in a third, and someone copies numbers between them. The invoice says 340 tons because the proposal said 340 and nobody updated it after the change order took it to 375.
The handoff nobody wrote down. The estimator knows the customer wants the entrance done last. The foreman doesn't. Everyone finds out at 7 a.m.
The crew that can't see its own work. A striping foreman looking at the whole company's schedule can't tell what's ready for paint. One who sees the striping on their own jobs can.
The change order in a text message. It was approved, and it's in the foreman's phone. It's not on the invoice.
The job that never closes. Paved in June. Invoiced in August. Retainage in... nobody's sure.
Each one has the same fix: type every number once, write every handoff down, and don't call a job done until the paperwork agrees.
Where Pavr fits
Pavr is job management software for paving, sealcoating, striping and concrete contractors. In Pavr the signed proposal becomes the job, so the tons and milling depth the customer signed for are the ones on the foreman's work order. Paving, concrete, sealcoat and striping each get their own part of the job with their own crew. The striping waits on the paving on its own, the sealcoat waits 30 days for new asphalt to cure, and you can change either wait. Each part runs through its own stages, starting with permits, materials and the scheduled visit, and each stage is done when every box on its checklist is checked or marked doesn't apply; the sub's confirmation ticks itself off when they answer the email. Every job has a salesperson, a project manager, a superintendent and a foreman, and Pavr sends each kind of news to the right one, falling back down the line when one of those roles is unfilled.
The schedule flags asphalt and sealcoat days under 50°F or with rain in the forecast, and pours under 40°F, and it shows a double-booked crew or machine before you dispatch. A rain day moves as one batch. A customer with invoices 30 days past due goes on hold, and new work for them doesn't get scheduled without an Admin saying why. Crews clock in on their phones, with or without signal, and the crew side works in Spanish. The daily log holds the material used, and the crew's photos go on the site map where they were taken, marked before, during or after.
A change order goes out from the job by email, priced from today's plant prices and crew rates at the margin the customer signed on the proposal; that part of the work waits for the customer's signature, and once it's signed it's on the invoice. Punch list items close with a photo, the customer signs the list off from their phone (on by default for commercial customers, your call on residential), and the final invoice can't go out until the list is closed. Invoices go to QuickBooks Online, and the customer gets the PDF with a Pay button. See how one job across trades works.
Comparing this against what you run now? Pavr compared with spreadsheets and QuickBooks puts the two side by side.