Custom Homebuilder’s Solutions
12 Reviews 5/5 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★A full ERP system designed by Custom Homebuilders’ Solutions for construction companies.
Custom Homebuilders’ Solutions (CHS) is a powerful tool that combines a full range of accounting features with comprehensive job costing, management, and tracking features needed by builders. CHS will make life simpler for custom home builders, their clients and their staff.
Video Overview
CHS Benefits
- Is easily customized for your business
- Allows job managers to approve bills to pay with scanned bills and variance info readily available.
- Creates reports immediately by job, job cost, client, company or department
- Alerts the user to duplicate payments or over payments
- Provides job budget/estimate tools with historical data at your fingertips
- Reports variances from budget and purchase orders instantly
- Shows anticipated buget overages on one window by instantly gathering all related info.
- Produces comprehensive financial reports
- Provides a Payables window for entering trade and supplier bills with instant overage alerts!
- Alerts user to trade license and insurance expiration
- Includes contracts management features to track activities and communications
- Provides selected Online Information to Home Buyers
The builder will like the estimating, budgeting, change order, job status reports, and trade contractor control features. The client will be impressed with the accurate, professional reports detailing costs and status of their home. The accountant will like the flexible accounting package that provides tools for quick research and production of financial records and reports.
In CHS, lots of things like vendors, departments, general ledger numbers, cost codes, cost types and more are set up and stored so that builders or staff can easily add critical, detailed data to each posted record. By entering all this information into separate, searchable fields, financial reports the accountant needs and the more detailed job cost reports the builder needs are all available at the click of a button.
No more wasting time looking for old bills or creating separate spreadsheets! All the reports are at your fingertips-whenever you need them!
Functionalities
Top functionalities of Custom Homebuilder’s Solutions includes:
Accounts Payable
- Printed checks or Post Manual Checks
- Credit Card Charges entry screen and Reconciliation to Credit Card Statements
- Set up recurring accounts payable entries
- Cost Approval Reports that show overages
- Overages and insurance expiration alerts as bills are being entered
- Void Checks/ Change Check #'s
- Aging Reports/ Vendor Ledgers by Job/Dept
Accounts Receivable
- Statements/ Ledgers
- Quick Billing for Costs that have been posted, including markups
- Ability to enter Accts Receivable entry on Bill Paying screen
Cash Control
- Track Cash By Job or Dept; no matter how many Job or Dept costs are included on one check
- Cash Flow reports For Whole Company, or by Job and Dept.
- Cash Registers by Job or Dept
- Cash Available by Job
- Bank Reconciliations
- Deposit Reports by Job or Customer
Chart of Accounts
- Use Preloaded, Edit them as needed, or Setup your own
- Set up one time; jobs, depts, and cost codes are not attached to Chart of Account G/L number
Financial Statements/Ledgers
- Trial Balances, Balance Sheets, Income Statements by Job, Dept, Company
- Financial Budget Comparisons
- General Ledgers by Job, Dept, Vendor, Cost Codes, and more
Job Costing Control and Estimating
- Professional Job Budgets/Use Bid, Historical, or Items/Formulas Estimating
- Post Bids Received to Review directly on Job Budget screen
- View related actual costs from other jobs directly on Job Budget screen
- Cost Variance and Detail Reporting
- Estimated Costs at Completion that instantly reacts to all changes
- Percentage of Completion reports
- Cost Comparisons Between Jobs
Payroll
- Ability to enter payroll after it has been processed.
- Ability to post checks with gross and tax info.
- Ability to post to job costs.
Purchase Orders
- Reports that compare Budget to PO’s
- Purchase Orders that will list Supplier Items (if used)
- Purchase Orders that will automatically include items budgeted, if desired
- Alerts if Costs over authorized PO’s for Cost Code or Vendor
Scheduling
- Scheduling application included with purchase of CHS
- Scheduling will link to data in CHS to use Supplier/Sub data, Budget/ C.O. data
- Gantt style charts for whole project, one phase, or for selected Supplier/Sub
Pricing
- $750 initial setup fee
- Starts at $50/month
- $40/month fee per user (drops to $35/month if over 5 users)
- Users added after initial setup will incur a setup fee of $35/user.
- Additional company files are an additional $30/month
Product Overview
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User Reviews of Custom Homebuilder's Solutions
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We were using Sage 300 alongside a parent company but found the interface cumbersome and the cost prohibitive. After a thorough review, we decided to switch over to Custom Homebuilders’ Solutions. The software is comprehensive and the company guided us through the set up with easy to follow tutorials and videos. The overall process was streamlined and the set up fees were very affordable
I have used Carol’s Custom Homebuilders’ Solutions (CHS) accounting program for a few years now and I am extremely satisfied with the results. Carol is also very good at customer support and was quick to respond with any questions I had in transitioning from my former accounting program. I highly recommend Carol and her CHS software program.
