For low voltage & data subcontractors
Low voltage contractor software for project work, not service tickets.
Search “low voltage software” and you get dispatch boards and help-desk tickets. You are not running tickets. You are pulling 1,400 drops through a ceiling that closes next week, your drop count has changed three times since award, and the last 10% of your contract is sitting behind a certification package. 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 low-voltage is already selected when you pick your trade. See pricing →
- Every drop-count revision logged as scope, not a memory
- Cable and racks billable while they sit in the IDF
- Techs scheduled across every job in one calendar
What actually goes wrong on a commercial cabling job.
The drop count is never the drop count.
A furniture plan revision moves sixty workstations. An ASI adds access points. The tenant turns an open office into six private offices two weeks before you pull. Every one of those is scope you perform before anybody issues a change order. SubMark gives the field a change event with photos the day the revised plan lands. The office prices a T&M tag off your own rate lists, the superintendent e-signs it on site, and a month of tags converts into one change order. Your schedule of values locks when the first draw is submitted, and approved change orders are added to it automatically.
You are last in and first blamed.
Ceilings close on somebody else’s schedule. You get half a day’s notice that a corridor is going hard-lid, you demobilize, and you come back at night to pull above a finished ceiling. Out-of-sequence work and acceleration are recoverable, but only with a dated record of who was on site, for how long, and why — which is what a daily log with a narrative, labor and photos is for.
Your copper is bought once and then sits for months.
Cat6A reels, racks, patch panels and fiber get ordered at award because of lead time and price, then live in a locked IDF until the ceiling is ready. That is capital on your line of credit unless your SOV lets you bill it. Split stored material from pull labor, keep purchase orders against the job, and let supplier invoices land in the invoices inbox coded to it so commitment and actual cost sit side by side.
The final 10% waits on a test report.
Certification per link, as-builts, a labeling schedule, warranty registration. None of it is cable pulling and all of it gates your retainage. Keep test and certification as its own SOV line so it is work with a value instead of a percentage the GC calls punch, use submittals for the closeout package, and track the waivers you send your GC on the way to the retainage release.
Before you mobilize
The 4 things low-voltage 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 low-voltage subs ask them.
- Confirm the approved cable, device and rack submittals
- Confirm whether pathways, conduit and back-boxes are ours or electrical's
- Confirm who furnishes owner-supplied equipment, and when it arrives
- Confirm the testing, labeling and as-built documentation required
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 low-voltage 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 cabling job, pathway to certification.
Pathways, pulling, terminating and testing are four crews with four different rates, and the ceiling closes between two of them. Here is how the work maps to what ships in SubMark.
- 01 Bid & estimate
Drop-count takeoff off the furniture plan and RCP, backbone and pathway runs, rack elevations, device counts and alternates.
Bid Board, Plans & Drawings, Takeoff, Estimating & Proposals
- 02 Submittals & release
Cable, connectivity, rack and fiber submittals, plus the long-lead order that has to go in the week you are awarded.
Submittals with a material library and merged PDF export
- 03 Pathways & rough-in
Cable tray, J-hooks, sleeves, conduit stubs and back boxes in before the grid closes.
Daily Labor Logs with photos, Crew Scheduling, Change Events
- 04 Cable pull
Horizontal cable from every drop back to the closet, backbone between IDFs, labeled at both ends.
Time Clock & Labor Logs feeding Job Costing
- 05 Termination & dress
Jacks, plates, patch panels and fiber cassettes terminated, bundles dressed and labeled.
Time Clock & Labor Logs, Job Costing by cost type
- 06 Rack build & IDF
Racks, ladder rack, grounding, power coordination, and the owner-furnished equipment that arrived late.
Purchase Orders, Invoices Inbox tying supplier cost to the job
- 07 Device install
Access points, cameras, card readers and whatever the AV scope added at the end.
Crew Scheduling across jobs, Where Workers Are
- 08 Test & certification
Every link tested, failures chased down and repulled, the certification package assembled.
Daily Labor Logs as the dated record, job files for the test reports
- 09 Punch & closeout
As-builts, the labeling schedule, warranty registration, final billing and the retainage.
Schedule of Values & Draw Log, Lien Waiver Tracking, Submittals for the closeout package
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 Low voltage 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 Pathways / Conduit
- 02 Rough-In Boxes
- 03 Cable Pull
- 04 Termination
- 05 Rack Build
- 06 Device Install
- 07 Test / Certification
Rename, reorder or delete any of them in Settings — the pack is a starting point, not a cage.
