For structural steel & misc metals subcontractors
Structural steel contractor software — detailing and fabrication to final handrail.
Few trades spend this much money this early. Detailing and fabrication are most of your contract and they happen in a shop, months before anything is bolted up, so your billing has to work when there is nothing on site to point at. Then erection is crane days, where losing one morning is one of the most expensive things that can happen on the job. SubMark carries the shop work on your schedule of values, keeps a dated record of why the crane sat, and tracks the misc metals that would otherwise hold your retainage.
14-day free trial, no card needed. Sign up from here and structural steel is already selected when you pick your trade. See pricing →
- Detailing, material and fabrication billable before erection
- Crane days and erection delays on a dated, photo-backed record
- Misc metals and stairs tracked as their own scope
What actually goes wrong on a structural steel job.
Most of your money is spent before you can point at anything.
Detailing, the mill order and shop fabrication come first and they are the bulk of the contract. That money leaves — detailers, mill deposits, shop labor, paint — while the site is still a hole in the ground. If your schedule of values has no lines for detailing, for material and for fabrication, you are financing a steel package out of working capital and hoping the first erection draw arrives before payroll does. The lines have to exist before the contract is signed, because afterwards it is a renegotiation.
Approvals gate the mill order, so a slow RFI moves the whole job.
Nothing gets ordered until shop drawings are approved, and nothing gets detailed until the RFIs are answered. A connection detail sitting on an engineer’s desk for three weeks does not cost three weeks — it pushes the mill order, which pushes the shop schedule, which pushes erection into whatever weather is waiting. The submittal log and the dated record of when you asked and when you were answered is the whole basis of the time-extension conversation later.
Anchor bolts you did not set decide whether your steel fits.
Somebody else set the anchor bolts and poured around them. If they are out of tolerance, your columns do not land, and you are field-reaming, adding plate or waiting for a fix — on crane time, with an erection crew standing there. That is one of the cleanest backcharges in commercial construction and subs lose it constantly, because it was handled with a phone call instead of a dated change event with photos and measurements taken the morning the crew found it.
A crane day is the most expensive day you have.
Crane, operator, oiler and an erection crew is a large daily number, and it does not care why it is idle. Another trade in the pick zone, a late truck, wind, or a sequence the GC turned over late — all of it burns the same money. The only version of that argument you win is the one where the daily log already says the date, the hours lost, the cause and who caused it, written before anyone was angry about it.
Weld and bolt-up inspection is somebody else’s pass or fail.
A third-party special inspector decides whether your welds and bolt-up are accepted, and a rejection means grinding out and re-welding work you have already paid for and may already have billed. Rework hours vanish into erection labor unless they are captured separately, and then your next bid is built on a production rate that never existed.
Misc metals is five percent of the contract and most of the closeout.
Stairs, handrail, ladders, embeds, lintels and bollards get field measured late, fabricated last and installed around every other trade. It is a small number on the schedule of values and it is routinely the reason a steel contract stays open for months after the structure topped out — holding punch, holding the final draw, holding retainage. Treat it as its own scope with its own lines or it becomes an untracked tail.
Before you mobilize
The 4 things structural steel 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 structural steel subs ask them.
- Confirm the approved shop drawings and the current revision
- Confirm field dimensions and anchor-bolt layout before release to fabrication
- Confirm the connection, welding and special-inspection requirements
- Confirm crane access, delivery sequence and laydown
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 structural steel 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 steel job, shop drawings to final punch.
Detailing, fabrication, delivery and erection are serial and each one gates the next, which is why a slip at the front of this list is never recovered at the back of it. This is how the job runs, and what carries each stage in SubMark; the pack’s own phase list is below.
- 01 Bid & estimate
Takeoff off the structural sheets, tonnage, connection assumptions, crane and erection approach, misc metals scoped out of the architectural drawings.
Bid Board, Plans & Drawings, Takeoff, Estimating & Proposals
- 02 Shop drawings
Detailing, erection drawings and connection design, RFIs raised and chased, then submitted for approval before anything is ordered.
Submittals with a material library and merged PDF export, Plans & Drawings
- 03 Fabrication
Mill order released, members cut, fit, welded and painted in the shop, pieces marked to the erection drawings.
