Custom Homebuilder’s Solutions
12 Reviews 5/5 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★A homebuilding software for small to mid-size custom builders needing job costing and accounting features.
Product Overview
Custom Homebuilders’ Solutions is a homebuilding software offering accounts payable and receivable, cash control, payroll, and scheduling. It enables efficient cash tracking by job or department and provides financial statements like balance sheets and income statements tailored to specific jobs, departments, or the entire company. The software is cloud-hosted and designed to be user-friendly, making it a practical solution for custom home builders.Pros
- Detailed financial and job cost reporting
- Easy-to-follow tutorials and videos
- Effective job costing and estimating
Cons
- Initial setup fee
- Monthly use rfee
- Primarily Windows-based
Target Market
Small to mid-size custom home builders, particularly those seeking a detailed and efficient financial management system.Custom Homebuilders’ Solutions (CHS) is a multifaceted software designed for builders. It integrates a complete suite of accounting functionalities with extensive job costing, management, and tracking capabilities.
Custom Homebuilders’ Solutions Key Features
- Customizable to fit specific business needs.
- Managers can approve bills with scanned documents and variance information.
- Immediate report generation by various categories such as job, cost, client, and more.
- Alerts for duplicate or excessive payments.
- Budgeting tools with accessible historical data.
- Instant variance reporting from budgets and purchase orders.
- Quick identification of potential budget overruns.
- Detailed financial reporting capabilities.
- Payables entry with immediate overage notifications.
- Notifications for expiring trade licenses and insurance.
- Contract management features for tracking activities and communications.
- Online information access for home buyers.
- Useful for builders, clients, and accountants with features like estimating, budgeting, reporting, and controlling trade contractors.
System Capabilities:
- Centralized storage for vendors, departments, general ledger numbers, cost codes, etc.
- Easy data entry for detailed record-keeping.
- Quick access to financial and job cost reports.
- Eliminates the need for separate spreadsheets and time-consuming searches.
Functionalities:
- Accounts Payable: Includes check printing, manual checks, credit card charges entry and reconciliation, recurring entry setup, cost approval reports, alerts for overages and insurance expirations, check voiding and alteration, aging reports, and vendor ledgers.
- Accounts Receivable: Features statements, ledgers, quick billing, and account receivable entries on the bill-paying screen.
- Cash Control: Tracks cash by job or department, offers cash flow reports, cash registers, available cash tracking, bank reconciliations, and deposit reports.
- Chart of Accounts: Allows use of preloaded charts, editing, or custom setup.
- Financial Statements/Ledgers: Includes trial balances, balance sheets, income statements, budget comparisons, and general ledgers.
- Job Costing Control and Estimating: Provides professional job budgets, bid posting, cost variance reporting, estimated completion costs, and comparison reports.
- Payroll: Offers payroll entry post-processing with gross and tax information and job cost posting.
- Purchase Orders: Generates reports comparing budget to purchase orders, including automatic budgeted item inclusion and alerts for costs exceeding authorized amounts.
- Scheduling: Comes with a scheduling application linked to CHS data, offering Gantt-style charts.
Pricing
- $750 initial setup fee
- Starts at $100/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
Video Overview
Product Overview
Developer Overview
Related Products
User Reviews of Custom Homebuilder's Solutions
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Comprehensive and Easy To Set Up!
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
Carol is very good at customer support
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 wouldn’t consider any other software
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!
Thanks for all your hard work
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!
Custom Homebuilder's Solutions Review
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.
CHS has been the key to our company coming through a couple of rough years
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.
budgeting a job and keeping up with expenses is a breeze
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.
Best builder software in the world!
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.
CHS has been an indispensable tool for our company
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!!!
- Construction & Engineering
- 1-10 employees
- Annual revenue $0-$1M
Our CHS budgets impressed our customers
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.
Pros
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.
Cons
Like any internet based program, sometimes it has issues with speed.
- Real Estate
- 1-10 employees
- Annual revenue $0-$1M
See your budget in real time, all the time, every time
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.
Pros
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.
Cons
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.
- Specialized Consumer Services
- 11-50 employees
- Annual revenue $1M-$10M
I like that it's online
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.
Pros
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.
Cons
It freezes from time to time, but more of an internet issue on my end I would imagine.
