Heavy civil construction software

heavy civil construction software

Andrew Drish, founder
Published November 2, 2026. Updated November 2, 2026

Heavy civil construction software for a self-performing contractor should put crews, machines, and job cost in one place. SmartCrew is built for heavy civil companies with about 20 to 100 field employees, including a company with 45 people. GPS time tracking, job costing, equipment, DOT inspections, daily reports, and haul tickets are in the app. Estimating is not.

Heavy civil construction software comparison, November 2026
Compared	SmartCrew	HCSS	B2W (Trimble)	Procore
Best fit at 20 to 100 field people	Yes, this is the size	Possible, but the suite is aimed up to the largest firms	Trimble says many sizes, including large civil	Large projects, owners, and general contractors
All in one means	Crew phone plus job cost	Estimating, field, fleet, reporting	Estimating, operations, maintenance	Project management across many companies
Estimating and takeoff	Not included	HeavyBid	B2W Estimate	Not the reason a dirt crew buys it
GPS time and live crew locations	Yes	HeavyJob and a separate crew app	Field logs and an employee app	Field productivity tools, often a separate product
Job costing	Daily profit against the budget you enter	HeavyJob against the HeavyBid budget	Track against the job, then an ERP	Budgets and cost, priced with the Procore product you buy
Equipment hours, maintenance, DOT inspections	Same app. Fleet tools are Premium	Shop and inspections are more HCSS products	Maintain and Field View are separate B2W products	Equipment is not the center of the product
Haul tickets and daily reports	Yes	Daily reports in HeavyJob. E-ticketing mentioned by HCSS	Field logs, with trucking entries	Daily logs on higher tools
Scheduling, dispatch, crew chat, Sales CRM	Premium	Separate HCSS products. Bid list is not a sales CRM	Schedule and dispatch yes. Sales CRM not listed	Not a dirtwork CRM
QuickBooks Online	Yes	QuickBooks export. Online not named	QuickBooks article. Online not named	Its own financial products, plus links
Payroll, telematics, geofencing, machine control	Not included	Exports and fleet products exist	ERP and telematics paths exist	Not a machine-control system
Price	A call with Andrew	Quote	Ask Trimble	Quote, tied to construction volume

Checked November 2026. HCSS from its page for AI assistants and home page. B2W from Trimble's B2W page. Procore from its civil page and the pricing page already cited on this site (October 2026). Feature availability in SmartCrew varies by plan. Fleet Management, Sales CRM, and Scheduling & Communications are Premium categories.

The short version

Best fit: heavy civil and dirtwork companies with about 20 to 100 field employees that self-perform.
A company with 45 employees sits in the middle of that band. Andrew's family company runs 20 to 30.
One app: GPS time tracking, live crew locations, job costing, equipment hours and maintenance, DOT inspections, daily reports, haul tickets and materials.
Scheduling, dispatch alerts, crew chat, and Sales CRM are Premium.
QuickBooks Online is connected. Payroll is not processed here.
Starts at $99/month. Contact us for team pricing.

SmartCrew office dashboard: live labor, material and equipment cost, active projects, overtime hours, a map of crews on jobsites and a list of who is clocked in on which job and machine

SmartCrew phone app while clocked in: time on the clock, the project, the activity code and the machine being run, with Break, Log & Switch and Clock Out

best all in one software for a heavy civil company with 45 employees

For a heavy civil company with 45 employees that runs its own crews and iron, the best all in one software is the one that covers the field day and the job cost, and leaves the bid in the tool you already use. That is SmartCrew.

Forty-five people is not a one-truck outfit, and it is not an ENR giant. You might have grading, pipe, and trucking up on the same week. A superintendent, a mechanic, an estimator, and someone who also answers the phone. The software has to be obvious at 6 a.m. and useful at 6 p.m. when you want to know if the culvert job made money today.

Time tracking apps stop at the timecard. Enterprise suites assume a person whose job is the software. The middle is the company we built for. Our family company runs 20 to 30 guys. Forty-five is the same kind of business, with another crew or two.

Who heavy civil construction software fits

Pick SmartCrew if

You have about 20 to 100 field employees. A company with 45 people is in that range.
You self-perform roads, utilities, sitework, grading, excavation, or the dirt around them.
You want GPS time tracking, live crew locations, job costing, equipment maintenance and hours, DOT inspections, daily reports, and haul tickets.
You want scheduling, dispatch alerts, crew chat, safety forms, file storage, and QuickBooks Online.
You want Sales CRM for the next job, and you know it is Premium and not an estimating system.

