Plant Management Software for Groundworks Contractors
Groundworks contractors use Equipbase to control hired plant, move owned plant between fast-moving sites, and keep plant costs against the right contract, including what should be recharged.
Groundworks runs on plant, and plant runs away with the margin
Few trades are as plant-intensive as groundworks: excavators, dumpers, rollers, compaction equipment and pumps moving as phases open and close. Contracts can be short and overlapping, so plant may move frequently between them. Every informal move, every digger kept "just in case", every pump nobody off-hired eats directly into margins that were tight at tender.
With owned kit doing the heavy lifting, the double cost is common: your own machine idle on one contract while another contract hires the same thing in.
Plant control built for plant-heavy contracting
Equipbase matches the tempo: site teams request and off-hire from the phone, owned plant moves site-to-site through quick approvals with delivery paperwork, and date-aware availability means owned plant can be considered before hiring in.
Hire records and owned-plant allocations support a consistent plant-cost history against each contract, using supplier rates for hired plant and configured internal rates for owned plant. Eligible client recharges can be built from those records.
What groundworks contractors run in Equipbase
Fast site-to-site transfers
Owned plant moved between overlapping contracts with approvals and history, at the pace phases actually change.
Fleet worked before hiring
Date-aware availability shows what's free before anyone rings a supplier.
Off-hires at phase end
Request off-hire for attachments and support kit when a phase finishes, then track collection.
Costs per contract
Keep a consistent allocated plant-cost history per contract to support commercial review and future tendering.
Recharges to main contractors
Plant on the client's account billed from records. See plant recharge management.
Damage and theft from site
Report plant damage or theft from site with a dated record to support office, insurer or police follow-up.
Where it lands in a groundworks business
On the jobs
Plant where it's needed, when it's needed.
- Sites see and request their own plant
- Moves happen fast, with paperwork
- Idle kit visible and reusable
In the numbers
Margins protected line by line.
- Long-running hires easier to identify
- Consistent allocated plant costs for tendering
- Eligible plant costs available for recharge
Frequently asked questions
Our jobs turn over quickly. Is the admin worth it?
Requests, off-hires and movement requests can be raised directly from a supported mobile browser. Each action updates the shared record, reducing the amount the office needs to reconstruct later.
Can it handle attachments and small kit, not just machines?
Yes. Anything you hire or own can be tracked, from excavators down to the breakers and trench boxes that most often go missing between jobs.
We work for several main contractors. Can recharges differ per client?
Yes. Client rates are held per client, so each main contractor is billed at the rates you've agreed with them.
Do our gangers need to be computer people?
The browser-based site view focuses on common tasks such as viewing plant, raising requests and requesting off-hires. These workflows can be covered during onboarding.