Find how much you have
Sign in as an Org Owner or Admin. Buildertrend ties what each person sees to their role. Its permission table lists all job statuses for Org Owner and Admin, but only some for other roles, for example Open, Warranty and Closed for a Project Manager and Open and Warranty for Field Crew. A narrower role would undercount your history.
Open the Jobs dropdown and choose Jobs List. Buildertrend describes it as a report view across many jobs that you can filter, sort and export, with columns you can customize, including status and start and completion dates. Every job has one status: Pre-Sale, Open, Warranty or Closed. Buildertrend's help says closed jobs drop out of your default Jobs menu and that you filter to find them, so set the filter to include all four statuses.
Add the start and completion date columns, then click Export in the top right of the grid to download an Excel file. Buildertrend says Export is available on any grid that supports it, so if the button is missing on a screen, that grid does not export. Count the job rows. That is your project total. It includes jobs that were closed without ever leaving Pre-Sale, which show proposals that never became contracts.
Leave deleted jobs out of the count. Buildertrend has an Only Show Deleted filter for finding them, so use it if you think any were deleted by mistake.
Lead Opportunities are tracked as their own records and become jobs when you convert them, with their files copied across. If you want leads that never converted counted, give that number separately in the description rather than adding it to the job total.
For documents, photos and videos, open the Files area, which keeps each type in folders per job. Buildertrend describes the storage as unlimited and we found no page that shows an account-wide file total. Open five or six jobs of different ages, average their files, multiply by your job count and mark that figure Estimated.
What to put on your intake
Your intake has five boxes for each system. Here is what goes in each one for Buildertrend.
- What does it hold?
- Jobs from Pre-Sale through Closed, with estimates, bids, change orders, selections, bills and invoices, daily logs, schedules, warranty requests, and the documents, photos and videos stored in each job. Name the tools your team really uses.
- Data types
- Structured records and Text for the job data, logs and messages. Add Image and Video only if you want job photos and videos in scope.
- How big is it?
- Report the number of jobs across all four statuses, using the unit your intake suggests. Put any lead, photo or document estimate in the description field.
- Verified or estimated
- Verified when the number is the row count of a Jobs List export that included every status. Estimated if you counted from a filtered view, from memory, or by sampling jobs for files.
- Records start
- The date of your oldest job. Buildertrend jobs carry projected and actual start and completion dates, so take the earliest start date in the export, or open the oldest job and check its first dated entry. If you moved over from another system and loaded history in, say so in the description.
Exporting the full history
If a buyer licenses your records, this is how the full history comes out of Buildertrend.
Nothing is exported until you have signed a license and agreed the scope: which jobs and statuses, which date range, which tools (jobs, financials, daily logs, change orders, selections) and whether files are in or out.
An Org Owner or Admin runs the exports. Buildertrend's terms list exporting Customer Data among the things administrators can do, so there is no reason for anyone outside your company to hold a login.
For records, export the Jobs List and the other grids in the agreed scope to Excel, one grid at a time, with every status and the full date range selected. Buildertrend's built-in reports (Work-in-Progress, Budgeted vs. Projected, Profitability, Invoicing, Labor Actuals vs. Budgeted and Cash Flow) are described as graphed views. The help page we read does not mention exporting them, so ask Buildertrend support before you plan around them.
For files, open the Files area, choose a job, tick the files and use the mass actions to download them to a computer. This is a job-by-job task, so the agreed scope decides whether it is worth doing for photos and videos.
We found no public Buildertrend API or bulk export tool in its documentation, and its terms bar scripted copying without written consent. For a whole-account pull, ask your account manager what Buildertrend can provide, in what format and whether a fee applies. The question mark icon in the top right of your account starts a chat with Support.
Client, contact and employee identifiers come out before anything is delivered to a buyer.
We only ask for an export after you sign a license and agree the scope. Sizing your data for the intake never needs one.
Limits to know
- Leaving Buildertrend is a retention cliff. The terms say your access to the service, including your data, ends when the subscription ends. Data may stay accessible for one year afterward, you can request it, and Buildertrend decides the format, method and manner and may charge a fee. After that year it may permanently delete the data and says it has no duty to keep it. Export before you cancel.
- Roles can hide jobs. A user whose role does not include every job status will see a partial list, so run counts and exports as an Org Owner or Admin.
- The default view undercounts. Closed jobs drop out of the default Jobs menu and deleted jobs sit behind an Only Show Deleted filter, so a quick look at the first screen is not your total.
- Export is per grid and produces Excel files. Buildertrend offers it only on grids that support it, and we found no single export for the whole account.
- No scripts or scrapers. Buildertrend's terms bar using software, scripts, crawlers, robots or other automated processes to copy, scrape or systematically acquire content from the service without its express written consent. A bulk pull has to come through the built-in exports or from Buildertrend itself.
- Buildertrend keeps its own rights to your data. The terms give it a perpetual, non-exclusive license to use Customer Data, including to develop new products and services. Keep that in mind if a buyer asks for exclusivity.
- A job missing from a built-in report does not mean the data is missing. For example, Labor Actuals vs. Budgeted lists a job only if it uses Time Clock, was sent to budget and meets several other conditions.
This guide isn't legal advice. Check your contracts, and any recording-consent rules that apply, with your own lawyer.
Why buyers value it
A Buildertrend job is a long record of expectation and result. The estimate, bids and contract price show what a builder expected, and the change orders, selections, bills and invoices show what really happened to scope and cost. Daily logs and the schedule add the day-by-day story of how the build ran. Buyers building models of residential construction, remodeling and specialty trades want that expected-versus-actual pairing across many projects.
Pre-Sale jobs matter too. They hold the leads that never became contracts and what was proposed to them, which is rarely kept anywhere else in this form. Warranty jobs add what went wrong after handover.
What stays private
Buyers see de-identified operating records, not your clients. Under the license, the de-identification step before delivery removes or excludes:
- Clients and contacts: names, job-site addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, including anything typed into messages, comments and daily logs.
- Money identifiers: bank, card and account numbers. Contract values, change order amounts and dates can stay; payer and payee account details do not.
- Staff data: employee personal details, pay, and Time Clock records tied to named people.
- Third-party content: drawings and specifications produced by architects or engineers, subcontractor and vendor bids and price lists, and manufacturer documents, which belong to other companies.
- Signed documents: contracts and signature requests carry signatures and personal details, so they stay out unless the license scope names them and they are redacted.
Photos and videos are the hardest records to scrub, because faces, house numbers and client belongings can appear in frame. The license scope decides whether files are included at all.
Common questions
Sources
Vendor documentation, checked . Screens and plans change, so if a step looks different in your account, check with Buildertrend.
- Buildertrend: Construction job management guide (opens in a new tab)
- Buildertrend: Glossary (Jobs List) (opens in a new tab)
- Buildertrend: Setup and customization FAQs (grid export) (opens in a new tab)
- Buildertrend: Internal users overview (roles and job status access) (opens in a new tab)
- Buildertrend: Reports overview (opens in a new tab)
- Buildertrend: Files overview (opens in a new tab)
- Buildertrend: Lead Opportunities overview (opens in a new tab)
- Buildertrend: Terms and conditions agreement (opens in a new tab)