Purchase Orders for the mill and paint, Invoices Inbox, Schedule of Values & Draw Log for the fabrication and material lines
- 04 Delivery
Trucks sequenced to the erection order, laydown area agreed, pieces offloaded and checked against the shipping list.
Daily Logs with photos for what landed and what arrived damaged, Change Events for shortages
- 05 Erection
Columns, beams and joists set in sequence off a crane, plumbed and temporarily braced ahead of final connection.
Crew Scheduling across jobs, Time Clock & Labor Logs feeding Job Costing, Safety Program for crane and fall-protection certs
- 06 Bolt-up & weld
Final bolting to spec and field welding, then the special inspector’s bolt-up and weld inspection, plus whatever rework they generate.
Daily Logs as the dated record of each inspection and its result, Change Events for rework caused by others
- 07 Decking
Metal deck laid, fastened and welded off, edge angle and pour stops set ahead of the concrete sub.
Daily Labor Logs, Crew Scheduling for a crew that is usually not the erection crew
- 08 Misc metals & rails
Stairs, handrail, ladders, embeds and lintels field measured, fabricated and installed around the trades already in the building.
Purchase Orders, Daily Labor Logs, Schedule of Values & Draw Log for the misc lines
- 09 Punch & closeout
Touch-up paint, rail adjustment, weld repairs, mill certs and inspection reports assembled, then the retainage chase.
Submittals for the certs and reports, Lien Waiver Tracking, Schedule of Values & Draw Log
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 8 phases load with the Structural & Misc Steel 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 Shop Drawings
- 02 Fabrication
- 03 Delivery
- 04 Erection
- 05 Bolt-Up / Weld
- 06 Decking
- 07 Misc Metals / Rails
- 08 Punch
Rename, reorder or delete any of them in Settings — the pack is a starting point, not a cage.
A steel schedule of values that lets you bill the shop.
The steel pack starts you at shop and fabrication 40%, material 25%, erection 25%, misc and stairs 5%, punch 5% — because that is the shape of the money, and it is the reason a steel SOV cannot be three lines. Two thirds of the value is earned before a crane shows up. These are the kinds of lines a commercial steel SOV usually needs:
In the pack
Open the SOV builder on a new job and these 5 lines are already in it.
- Shop / Fab 40%
- Material 25%
- Erection 25%
- Misc / Stairs 5%
- Punch 5%
What most commercial structural steel subs add
- 01 Detailing & shop drawings bills first, so it has to exist as a line
- 02 Connection design & engineering
- 03 Structural steel — mill material stored-material line
- 04 Joist & metal deck — material stored-material line
- 05 Shop fabrication — columns & beams
- 06 Shop fabrication — misc metals & stairs
- 07 Shop paint & primer
- 08 Delivery & freight
- 09 Erection — Sequence 1
- 10 Erection — Sequence 2
- 11 Bolt-up & field welding
- 12 Metal deck install
- 13 Stairs & handrail install
- 14 Misc metals install — embeds, lintels, bollards
- 15 Touch-up, punch & inspection rework
- 16 Mill certs, inspection reports & closeout
Three things worth arguing for before the contract is signed. Keep detailing separate from fabrication, because detailing bills months earlier and you do not want it trapped behind a percentage of shop work. Break erection out by sequence rather than by floor, because the GC turns the building over to you in sequences and that is the only percentage you can defend on a walk. And give misc metals its own install line — if stairs and rail are folded into erection, a handrail punch item holds the whole erection line, and that line is a quarter of your contract.
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 detailing, mill material and shop fabrication as their own lines, so the two thirds of a steel contract that is earned before erection is actually billable.
How to track labor hours by job and cost code
Shop hours, erection hours and inspection rework are three different production rates. If they share one bucket, every tonnage rate you bid off last year is fiction.
Billing extra work without a signed change order
The crew has already done the work and nothing is signed for it. This is the path from that morning to a paid change order.
T&M tickets in commercial construction: getting signed, and getting paid
Field-reaming columns because the anchor bolts were out of tolerance is T&M work — what belongs on the ticket and how to get it signed while the crew is still standing there.
Inside SubMark
One calendar for every crew on every job.
An erection crew, a deck crew and two welders across three jobs, where the crane is booked for Tuesday on one of them. SubMark schedules every worker in one calendar and flags the double-booking before the crane is on site.
