At ServiceTitan, we’ve spent nearly two decades helping contractors in the trades run more efficient, more profitable businesses. From family-owned shops to large commercial contractors and multi-location enterprises, we talk to dozens of contractors every week—and we’ve developed a deep understanding of the operational challenges they face as they grow.
Once a trade business reaches a certain size or complexity, the limitations of disconnected tools and manual processes become impossible to ignore. That’s when many construction companies start searching for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to unify their systems and support scalable growth.
In this article, we discuss the most common challenges that drive construction businesses to invest in ERP software—based on what we hear directly from the field. Then, we explain some key advantages and limitations of general-purpose ERP solutions, and share various ERP platforms you might consider, beginning with our own platform.
Table of Contents
Challenges that drive construction businesses to invest in ERP solutions
Advantages & limitations of general-purpose ERP systems for construction businesses
The Challenges That Drive Construction Companies to Invest in an ERP Solution
1. Disconnected Systems and Data Silos
Most contractors in the construction sector don’t start with a unified system. They grow into a patchwork of apps for managing day-to-day operations: one tool for scheduling, another for invoicing, a CRM over here, an inventory spreadsheet over there. At first, it’s manageable. Then the cracks show.
Key team members lose visibility into each other’s work. Data is duplicated or missed. Small mistakes turn into expensive rework. And leadership can’t get a clear view of what’s happening across the business.
What they need is one system to unify operations and become the single source of truth.
2. Lack of Operational Visibility
As businesses grow, so does the need for real-time insight. But many contractors still rely on delayed reports, manual tracking, and scattered data sources.
They can’t easily see which jobs are profitable, how project managers and crews are performing, or how much margin they’re losing on jobs. Without that clarity, it’s nearly impossible to optimize performance, manage cash flow, or engage in confident decision-making that supports growth.
They’re not just looking for software. They’re looking for critical visibility and full financial control of their business operations.
3. Manual, Error-Prone Processes
Even as revenue climbs, many contractors still run payroll manually, handle purchasing through email chains and spreadsheets, or rely on in-house knowledge to track parts and materials.
Every manual step introduces risk: missed deadlines, incorrect invoices, costly mistakes. And as new employees join the team, those homegrown processes become harder to teach and scale.
An ERP isn’t just about automation—it’s about creating consistent, error-resistant systems across the entire operation.
4. The Business Is Growing—but the Systems Aren’t
With growth comes complexity: more crews and project managers, more projects, more inventory, more customers. Suddenly, what used to work for a five-person operation breaks down at 25—or 100.
Scheduling becomes chaotic. Inventory control falls apart. Communication suffers. And without a system built to handle this scale, the business slows down just when it should be speeding up.
Contractors start searching for an ERP because they’ve outgrown their systems—and they know it.
5. Preparing for Sale or Private Equity Investment
More and more construction businesses are growing through private equity or preparing for acquisition. But outdated systems, siloed data, and homegrown processes don’t impress buyers. They hurt valuation.
Buyers and investors want scalable, modern infrastructure that’s easy to audit and ready for expansion. A business running on spreadsheets and in-house knowledge won’t cut it.
The right ERP can demonstrate operational maturity and make the business more attractive—and more valuable.
The Advantages & Limitations of General Purpose ERP Systems for Construction Businesses
General-purpose ERPs such as NetSuite, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics are often top of mind for large or scaling contractors who want to bring more structure to back-office operations.
These platforms bring strengths that are hard to ignore—but they also come with limitations, particularly when it comes to construction operations.
Advantages of General-Purpose ERPs
1. Deep Financial Management Capabilities
General-purpose ERPs are designed with accounting at their core. Platforms such as NetSuite offer advanced tools for managing general ledger, multi-entity consolidation, budgeting, tax compliance, audit trails, and financial reporting. For finance teams focused on growth, compliance, or preparing for acquisition, these capabilities are often non-negotiable.
2. Flexible, Enterprise-Ready Architecture
These systems are built to serve a wide range of industries and operational models. Their flexibility allows businesses to tailor workflows, reporting structures, and permissions to meet the unique needs of complex organizations—especially those managing multiple divisions, regions, or business units.
Limitations for Trade Businesses with Field Operations
Most general-purpose ERP providers weren’t built for the unique needs of construction firms. They were built for manufacturers, tech companies, or corporate back offices.
These systems have limitations that contractors should be aware of, including:
1. Customization Is the Default—and It’s Expensive
Generic ERP platforms rely heavily on customization to serve trade-specific needs. That often means hiring consultants, developers, or in-house IT resources to create the workflows necessary to run your day-to-day operations.
This increases both the cost and the time it takes to get up and running. Customizations can take months—or longer—to build, maintain, and scale. And when your processes change, you’ll need to reinvest to update your system.
