The Best Building Materials Software
We tested systems that offer strong industry-specific features, such as inventory, order, and supply chain management, and selected our top choices below.
- Intuitive, consistent, and user-friendly interface
- Effective General Ledger module
- Quick search feature
- Offers industry-specific functionality for LBM companies
- Has customizable analytics and reporting templates
- Integrates with accounting solutions
- Offers 24/7 customer support
- Digital notepads for quick price checks
- Customizable cut optimization formulas
We used our advanced review methodology to rank the top LBM software for manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and dealers.
| Software | Best For | Target Market | Deployment Options | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ECI Spruce | Best Overall | Lumber Yards, Hardware Stores, Home Centers | Cloud | $150/user/month |
| Epicor BisTrack | Wholesalers | Pro Dealers, Lumberyards, Wholesalers, Sawmills | Cloud | N/A |
| DMSi Agility | Dealers and Retailers | Lumber Yards, Distributors, Retailers | Cloud | N/A |
| RockSolid MAX | Small Hardware Stores | Home Centers, Convenience Lumber Yards, Electrical Businesses | Cloud | $5,000/year |
| Acctivate | QuickBooks Users | SMBs in Distribution, Retail, and Manufacturing | Cloud or On-Premise | $5,000/year |
| WoodPro Insight | Manufacturers | Wood Traders, Sawmills, Wholesalers, Distributors | Cloud | N/A |
| Accolent ERP | Distributors | Small to Mid-size Wolesale Distirbutors and Light Manufacturers | Cloud or On-Premise | $2,500/one-time |
- ECI Spruce: Best for Lumber Yards
- Epicor BisTrack: Best for Wholesalers
- DMSi Agility: Best for Dealers and Retailers
- RockSolid MAX: Best for Small Hardware Stores
- Acctivate Inventory Management: Best for QuickBooks Users
- WoodPro Insight: Best for Manufacturers
ECI Spruce - Best for Lumber Yards
ECI Spruce offers strong batch-tracking capabilities that enhance inventory accuracy and operational efficiency. Lumber yards need batch tracking to ensure precise materials management from receipt to sale, helping maintain accurate inventory and reduce discrepancies.
This feature logs each batch’s unique identifier and includes additional details such as source, production date, and destination. As you process each order, the system tracks material movement, ensuring that the correct allocation to customer orders. This can be particularly beneficial where wood quality, grain, and other characteristics vary between batches.
Spruce also integrates with other modules, such as purchasing and sales, ensuring seamless operations across your business. By syncing with the two, the system can automate reordering processes and maintain optimal stock levels, facilitating efficient procurement.
See our ECI Spruce profile to learn more.
Epicor BisTrack - Best for Wholesalers
Epicor BisTrack has a suite of mobile applications that enables you to manage picking tasks directly from mobile devices. For example, if you receive a large shipment of lumber, the app will scan the barcodes of each bundle as it arrives. Once scanned, the system will instantly update your inventory, reflecting the new stock levels.
When fulfilling an order, the picking application can help guide your warehouse staff to the exact location of the lumber. Throughout this process, the BisTrack Count application can perform periodic inventory counts, ensuring ongoing accuracy which is vital when you’re constantly moving and dispatching materials.
The software supports various packaging types and talliers, ensuring accurate and timely updates to inventory records. This is essential for handling diverse products like tiles, insulation, and piping that might come in small boxes, bulk pallets, rolls, or coils. Each requires precise tracking and counting to maintain accurate inventory levels. By accomodating these variations, this system can help accelerate the receiving process and minimize any discrepancies.
Find more information with our Epicor BisTrack review.
DMSi Agility - Best for Dealers and Retailers
DMSi Agility offers real-time inventory tracking for improved stock visibility and management. Whenever you receive a shipment of building materials, you can scan the product’s barcode using the Agility mobile app or a connected barcode scanner. This will immediately update the inventory system with product quantity, location, and pricing details.
The system also uses a single item code to track all dimension records for a product across multiple branches. It can accommodate various units such as pieces, units, board feet, thousand board feet, linear feet, and cubic meters, ensuring precise measurements and reporting.
If an item is low in stock, the system will send you an automated restocking alert. You can then place an order with the supplier to ensure that you continue to meet consumer demand and avoid stockouts. This inventory tracking feature lets you maintain optimal levels, ensuring timely deliveries and improving your overall operational efficiency.
RockSolid MAX - Best for Small Hardware Stores
RockSolid MAX has an integrated document management system that streamlines handling various business documents, including customer quotes, orders, purchase orders, receiving slips, and sales invoices.
RockSolid MAX automatically generates and links the relevant documents when a transaction occurs. For example, whenever a sales associate inputs a customer’s request into the POS system, the software automatically creates a purchase order to procure the required materials or tools from the supplier, linking it to the original transaction.
When you receive these materials, the store updates the system with the receiving slip, which is then linked to the supplier’s invoice. The software will then generate a sales invoice for the customer, linking it to all prior documents. This integration streamlines operations and reduces reliance on physical paperwork, freeing your limited staff up to focus on customer service and sales.
See our RockSolid MAX profile to learn more.
Acctivate Inventory Management - Best for QuickBooks Users
Acctivate enables you to scan and track stock using product barcode labels. This capability integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks, streamlining order fulfillment and improving inventory accuracy.
