For flooring subcontractors
Flooring contractor software for commercial contracts, not showrooms.
Search “flooring software” and you get showroom and homeowner tools. You are putting 90,000 square feet of carpet tile and LVT into an office building, your slab just came back at 90% relative humidity, and the material for the whole job has been sitting in a conditioned room since August. SubMark is built for that job — bid to final retainage, office and field in the same system.
14-day free trial, no card needed. Sign up from here and flooring is already selected when you pick your trade. See pricing →
- Moisture readings and failures on a dated daily record
- A whole building’s material billable while it sits
- Return trips for other trades’ damage priced and signed
What actually goes wrong on a commercial flooring job.
The slab fails and it becomes your problem.
The probes come back at 90% and nothing goes down. Mitigation is not in your base contract, the completion date has not moved, and the concrete sub left the job eleven months ago. What makes this a change order rather than an argument is the reading, the date and a photo of the test in place: put the readings in that day’s daily log and raise a change event with photos the same day you test, not the week you finally get asked why the floor is not in.
You bid prep against a flatness spec nobody hit.
You priced a skim and a sweep. You got a slab that needs grinding, patching and forty bags of self-leveler. Prep on a commercial floor is effectively unbounded unless it is scoped, and it is somebody else’s defect either way. Keep prep and moisture work on their own SOV lines, and document the condition with photos before you start fixing it.
The whole building’s material is bought at once.
Carpet tile and LVT come in dye lots, so you order the building in one shot and store it — often conditioned on site for weeks before anyone lets you install. That is capital on your line of credit until the schedule of values lets you bill it. Carry stored-material lines split from install labor, keep purchase orders against the job, and let supplier invoices land in the invoices inbox coded to it.
You are near-last, and then you get damaged.
You finish a floor and the millwork installer, the painter and the furniture crew walk across it. Protection is scope, replacement is a change order, and your crew makes four return visits to a job you had already billed out. A change event with photos the day it happens and a T&M tag signed on site is the difference. The honest limit: there is no punch or deficiency item list in SubMark to work down.
Before you mobilize
The 4 things flooring subs settle with the GC before mobilizing.
What is approved, where your scope stops, what has to be true before you start, and how you get at the work. Every one of them turns into a change order three weeks in if nobody writes the answer down — and the answer is worth nothing if it only lives in one PM’s inbox.
In the pack
Switch on Pre-Construction Review and these 4 questions are already the list, worded the way flooring subs ask them.
- Confirm the approved finish schedule and attic stock quantities
- Confirm the slab moisture and flatness tolerances, and who corrects them
- Confirm who furnishes and installs transitions, base and underlayment
- Confirm building conditioning and the dry, clean work window we need
Tick them off job by job, with your own note on each. The note is your answer — the pack ships the question and leaves the answer to you.
Pre-Construction Review is an opt-in module — it is not one of the eight switched on at setup. Turn it on in Settings and the list is already there in flooring terms, with no upgrade and no setup call. Edit it once and it applies to every job; the tick and the note stay with the job it was asked on. See every module →
The flooring job, demo to attic stock.
Prep, install, transitions and finish are different crews with different production rates, and the one that decides whether the job makes money is prep. Here is how the work maps to what ships in SubMark.
- 01 Bid & estimate
Takeoff off the finish plan, areas by product, transition and base lineal, prep assumptions and alternates.
Bid Board, Plans & Drawings, Takeoff, Estimating & Proposals
- 02 Submittals & release
Product data, samples, mock-up approval, attic stock quantities and the dye-lot order that goes in at award.
Submittals with a material library and merged PDF export
- 03 Demo & removal
Existing flooring, adhesive residue and base out, roll-offs cycling.
Daily Labor Logs with photos, Crew Scheduling
- 04 Floor prep
Grinding, shot blasting, patching and self-leveling to the flatness the spec asked for.
Time Clock & Labor Logs feeding Job Costing, Change Events for the slab you did not bid
- 05 Moisture testing
Relative humidity probes or calcium chloride, in place for the required time, read and written down.
Daily Labor Logs as the dated record, Change Events if it fails
- 06 Install — field
Carpet tile, LVT, sheet goods or resilient laid area by area, in whatever order access allows.
Time Clock & Labor Logs, Job Costing by cost type
- 07 Transitions & base
Thresholds, reducers, stair nosings and base — slow lineal work that prices nothing like field area.
Crew Scheduling across jobs, Where Workers Are
- 08 Finish & seal
Grout, seal, burnish or finish coats, wherever the product calls for them.
Daily Labor Logs, Purchase Orders
- 09 Protection & punch
Protection down, the walk, and the damage caused after you were finished.
Change Events, T&M Tags priced off your rate lists
- 10 Attic stock & closeout
Attic stock turned over, maintenance instructions, final billing and the retainage.
Schedule of Values & Draw Log, Lien Waiver Tracking
Every module named above ships today; the eight below are on from day one, and the rest are a switch in Settings, not an upgrade. The full list is on the product page.
In the pack
These 7 phases load with the Flooring pack the moment you pick it at setup.
They are the phase list your foremen pick from on every daily log, so the hours come back tagged to the part of the job they were spent on.