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, structural steel 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 Structural & Misc Steel at setup and SubMark loads the steel pack: the real phase list from shop drawings and fabrication through delivery, erection, bolt-up and weld, decking, misc metals and rails, and punch; worker types for foremen, ironworkers, welders, fitters and apprentices; a material list built around wide flange and beams, columns, bar joist, metal deck, anchor bolts, structural bolts, welding wire and stairs and rails; project statuses that run Pre-Construction, Fabrication, Erection, Punch, Complete; the three inspection passes — bolt-up inspection, weld inspection and punch; and a schedule-of-values breakdown weighted to shop and fabrication the way a steel contract actually is. Anything the pack gets wrong, you change in Settings.
The worker types are already there too — Foreman, Ironworker, Welder, Fitter and Apprentice — on every worker record and on every daily labor log. The only thing left to enter is your own rates.
Questions
Structural & Misc Steel subcontractors ask us these.
Can we bill detailing and fabrication before anything is erected?
You build the schedule of values, so yes — and for steel it is the whole game. Carry detailing, connection design, mill material, shop fabrication and shop paint as their own lines and bill them as they are earned, separately from the erection lines that may be three months behind. The steel pack starts the breakdown at shop and fab 40%, material 25%, erection 25%, misc and stairs 5%, punch 5%, which you then negotiate with the GC. SubMark tracks what you billed on each line, what was certified, what retainage is held against it and when the money landed.
Does job costing break labor out into shop versus field?
Not on its own, and this is worth being straight about. Job costing is per job, grouped by cost type — labor, crew lump sum, materials invoiced, materials committed, QuickBooks costs and subcontractors — against your budget lines. If you need shop hours and erection hours kept apart in the cost picture, the practical approach is to carry the shop as its own job or budget line, so shop hours and erection hours never land in the same bucket. Labor is costed at the rate that applied on the day the hours were logged, so a raise does not rewrite last quarter.
How do we document anchor bolts that were out of tolerance?
With a change event raised the morning your erection crew finds it, carrying photos, the measurements and the trade responsible, and the crane hours lost on that day’s daily log. That becomes the basis for a T&M tag or a change order depending on how it is priced, and the superintendent signs the tag on site. The honest limit: SubMark gives you a dated, photo-backed record and a signature — it does not decide whose tolerance it was, and it will not make the concrete sub agree.
Can we track crane and erection delays?
Yes, as the dated record. Each day’s log takes the weather and temperature, a work summary, and a delay with its cause from a fixed list — weather, material, labor, access, GC direction, inspection or other — plus photos and the hours per worker. A morning lost because the pick zone was occupied is recorded as an access delay on the day, which is a very different document from a recollection in a meeting nine months later. What SubMark does not do is produce a time-impact analysis; it produces the record one would be built from.
Does it handle the special inspector’s weld and bolt-up reports?
As submittals and as a dated daily record, not as an inspection module. The steel pack ships bolt-up inspection, weld inspection and punch as its three passes, each inspection goes on that day’s log with who was there, what passed and photos, and the reports and mill certs sit in Submittals for the closeout package. What SubMark does not do is tie a draw to an inspection result or chase an inspector for you.
Is this a shop ERP with nesting and machine scheduling?
No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. SubMark does not do nesting, CNC output, piece tracking against a cutting list or machine loading. If you run a production shop you will keep whatever you use for that. What SubMark covers is the contract side of the same job — bid, submittals, purchase orders, schedule of values and draws, job costing, crew scheduling, daily logs, lien waiver tracking and closeout — which is the half that usually lives in spreadsheets and email.
Do we have to stop using the GC’s billing portal?
No. Keep submitting through whatever portal or form each GC requires. SubMark is where the schedule of values lives — detailing, mill material and fabrication on their own lines, erection broken out by sequence, misc metals separated from the structure — and where every draw you submit is logged against it, with retainage held and payment tracked across every GC. Procore, Textura and GCPay are recorded as the submission method on a job; nothing is sent on your behalf.
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 mill invoices, paint and freight 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 at all. The meter is company-wide rather than per job, so read it before you trust a clean variance.
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 structural steel job.
Start the trial, confirm structural steel 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.
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.
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.