2. Critical Features Are Often Missing Out of the Box
Generic ERPs may lack:
Industry-specific project lifecycle management
Real-time construction-focused job costing
Change order management
Field to office workflow integration (with user-friendly mobile apps)
Construction billing and retainage
Inventory workflows tied to projects
Instead, these key features often require expensive third-party add-ons—or have to be built from scratch.
Determining Which ERP Solution Is Best for You
While general-purpose ERPs excel in the back office, building or customizing construction capabilities into a general ERP can be time-consuming, costly, and may still lack the depth and usability contractors expect.
That’s why many construction businesses choose a purpose-built solution like ServiceTitan to manage their operations. For some, ServiceTitan alone functions as both a construction management system and an ERP—offering integrated job costing, purchasing, reporting, payroll exports, and more. For others with more complex accounting needs, a hybrid approach—pairing ServiceTitan with a general-purpose ERP like NetSuite—provides the best of both worlds.
Ultimately, it depends on the complexity of your financial operations and what your team needs to run the business efficiently. The key is having the flexibility to scale either way.
Next, we’ll show you how ServiceTitan’s purpose-built platform provides an out-of-the-box solution for construction businesses, and share a short list of other trade-specific and general-purpose ERP solutions for you to consider.
Construction ERP Systems (Vertical Software Solutions)
1. ServiceTitan
Purpose-Built for Trades, Not Generic Businesses
Generic ERPs like Salesforce are designed to serve all industries. ServiceTitan is designed specifically for specialty contractors in HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and select other trades. This vertical focus means construction-specific features come standard:
Project lifecycle management (pre-con to closeout): Built-in support for AIA-style progress billing, retainage, submittals, RFIs, and closeout docs — mapped to the real flow of commercial jobs.
Construction project cost tracking: Native job costing dashboard, budget vs. actual tables with real-time data, WIP reporting — tailored for trades work.
Change order management: Built-in change order creation, tracking, approval, and syncing with job costing and invoicing.
Field-to-office workflow integration: Mobile app is trade-specific — technicians can track time, document job progress, submit change orders, and communicate with the office in real time.
Avoid Costly Customization and Integration Headaches
As we’ve discussed, with general-purpose ERP platforms, trade businesses often have to build their own workflows through expensive development cycles or third-party tools.
ServiceTitan, on the other hand:
Comes with all of the trade- and construction-specific features mentioned above (e.g. purchase order workflows, procurement, and financial reporting) tailored to commercial trades.
Reduces implementation timelines and ongoing maintenance costs.
Lowers the risk of patched-together tech stacks that don't communicate well.
Shorter Time to Value: Get Up and Running Faster
General-purpose ERP implementations often take over a year to build custom workflows and tools that fit the business processes of an individual customer.
ServiceTitan’s pre-built workflows deliver faster time to value, enabling contracting businesses to start seeing results in just a few months—typically two to five months for even complex implementations—to maximize your investment sooner.
All-in-One Cloud-Based System That Grows with You
ServiceTitan’s construction management software combines:
Field service management software (FSM) (commercial & residential service)
Workforce management (payroll, time tracking, etc.)
And more—in one unified platform
It’s a single source of truth that scales from regional subcontractors to enterprise-level commercial businesses, with robust workflows for service and construction across residential and commercial markets.
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Built-In Feedback Loop from the Trades
Because we exclusively serve the trades, we have a built-in system of feedback → development → implementation.
Feature development is driven by feedback from contractors.
Enhancements benefit the whole trade community, not just one company’s internal development.
Supports Complex, Multi-Location Ops
The ServiceTitan platform is designed to support regional and national operations with features and functionality built for running multiple business divisions, multi-tech jobs, and multi-location shops.
With ServiceTitan Enterprise Hub, features such as roll-up reporting, roll-up dashboards, a centralized contact center, and Marketing Pro Enterprise promote efficiency and profitability across every branch of your business—great for businesses preparing for sale or scaling via private equity.
Robust Customer Support and Training Resources (No Need to Hire Outside Consultants)
With general-purpose ERPs, you’ll often need to pay for third-party implementation support or an upgraded plan if you want a dedicated customer success manager.
With ServiceTitan, all ServiceTitan users get exclusive access to:
Dedicated Support Teams: A personal support team to address specific questions and concerns.
Comprehensive Training and Onboarding: Extensive training and onboarding for new users to help with understanding the software and utilizing features effectively.
Titan Exchange: A cloud-based platform for sharing assets such as contracts, templates, checklists, and other valuable information.
TitanAdvisor: With personalized feature recommendations and focused, step-by-step guidance, TitanAdvisor takes the guesswork out of choosing the right ServiceTitan features for your business, so you get the results you want.
ServiceTitan Community: A users-only message board where ideas for our software and business in general are shared.
Free Peer-Group Training: A program run by ServiceTitan employees through Ember and Spark sessions, designed to share best practices.
