BuildMonkey
Part of Shop Toolbox
Repair software assumes every job ends this week. A frame-off runs eighteen months, gets invoiced a dozen times, and outlives two service writers. BuildMonkey is built for the long build — quoted in packages, tracked to the hour, billed as it goes, and documented the whole way.
14 days free · No credit card · Works with your Shop Toolbox account
The two-day jobThe two-year build
Written, done, paid — same weekQuoted in packages, authorized in pieces, billed a dozen times
One tech, one bayBody, fab, wiring, interior, engine — five departments, one car
Parts on the shelf by TuesdayParts from four states and a swap meet, one of them backordered till spring
Customer waits in the lobbyCustomer checks their phone from another state
Book time says 2.4 hoursNobody wrote book time for hand-forming a rocker panel
Profit is obviousProfit is eighteen months of hours and parts you'd better have tracked
Most shops run a build across four disconnected systems and reconcile them at the end. Here the quote becomes the board, the board accumulates the hours and the parts, the invoices draw the build down, and the whole thing lands in your accounting under a job for that car.
Packages priced at hours × your labor rate, parts at cost plus markup. Send a link. The customer reviews the whole scope on their phone — package by package, part by part — and what they decide comes back onto the proposal.
Approved packages become the board. Tasks four levels deep, owned by a person or a whole department, with the hours already estimated.
Invoice whatever is finished, as many times as the build needs. Installed parts at your markup, tracked hours at your rate.
Invoices, payments and clocked time sync to QuickBooks Online under a job for that build — so your bookkeeper sees the '67 Charger, not forty loose invoices.
Real screens, real shop, real numbers — a ’67 fastback eighteen months into a frame-off.
Tasks & packages
Packages break the build into real work. Tasks nest four levels under them, each with an owner, a status you named, a due date and hours estimated against hours actually spent. A parent rolls up its children, so the top of the board stays readable while the bottom stays honest.
Parts
Every part carries its own state and its own receive-by date, so a stalled build tells you it is two backordered quarter panels rather than making you phone the counter. Photograph the supplier PO and the rows fill themselves in — vendor, cost, quantity — for you to check before anything is saved.
Timeclocks
The crew clocks in on a task from their phone and clocks out with a note — the note is required, so you end up with a record rather than a number. Hours roll into the invoice, and into QuickBooks Online as real time activities under a job for that build.
One price, no tiers. Everything below is in the box.
Cost lives in one spreadsheet, price in another, and the hours were on a paper timecard somebody keyed in on Friday. This answers the question while the car is still in the shop.
Budget is the sum of your approved quotes. Actual is tracked hours at your rate plus parts at customer price. It updates as the work happens, not at the end.
Cost, customer price and profit on every installed part, across one build or the whole shop.
Any date range, with per-member rollups. Techs see their own; admins see the shop.
With paid and sent-to-accounting status, each row linking straight back to the invoice.
Photograph a supplier PO and it reads into parts rows — vendor, part names, cost, quantities — with a receive-by date proposed. Drop the customer’s punch list PDF and it becomes packages and tasks. Hand it a page of notes and it becomes a structured, editable note.
Nothing is written until you review it. You get a proposal to correct, not a mess to undo.
A gallery per build, organized in folders. Photos shot on a task, photos attached to a comment, documents dropped on the parts page — all of it lands in one place, each image carrying who uploaded it and what it came from.
That same library is what the owner sees. Publish an update and it becomes the build’s public page. When the car sells, it is the provenance file.
Give each person their real working week. A task with a due date and an hours target spreads backwards from that date across the days it will actually take — 100 hours at 5 hours a day is twenty working days on the calendar, not a dot on Friday. Days that are over-booked get flagged.
Assign to a person or to a department. Paint & Body, Fabrication, Interior and Engine & Trans come set up — rename them, recolor them, or build your own. A department task shows for everyone in it until one of them clocks in and claims it.
Five trades, one problem: the work outlasts the paperwork.
Several builds moving at once, parts sourced from everywhere, and customers who are enthusiasts and want the detail.
Multi-year timelines where the photo record is worth as much as the receipt, and the billing has to keep pace with the work.
Scope that changes mid-build, so re-quoting and getting the customer to sign off again has to be routine, not a fight.
Original bodywork and a modern driveline in the same car — two disciplines, two crews, one due date.
No book time exists for what you do, so the hours have to be real and the job costing has to be honest.
No, and that is the point. Repair systems are built around one job, one invoice, closed the same week. This is built around a build that runs for months, gets billed a dozen times, and has to stay legible the whole way. If you write tickets for brake jobs, you want different software.
Yes — as many times as the build needs. Invoice whatever is finished: installed parts at your markup and tracked hours at your rate. Partial payments are supported, and each invoice carries a customer e-signature and a release of liability.
Yes. Invoices, payments and clocked time sync to QuickBooks Online under a job for that build, so a year of progressive billing arrives grouped by car instead of as dozens of unrelated invoices. Sales tax is left to QuickBooks, which is the authority on it.
Yes — every build has a customer portal. Publish a progress update with photos, the parts installed and the hours, and send them a private link. They can read the updates and open their invoices from their phone, without calling the shop.
In packages — a block of work priced at hours × your labor rate — plus parts at cost with your markup, which the customer never sees. Send the quote as a link. They review the whole scope on their phone, package by package and part by part, and what they decide comes back onto the proposal. You end up holding a document instead of a phone call.
Yes. Every build shows budget against actual as the work happens, and the reports cover payroll hours by person, invoices issued in a date range, and parts profit — cost, price and margin, line by line.
Yes, properly — a bottom nav rather than a shrunken desktop layout. Your crew can clock in and out of a task, add a note, and shoot a photo straight onto the work from the floor.
Yes. Every tool in Shop Toolbox comes with a 14-day free trial and no credit card is required to start.
Same product, new name. Project Apex was the codename while it was being built; it is called BuildMonkey now. Nothing about your shop’s data or sign-in changed.