A cabling schedule of values that does not wait for the last drop.
If your contract is one line called “structured cabling,” the first thing you can bill is a percentage somebody argues about. Split it the way the work and the money actually arrive:
In the pack
Open the SOV builder on a new job and these 5 lines are already in it.
- Material 30%
- Rough / Pathway 25%
- Cable Pull 20%
- Termination 15%
- Test / Cert 10%
What most commercial low-voltage subs add
- 01 Mobilization & submittals
- 02 Cable tray & pathways — material
- 03 Pathways & rough-in — labor
- 04 Horizontal cable — material stored-material line
- 05 Cable pull — labor
- 06 Jacks, plates & patch panels — material
- 07 Termination & dress — labor
- 08 Racks, ladder rack & grounding
- 09 Fiber backbone — material stored-material line
- 10 Fiber splice & termination
- 11 Access points, cameras & readers
- 12 Test & certification
- 13 As-builts, labeling & closeout
Keeping cable on its own stored-material line is what turns a three-month lead time into a billable month. And keeping test and certification on a line of its own is what stops a GC from treating your entire final draw as punch.
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 cable, pull labor and the certification package each carry their own money — and why one “structured cabling” line costs you the front half of the job.
T&M tickets in commercial construction: getting signed, and getting paid
A furniture plan revision that moved sixty drops is a T&M tag, not an email — what belongs on the ticket, how to get it signed the day you do the work, and how a month of tags becomes one change order.
Inside SubMark
One calendar for every crew on every job.
Two pull crews, a terminator and a tech spread over six jobs in one week. SubMark schedules every worker in one calendar and flags the double-booking before the ceiling closes.
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, low-voltage 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 Low Voltage / Data at setup and SubMark loads the low-voltage pack: the real phase list from pathways and rough-in boxes through cable pull, termination, rack build, device install and test and certification; worker types for foremen, technicians, cable pullers and apprentices; a material list built around Cat6 and Cat6A, fiber, patch panels, jacks and plates, racks, cable tray and J-hooks; and test and certification on the phase checklist. Anything the pack gets wrong, you change in Settings.
The worker types are already there too — Foreman, Technician, Cable Puller and Apprentice — on every worker record and on every daily labor log. The only thing left to enter is your own rates.
Questions
Low voltage subcontractors ask us these.
Is this field service software for low-voltage techs?
No, and that is deliberate. SubMark is for commercial project work — you bid a job, sign a contract with a GC or a prime, bill against a schedule of values and wait on retainage. If most of your revenue is service calls and dispatch, a field service platform fits you better. If it is construction contracts, that is what this is built for.
Our drop count has changed three times. How do we keep up with it?
Treat every revision as scope the day it lands. The field raises a change event with photos, the office prices a T&M tag off your own rate list, and the superintendent e-signs it on site. A month of signed tags bundles into one change order. The schedule of values locks when the first draw is submitted, and each approved change order is added to the SOV automatically, so what you can bill always matches what was agreed.
Can we bill cable and racks that are stored in the IDF?
You build the schedule of values, so yes — carry stored-material lines for horizontal cable, fiber, racks and connectivity alongside the labor lines that install them, and bill them as they land. 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 what a drop costs us?
Not as a unit cost, and that is worth being clear about. Job costing is per job, grouped by cost type — labor, material, subs. With Drop Tracking switched on in Settings (it is not on by default) labor stays separated by phase against that phase’s budget, so pathways, pull, termination and test do not blur together. SubMark does not track installed quantities, so cost per drop is a number you get by putting your own takeoff next to those hours.
Where do the certification reports live?
In the job’s files, with the test day recorded on that day’s daily log — daily-log uploads are images, so the tester screen or the label shot goes there and the full report goes in files. Submittals will assemble and merge the closeout package. What SubMark does not do is read or validate a certification report for you.
Our techs hit four jobs a day. Can we schedule and cost that?
Yes, and it is one of the better reasons to use this. Crew scheduling covers every worker across every job in one calendar and flags double-bookings; Where Workers Are shows who is on which job today; and the time clock and daily labor logs put hours per worker, per job, per day into job costing.
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 low-voltage job.
Start the trial, confirm low-voltage 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.
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.
Flooring
A slab that fails its moisture test, prep bid against a flatness spec nobody hit, and a whole building’s material stored for months.
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.