Certified Admin Program: Our Certified Administrator program provides a structured approach to increasing knowledge of ServiceTitan, as well as constant and continuing education on the software.
Annual Users’ Conference: Our annual Pantheon conference brings together leaders from across the trades to share best practices and support each other.
Business owners and operators, particularly in the core industries that ServiceTitan was built to support, find these resources to be invaluable for getting the most out of our platform, as well as staying up-to-date with the best practices and strategies that are working for other companies.
For example, here are some testimonials from people in the ServiceTitan Community:
“ServiceTitan Community has had a massive impact on our growth as a company. We have created connections, gleaned ideas/strategies, and grown exponentially. That may have never happened without the network that Community provides.”
“The ServiceTitan Community provides a wonderful opportunity for networking. It’s a great place to have questions quickly answered. You can search by keywords to pull up resources and, if these can’t answer your question, you can post your question as a discussion and have other users help. Having the community helps all ServiceTitan users to feel connected to one another! I love the ideas page where we can post our ideas about the direction we would like to see the software go. This helps us feel like valued customers when we can influence the future of the software!”
Get a Free, Live Walk-Through of ServiceTitan’s Construction ERP Software
Join 100,000+ trade professionals using ServiceTitan to streamline operations, grow revenue, and work smarter. Schedule a free, live demo to see exactly how our platform helps you run your business—end to end.
2. eCMS by Computer Guidance Corporation
eCMS is a cloud-based ERP system purpose-built for the construction industry, with a strong focus on financial management, project planning and tracking, and job costing. It's designed for specialty and general contractors looking to centralize their back-office and field operations, and is especially useful for companies with complex cost structures or compliance requirements.
While eCMS is robust for core construction workflows, implementation may involve additional development to integrate with existing systems or extend functionality for niche use cases.
3. Viewpoint Vista
Viewpoint Vista is a construction ERP platform commonly used by mid-size to large contractors. It provides tools for accounting, project management, HR, and job costing, with the ability to support detailed financial controls and operational workflows across multiple teams.
Vista is known for being highly customizable, which makes it appealing to companies with unique reporting or workflow needs. However, setup and optimization can require close coordination with Viewpoint’s support or implementation partners.
General-Purpose ERP Platforms That Can Be Customized for Construction
4. Salesforce
While Salesforce is primarily known as a leading Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, it can be extended into an ERP-like system through integrations with third-party applications. This approach allows businesses to customize their operations by combining Salesforce's robust CRM capabilities with additional modules for field service management, finance, inventory, and project management.
However, because of its modular architecture, implementation typically requires support from consultants or Salesforce partners, and costs can rise quickly depending on the number of users and add-on modules selected.
5. Oracle NetSuite
Oracle NetSuite is a cloud-based ERP platform designed to unify finance, operations, CRM, and project management within a single system. Its scalability and breadth of features make it a solid candidate for growing contracting businesses looking to standardize operations across multiple departments.
NetSuite is particularly well-suited for companies that have outgrown basic accounting tools and need more robust financial controls and real-time visibility into business performance. While powerful, implementation can be complex, and modular pricing may increase overall cost depending on the functionality required.
Note: ServiceTitan has achieved "Built for NetSuite" status with its new SuiteApp, designed to integrate our field service management platform with Oracle NetSuite's unified business suite. This integration aims to streamline workflows, enhance financial visibility, and improve profitability for commercial, construction, and residential service organizations.
6. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Dynamics 365 Business Central is Microsoft’s cloud-based ERP solution designed to unify finance, operations, sales, and service management. Its deep integration with the broader Microsoft ecosystem—like Excel, Outlook, and Power BI—makes it especially attractive to companies already embedded in that environment.
The platform is flexible enough to support a wide range of industries, including field service and contracting. For teams unfamiliar with Microsoft ERP products, onboarding may take time, and businesses with complex needs often invest in implementation partners to fully configure and customize the system.
7. Acumatica
Acumatica is a cloud-based ERP platform designed to serve a wide range of industries, with dedicated editions for construction, distribution, and manufacturing. Its construction edition is commonly used by contractors looking for centralized project and business management, financial tracking, and field-to-office collaboration.
One of Acumatica’s key strengths is its flexible deployment model—offering cloud, on-site, or hybrid options—as well as its adaptable licensing approach, which appeals to growing businesses. While it’s a capable system for project-driven work, businesses with highly specialized workflows may need additional customization to get the most out of the platform.
Choosing the Best ERP for Your Construction Business
As your business grows, so do the stakes. Generic ERP platforms can offer flexibility—but often at the cost of time, money, and complexity.
ServiceTitan gives you the best of both worlds: a powerful, all-in-one platform built specifically for the trades, with the features you need to run and scale your business—right out of the box.
Want to see how ServiceTitan’s ERP solution helps trade businesses automate, optimize, and scale profitably? Schedule a personalized demo to learn more.
ServiceTitan Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business. Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