When you receive a shipment, you can scan the incoming products’ barcodes using Acctivate’s mobile app. This will update stock levels in real-time, ensuring that QuickBooks reflects the accurate cost of goods sold. By scanning barcodes instead of manually entering data, you can speed up processes like receiving shipments, updating inventory, and picking orders.
!Acctivate Inventory Count](/images/acctivate-361617) Scan barcodes and track stock using product barcodes with Acctivate.
When you fulfill customer orders, you can scan barcodes to select items, confirming the product’s details and quantity. This can help reduce errors and accelerate the picking process, improving order accuracy and customer satisfaction. However, you may want to consider a different solution if you currently use accounting software other than QuickBooks, as Acctivate is only compatible with that system.
For more information, read our Acctivate review.
WoodPro Insight - Best for Manufacturers
WoodPro InSight has a product cost feature designed to control and monitor manufacturing activities effectively. With this capability, you can specify each product with unique attributes, such as dimensions, wood type, and grade.
You can consolidate data from inventory transactions, production issues and receipts, sales, purchasing, and transfers to calculate available or required resources. You can also create BOMs detailing each product’s raw materials and quantities, ensuring accurate planning.
The system tracks the costs of finished goods and raw components, provides insights to enhance production, and identifies cost-saving opportunities. It can utilize fixed rate and standard costing techniques to streamline labor and overhead reporting, ensuring accurate financial tracking. To ensure costs align with these reports, you can utilize the Visual Planner to schedule production runs, allocate resources effectively, and respond quickly to any changes in demand.
For more information, read our WoodPro InSight review.
Accolent ERP- Best for Distributors
Accolent ERP’s just-in-time delivery tool can ensure that materials arrive precisely when needed, minimizing storage costs and helping reduce the risk of overstocking. By allowing you to schedule deliveries in sync with your production schedules, JIT delivery helps maintain lean inventory levels, which reduces the need for large warehouse spaces with high overhead costs.
The ERP provides live insights into inventory levels across multiple warehouses, enabling you to monitor stock and make informed decisions about ordering and delivery schedules. This visibility not only helps optimize inventory but also ensures that you can respond quickly to changing demand.
Additionally, the system allows for managing various order types, including partial shipments and special requests, offering tracking from purchase to final delivery. This transparency helps you avoid delays caused by stock shortages or transportation issues.
The JIT feature also enables you to schedule deliveries just before each phase of a customer’s construction project, ensuring that materials arrive only when needed. This method can reduce on-site storage requirements and minimize the risk of excess inventory, leading to more efficient operations and better cost control.
Other Systems We Like
J3 Point of Sale (POS) offers specialized lumber pricing integration for hardware and lumber stores. This feature allows you to manage costs based on various metrics, including cost percentage, retail price, board footage, and square footage.
What Is Building Materials Software?
Building materials software helps synchronize supply, demand, and fulfillment of your orders. Explicitly used in the building materials industry, these solutions integrate CRM/opportunity tracking, sales orders, pricing, procurement, inventory control, kitting, product configuration, manufacturing work orders, dispatch, delivery, and reporting.
Also known as lumber and building materials software (LBM software), pro dealers and distributors use these systems to track lumber, millwork, building materials, and construction supplies. Whether you are a distributor, manufacturer, or warehousing business, this software will enhance your visibility into production, streamline your supply chain, and give you real-time insights into your operations.
Common Challenges
- Fluctuations in Prices: Managing pricing structures and calculating accurate costs can be difficult with fluctuating material prices. Building materials software can help you keep that competitive edge by monitoring costs and ensuring accurate price calculations.
- Processing Orders from Multiple Clients: Software streamlining the order management process makes it easier to ensure timely and accurate deliveries from multiple customers.
- Coordinating Deliveries with Project Timelines: Timing of deliveries is crucial for maintaining smoother operations and ensuring that projects are completed on schedule. Warehouse management software often come with real-time tracking capabilities and automated alerts, allowing you to monitor the status of deliveries at all times.
- Maintaining Compliance: Ensuring compliance with industry regulations like OSHA and EPA is essential. Building materials software provides necessary document tracking, safety features, and automated reporting.
Primary Features and Benefits
- Inventory Management: Provides real-time tracking, reorder alerts, and inventory categorization to prevent overstocking and stockouts.
- Supply Chain Optimization: Integrates with logistics providers and supports route optimization to reduce delivery times and costs.
- Demand Forecasting: Uses historical data and market trends to offer accurate demand forecasts, enabling better production and procurement planning.
- Pricing and Costing: Automates pricing updates based on material costs and manifests discounts and markup strategies for building materials.
- Compliance: Tracks and manages compliance data, generates required reports, and supports certifications and audits.
- Order and Sales Management: Generates quotes, invoices, and sales documents and facilitates customer order processing, ensuring that orders are accurate and timely.
- Logistics and Transportation: Integrates with logistics software to optimize shipping routes, reduce transportation costs, and track real-time deliveries.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Manages quotes, contracts, and client-specific pricing while tracking interactions and orders.
- Point of Sale (POS): Integrates retail sales operations like invoicing, payment processing, and sales tracking for brick-and-mortar stores.
Pricing Guide
Many building material solutions don’t share their pricing information on their website; however, we found that on average, pricing starts at around $5,000/annually. For example, RockSolid MAX and Acctivate start at $5,000 annually, but Acctivate can increase to $14,000 annually depending on the number of users and features needed. On the other hand, Accolent pricing starts at $2,500 for a one-time fee.