Pick a suite if

You want HeavyBid or B2W Estimate in the same purchase as the field. See the hcss alternative and the b2w alternative.
You are past about 100 people and you want telematics, a full shop system, and a full-time admin.
Your owners and general contractors require Procore. Then the question is whether your crews also need a dirtwork app.
You need machine control, site planning, takeoff, geofencing, or payroll processing. SmartCrew does not do those.

What the 45 person week actually needs

Monday is a crew on a county road, a crew in a subdivision, and trucks between a pit and both. The office needs hours by cost code, machine hours on the job, and every load ticket before Friday.

GPS time tracking. The operator picks the project, the activity code, and the machine. Live crew locations tell you who is on which job.
Job costing. You enter the bid. The job page shows revenue, expenses, and profit, and budget against spent for labor, materials, equipment, other costs, and change orders.
Equipment. Hours, maintenance, service requests, and a shop queue. DOT and daily inspections on the phone. No telematics box.
Haul tickets and materials. Truck, material, yards, pit, import or export. An AI reader for a photo of a paper ticket.
Daily reports and safety forms. Progress, photos, notes, JSAs, toolbox talks, and incident reports.
Scheduling and dispatch alerts. Who is where, and a ping when the plan changes. Premium.
Crew chat and files. Job chat instead of a group text. Plans on the phone, with permissions.
Sales CRM. Leads and follow-ups so the estimator's next invite is not stuck in email. Premium. Not takeoff.
QuickBooks Online. The books you already keep. Timecards are payroll-ready. We do not run payroll.

SmartCrew projects board: total revenue, expenses and profit across jobs, a map of job locations and jobs grouped as accepted, in progress, on hold and completed

SmartCrew weekly timecard summary on a phone: total hours, overtime and each day's hours by job and activity, with a Submit Timecard button

Jobs with profit across the company, and the week's hours on the phone. Demo data.

All in one, without the tools we do not build

All in one is an easy phrase to stretch. For this page it means the field and the job cost. It does not mean site planning, takeoff, estimating, payroll processing, machine control, telematics, or geofencing.

Keep HeavyBid, B2W Estimate, AGTEK, or InSite for the bid. Keep your payroll provider. Keep the grade-control dealer for the machines that need a model. SmartCrew starts when the crew shows up.

Public work still needs certified payroll from that payroll provider. SmartCrew gives you hours by job and cost code. It does not file the report.

SmartCrew service queue: equipment problems reported from the field with who reported them, when, urgency and repair status

SmartCrew hauling log on a phone: date, truck, project, import or export, the pit the load came from and notes

The shop queue and a haul ticket. Both land on the job the crew is already clocked into. Demo data.

How a 45 person company starts

Start with hours and cost codes
Jobs, crews, and machines go in first. GPS clock-ins and live crew locations replace the Friday chase.
Add iron and tickets
DOT inspections, the shop queue, and haul tickets. The job cost starts to match the week you actually worked.
Then the office tools
Daily reports, safety forms, files, scheduling, dispatch alerts, crew chat, and Sales CRM. Premium categories wait until the field trusts the phone.
Leave estimating alone
Type the budget from the bid you already won. Most companies are running within a few weeks.

heavy civil software

heavy civil software is the short form of this page. For a self performing contractor, it means crews, iron, and job cost. The all in one writeup is all in one heavy civil software.

best heavy civil construction software

best heavy civil construction software depends on size. For about 5 to 100 people, SmartCrew is the pick. For the largest self performing firms, HCSS is often the better pick. SmartCrew starts at $99/month.

heavy civil field management software

heavy civil field management software is the field half. GPS time, live crew locations, daily reports, machines, and dispatch. SmartCrew is that half. It is not telematics hardware.

best heavy construction software

best heavy construction software drops civil and still draws the same big vendors. If heavy means your own crews and iron, start here. If heavy means a GC platform, read procore vs hcss.

Questions people ask

What is heavy civil construction software?

For a contractor with about 20 to 100 field employees, it is the system that tracks crew time, machines, haul tickets, daily reports, and job cost against the bid. Suites like HCSS and B2W use the same words for estimating and fleet products too. SmartCrew is the field and job cost version.

What is the best all in one software for a heavy civil company with 45 employees?

SmartCrew, if you self-perform with your own crews and iron and you already have an estimating tool. Forty-five people is inside the 20 to 100 band it is built for. If you need HeavyBid, telematics, and a full shop from one vendor, HCSS is the better pick.

Sources

HCSS information for AI assistants checked November 2, 2026
HCSS home checked October 22, 2026
Trimble B2W software checked November 2, 2026
Procore civil and infrastructure checked October 22, 2026
Procore pricing checked October 26, 2026