P.S. As I was entering bids from trades and suppliers this morning into CHS, I was thinking that if I had known how many features there are for the builder to project and manage job costs in CHS, I would have purchased the program a lot sooner.
I have used CHS for years and it has been a great asset to my company. Estimating, job costing, draws, accounting etc., it does it all. Carol has been a huge help and is always right there with support. I wouldn’t consider any other software. Thanks for everything Carol!
CHS is a great program! It has so much to offer, and great support! Even for those of us who don’t know much about accounting. I would recommend this to anyone looking to upgrade or new in the business. You wont be disappointed. Thanks Carol!! For all your support and continuous upgrades, when I think it can’t better then this you always find something! Thanks for all your hard work!
We have been using CHS Software for years. Can’t imagine using any other program for construction. The help you receive is great as well. It is easy to learn and utilize and makes our business accounting run smoothly.
At Mark Farmer Custom Homes we work hard at providing a quality home using quality products and quality people. I expect nothing less in our office as well. We have looked at many building software programs over the years but in 2005 I came across CHS and got to know Carol King. I have never had to consider another option since. CHS has evolved over the years due to Carol’s persistent efforts to lay in useful items and extremely helpful video tutorials that are priceless. If this review would allow a 10 star option, I would use that too.together and created a lot of work to have the kind of reporting we get very easily with CHS and so much more. I strongly believe that CHS has been the key to our company coming through a couple of rough years in a strong position and we don’t even use nearly all CHS’s capability. I have been recommending CHS to everyone I know. You have to try it no matter how big your company is.
Carol has developed an excellent software package for the custom home building market. I’ve been using her software since 2003 to run my business…budgeting a job and keeping up with expenses is a breeze and my book keepers job is equally as easy to keep bills input and paid. When we need assistance of any type, Carol is just a phone call away and she goes out of her way to make sure all questions are answered to our complete understanding. The CHS web service allows me the flexibility of taking my work with me anywhere I go…I highly recommend you consider this option of CHS.
CHS is 100% geared toward contractors. One thing I like is that it has so many different reports that can be generated. The “logic” behind how it is written is parallel with “best practices” of running a successful home building or remodeling company. It’s written to help you make money! CHS is very strong in accounting. The job cost features and reports are great. It does the basics, like lien waivers or flag you when a sub’s insurance has expired, or you are about to go over budget on a particular cost. Change Orders and PO’s are a big part of CHS. You can do Variance PO’s too. There is a particular view called “Estimated Costs at Completion” that in one screen shot tells you an immense amount of information about a job. You see the budget, PO’s, variances, and actual costs for all line items, and can drill down to analyze them.
Best builder software in the world! Pretty amazing that Carol could have written something that works so well for an entire industry. It’s like opening boxes of ‘Cracker Jacks’. Even after months of using CHS, I find new surprises all the time. I had no idea how much CHS would do for me when I bought it. I used Build Soft for years and am amazed at how much more information CHS provides me.
Carol King is a great accounting software developer. Carol has helped our business in so many ways. CHS has been an indispensable tool for our company, Oliver Custom Homes LLC. CHS is so user friendly that even I can understand where we stand financially. The home building process is a challenge in itself, but CHS helps me become accountable to our clients and project professionalism and confidence. You Rock Carol!!!
We spent time looking at national builder shows to find an accounting program that would fit our new custom homes/ custom remodel needs. This is the only one we found that was designed specifically for the smaller custom builder. It didn’t matter that we know how to build but aren’t great at accounting. This gave us a clear picture of where we were on costs and how well we did on each job.
Our CHS budgets impressed our customers. The banks liked the detail on our draw requests. It made entering and understanding our costs for each job.
Like any internet based program, sometimes it has issues with speed.
I’ve searched all estimating & job cost accounting options for a small builder and this is not only the best, it’s the only one that actually functions the way builders operate. Quickbooks is NOT the solution for builders & remodelers. QB has Estimated Cost at Completion reports, but it does not take into account variables like a budget line item actually being completed. CHS allows you to see your budget in real time, all the time, every time.
The ECC (Estimated Costs at Completion) worksheet is the most valuable tool. You can see your budget column, with Change Order & Purchase Order columns, next to your Actual Costs, and Variance column which tells you where you stand line item by line item. When an activity is complete you can just check a box to realize the surplus left in that budget line item which adjusts your bottom line accordingly. You can also add purchase order amounts right from the ECC worksheet which is great for when you accept a bid, formally or verbally as many contractors do, which adjusts your ECC immediately.
I would prefer the windows to open up a bit larger. Log in process takes a minute or two and it will time you out after an hour or so, but I understand why.
I’m using it currently. I’m a CPA, licensed and retired. It’s not an accounting orientated software, as in it’s meant to be geared towards someone who doesn’t use accounting in their daily life. It was a bit counter-intuitive for me due to this reason, but I learned to use it though.
I like that it’s online. It’s anywhere accessible and it also has automatic backup so I don’t have to worry about losing data.
It freezes from time to time, but more of an internet issue on my end I would imagine.