- 01 Demo
- 02 Floor Prep
- 03 Moisture Test
- 04 Install
- 05 Transitions / Base
- 06 Finish / Seal
- 07 Punch
Rename, reorder or delete any of them in Settings — the pack is a starting point, not a cage.
A flooring schedule of values that bills the material and the prep.
Material is close to half a commercial flooring contract, and prep is the half that goes wrong. Neither one survives being inside a single line called “Flooring”:
In the pack
Open the SOV builder on a new job and these 5 lines are already in it.
- Material 40%
- Prep 10%
- Install 40%
- Finish 5%
- Punch 5%
What most commercial flooring subs add
- 01 Submittals, samples & mock-up
- 02 Demo & disposal
- 03 Floor prep & grinding
- 04 Moisture testing
- 05 Moisture mitigation unit-price line
- 06 Carpet tile — material stored-material line
- 07 Resilient & LVT — material stored-material line
- 08 Adhesive & underlayment
- 09 Install — carpet
- 10 Install — resilient
- 11 Transitions, base & nosings
- 12 Seal & finish
- 13 Protection & final clean
- 14 Attic stock, punch & closeout
A unit price for moisture mitigation, agreed before anybody probes the slab, turns a failed test into a quantity instead of a fight. And stored-material lines are what let you bill the dye-lot order the month it lands rather than the month it goes down.
That longer list is an illustration, not a template — your SOV is negotiated with your GC. SubMark gives you the SOV to build, and tracks every draw, retainage amount and payment against it. It is your record of the job, not a replacement for the GC’s billing system — you submit the draw the way each GC requires and log it here.
Read next
Schedule of values for subcontractors: how to build one that bills clean
How to break out line items so stored material, prep and install each carry their own money — and why a unit price for mitigation belongs on the SOV before anyone tests the slab.
T&M tickets in commercial construction: getting signed, and getting paid
Grinding a slab that missed its flatness spec is T&M work — what belongs on the ticket, how to get it signed the day you do it, and how a month of tags becomes one change order.
Inside SubMark
One calendar for every crew on every job.
A prep crew, two install crews and a base crew across five jobs, with only two floors released. SubMark schedules every installer in one calendar and flags the double-booking before Monday morning.
On from day one, in every trade’s setup.
Nothing is paywalled by tier. These eight are switched on in every one of the 29 trade packs, flooring included, from the moment you finish setup.
T&M Tags
Field tickets priced off your own rate lists and signed by the GC on the spot.
Change Events
The field logs a scope change with photos the day it happens, then it converts to a CO.
Draw Calendar
Every GC’s billing cutoff and submission method in one calendar, with reminders.
Submittals
Submittal packages with a material library, cover sheets and merged PDF export.
Daily Labor Logs
Weather, narrative, labor, materials and photos, with a submit-and-review workflow.
Timesheets
Weekly rollups with worker signatures and supervisor approval, plus a payroll summary export.
Where Workers Are
A live view of which workers are on which job today.
Safety
Toolbox talks, inspections, incidents, and certification and COI tracking with expiry dates.
Pick Flooring at setup and SubMark loads the flooring pack: the real phase list from demo and floor prep through moisture test, install, transitions and base, finish and seal, and punch; work types for demo, floor prep, install, trim and base, and finish; worker types for foremen, installers and helpers; and a material list built around LVT and LVP, carpet, tile, adhesive, underlayment and transition strips. One thing to set on your first day: the pack’s job-type list starts out residential, so switch the segment in Settings to the kind of commercial work you actually run. Everything else in the pack is editable in the same place.
The worker types are already there too — Foreman, Installer and Helper — on every worker record and on every daily labor log. The only thing left to enter is your own rates.
Questions
Flooring subcontractors ask us these.
Is this software for residential or retail flooring?
No, and that is deliberate. SubMark is for commercial project work — you bid a job, sign a contract with a GC, bill against a schedule of values and wait on retainage. If your revenue comes from homeowners and a showroom, a retail flooring tool fits you better. If it comes from construction contracts, this is built for you.
The slab failed its moisture test. How do we get paid for mitigation?
Put the readings and a photo of the test in place on that day’s daily log, and raise a change event the same day. From there it is either a priced change order or a T&M tag signed on site, and once the change order is approved it is added to your schedule of values automatically. The cheapest version of all of this is a unit price for mitigation already sitting on the SOV before anyone probes the slab.
Can we bill material stored on site before it is installed?
You build the schedule of values, so yes — carry stored-material lines for carpet tile, resilient and LVT alongside the install labor that lays them, and bill them as the dye-lot order lands. SubMark tracks what you billed on each line, what the GC certified, what retainage is held against it and when the money arrived.
Can we see install cost floor by floor?
With Area Tracking switched on in Settings, yes — it is not on by default. With it on, demo, prep, install, base and finish hours stay distinct and you get budget versus actual per phase. Left off, job costing shows labor, material and sub cost for the whole job, grouped by cost type. Installed quantities are not tracked either way, so cost per square foot comes from your own takeoff put next to those hours.
Does the flooring pack assume residential work?
The job-type list does, and it is worth knowing before you set up. The phases, work types, worker types and materials are the ones a commercial installer uses — demo, floor prep, moisture test, install, transitions and base, finish and seal, punch. What starts out residential is the segment and its job-type list, which is a dropdown in Settings: switch it and you get office TI, retail, healthcare, industrial and hospitality. We are fixing the default; until then it is one setting on day one.
How do we get paid for damage caused after we installed?
A change event with photos the day it is found, then a T&M tag priced off your own rate list and signed by the superintendent before your crew leaves. A month of signed tags bundles into one change order. The honest limit: there is no punch or deficiency item list to work down — what you have is a dated, photo-backed record and signed tags.
Does it connect to QuickBooks?
Yes. Connect QuickBooks Online once and bills and purchases pull into job costing (hourly, if you switch auto-pull on) so material and sub costs sit against the right job; draws go across as QuickBooks invoices and POs as purchase orders, one at a time with a click; and a coverage meter shows how much of the cost pulled from QuickBooks is coded to a job.
Do my field crews cost extra?
No. Field users are free and unlimited, and so are the subs you invite into a job. You pay one company subscription: $249 a month with your first 3 office users included, then $39 a month each. The whole breakdown is on the pricing page.
See it on a flooring job.
Start the trial, confirm flooring on the first screen, and the pack loads your phases, checklists and worker types in your own words. Or take a 30-minute walkthrough with the person who built it, on your kind of jobs, instead of a canned demo script.
14-day free trial, no card needed. See the whole product →
$249/mo for your company, your first 3 office users included, $39/mo each after that. Field crews are free and unlimited. See what's included →
Other trades
Electrical
Gear you pay for months before you bill it, rough-in hours that disappear, and every tenant change landing on your scope.
HVAC / Mechanical
Equipment bought a year before it is billed, shop fab the GC will not pay for, and a closeout that holds your last 10% for six months.
Plumbing
First in the ground and last out of the building — with a quarter of the contract value stuck behind the finish trades.
Drywall & Framing
A third to half the contract spent on board before anything is hung, five finish passes nobody can measure, and three punch walks and a clean-up that are all on you.
Concrete
Pour days that cannot move, ready-mix invoices you reconcile weeks later, and forms that are capital cycling across placements.
Fire Sprinkler
Weeks of hydraulic engineering before you can bill a dollar, and every phase gated behind an inspection you do not schedule.
Glazing & Glass
Custom material you cannot order until you field measure, cannot return once you do, and cannot bill until a water test passes.
Roofing
A tear-off that owns the building until dry-in, rotten deck nobody bid, and a warranty package standing between you and retainage.
Low voltage
Drop counts that move with every furniture plan, cable sitting in a locked IDF for months, and a final 10% that waits on a test report.
Fire alarm
A quarter of the contract behind an acceptance test you do not schedule, retests you never bill, and device counts that move all year.
Painting
The last trade on the schedule, four return trips for other people’s damage, and prep bid against a wall nobody left you.
Masonry
Scaffold that is capital, grout lifts gated by an inspector, and a mock-up panel holding up the whole brick order.
Structural & Misc Steel
Two thirds of the contract is detailing, mill material and shop work, earned before a single piece is erected, and the last five percent is a handrail holding your retainage.
Wood Framing
Fourteen buildings billed as one percentage, a lumber package that is 40% of the contract before a wall goes up, and blocking you owe six other trades that nobody drew.
Excavation & Sitework
The only schedule of values on this site that opens without a single line for product you buy: your contract is production, billed against quantities somebody else surveyed.
Waterproofing
Work that is buried within a week of going in, blamed for every drop of water for the next ten years, and finished with sealants months after everyone forgot you were on the job.
Doors, Frames & Hardware
Half the contract is product you buy months early, and the last three openings out of four hundred hold your punch, your final draw and your retainage.
Demolition
A scope nobody can see until you open the wall, extra work that leaves in the dumpster before anyone prices it, and retainage held for a year after you demobilized.
Insulation
A four-day window between rough-in inspection and board that nobody protects, half the contract sitting in material you staged weeks early, and firestopping everyone assumed was yours.
EIFS / Stucco / Plaster
A schedule set by cure time that nobody believes, a weather barrier you bury on day two and get blamed for in year three, and joints drawn by somebody else that crack on your wall.
Acoustical Ceilings (ACT)
Grid that cannot start until every trade above the ceiling is finished, tile that drops in the last three weeks of a two-year job, and a finished ceiling the whole building then uses as an access hatch.
Paving & Asphalt
Material with a clock on it and a crew on the clock whether you place or not, a subgrade somebody else owns, and six months of construction traffic on the binder course you have to warrant.
Tile & Stone
A finished floor installed on somebody else’s slab, to a flatness tolerance the concrete sub was never asked to hit, with waterproofing and movement joints that belong to nobody until the warranty call comes.
Millwork & Casework
Half your contract earned in your own shop before anything reaches the site, built to a drawing of walls somebody else framed, with the furnish-and-install line drawn in a meeting you were not in.
All trades
SubMark ships a setup pack for 29 commercial trades. See the full list.