When a software vendor tells you their tool “integrates with your existing systems,” they usually mean it connects to a list of platforms that covers their most common enterprise customers. Procore. QuickBooks. ADP. Maybe Sage. Sometimes a few others.
That list is written for general contractors running a full technology stack. For a specialty subcontractor — an electrical contractor with 20 field workers, a concrete sub running three commercial jobs, a plumbing contractor who needs hours to flow to payroll and costs to flow to QuickBooks — the integration list is usually overkill in some directions and insufficient in others.
The question isn’t “how many integrations does this tool have?” It’s “which four connections actually matter for a specialty sub, and do those four work without a consultant?”
Here’s what those four connections are, what breaks when they don’t work, and what to ask before you commit to a tool.
The Four Integrations That Actually Matter
1. Time Tracking to Payroll
Every field hour that gets logged eventually needs to get to payroll. On most specialty sub jobs, that means the time tracking system — wherever the crew clocks in — has to produce output that payroll can consume. Either a direct integration that pushes hours to the payroll processor (ADP, Gusto, QuickBooks Payroll), or an export that the office manager can import without reformatting.
What breaks without it: The office manager re-enters hours from the time tracking system into the payroll system every week. Double entry. If the re-entry is wrong, the crew gets paid wrong. If the re-entry takes an hour, that’s an hour every week, every payroll, every year.
What it looks like when it works: Hours are logged in the field, reviewed and approved by the PM, and exported in a format that loads directly into payroll. The office manager reviews and approves — she doesn’t re-type.
What to ask: Can I export hours by employee, by pay period, in a format that my payroll processor accepts? Is there a direct integration, or is it a CSV export? If it’s a CSV, does the format match what payroll expects without column remapping?
2. Cost Codes to Accounting
Time tracking by cost code is how you build a job cost record. But that record only becomes useful if it can flow into the accounting system — QuickBooks, Sage, Foundation, whatever the contractor uses to manage job profitability.
This is a different integration than payroll. Payroll needs hours by employee. Job costing needs hours by cost code, by job, by phase — matched against the budget for each code. The accounting integration takes the cost code structure from the field and puts it into the general ledger in a format the bookkeeper or controller can work with.
What breaks without it: The field logs hours by cost code. The accounting system has job cost data entered separately by the office. The two records diverge. At closeout, the job cost report shows one number and the accounting system shows another. Reconciling them is a manual project.
What it looks like when it works: Phase-based cost codes flow from the field time tracking system into the job cost ledger automatically. The controller sees actual vs. estimated by phase without a reconciliation exercise. The PM sees the same data in the field tool and in the accounting system.
What to ask: Does the tool support a direct QuickBooks integration for job costing, or is it export-only? If export, what format and how does it map to job cost codes in the accounting system? Can I match my cost code structure to the accounting system’s chart of accounts?
3. Daily Reports to the GC’s Required Format
The GC has a daily reporting requirement. It might be a specific PDF format. It might be a Procore daily log. It might be an email with a formatted summary. Whatever it is, the sub has to produce it.
The integration question for daily reports isn’t about connecting two software platforms — it’s about output format. The sub’s field tool captures the data (crew, work completed, photos, issues). The integration is what converts that data into a format the GC can receive and file.
What breaks without it: The foreman fills out the daily report in the field tool, and then someone in the office re-enters the same information into the GC’s Procore project. Two entries, same data. Or the foreman fills out the GC’s form directly and the sub has no internal record — just what’s in the GC’s system.
What it looks like when it works: The field data captured in the sub’s tool generates a daily report in the GC’s required format — a formatted PDF, an email summary, or a structured data export. The sub has an internal record. The GC gets the format they require. One entry.
What to ask: Can the tool export daily reports as a formatted PDF I can send to the GC? Does it support any direct connection to Procore or the GC’s platform of choice? If not, what does the export look like and can I customize the format?
4. Plan Sheets Without a Platform License
The GC manages the drawings in Procore or BIM 360 or wherever the project’s document management lives. The sub’s field crew needs access to current drawings. The integration question is: how does the sub’s crew get the right sheet on their phone without a Procore license for every field worker?
This is less about platform-to-platform integration and more about workflow: can the sub PM upload the current plan set to his own tool, extract the sheets, and give his crew field access — without requiring the GC to grant individual licenses to 12 electricians?
What breaks without it: The sub PM downloads the current plan set from the GC’s platform, prints it, and distributes it. Or he emails PDFs to the foreman, who forwards them to the crew, who saves them to their camera roll and hopes the revision is current. When addendum 2 comes out, none of that pipeline updates automatically.
What it looks like when it works: The sub PM uploads the updated plan set to his own tool. Sheets are extracted and organized. Every crew member on the project sees the current drawings on their phone from the sub’s tool — no GC platform access required. When the plan set updates, the PM re-uploads and the old sheets are replaced.
What to ask: Can I upload a PDF plan set and have it accessible to my crew on their phones? Does it extract individual sheets, or do I have to navigate a full PDF? What happens when I upload an updated set — do old sheets get replaced automatically?
The Integrations That Sound Useful but Usually Aren’t
Every integration list includes a few connections that look valuable in a demo and create maintenance overhead in practice.
Scheduling platform sync. A direct two-way sync between the field tool and the GC’s scheduling platform sounds good. In practice, the GC’s schedule changes daily and the sub’s crew task list is driven by the foreman’s field judgment, not by a Gantt chart imported from Procore. Read-only access to the GC’s schedule is useful. A two-way sync that breaks every time the GC updates the master schedule is not.
BIM model integration. For a sub PM doing clash detection on a complex MEP coordination project, BIM integration is real value. For the electrician running conduit who needs the panel schedule on his phone, it’s irrelevant. Don’t pay for BIM integration features you won’t use in the field.
GPS tracking overlay. GPS location of field workers sounds useful. In practice, most specialty subs with a functioning time tracking system already know where their crew is — they’re at the job site. GPS tracking adds cost and creates friction without solving the actual PM problem. Worth evaluating only if crew location verification is a specific pain point.
How to Evaluate an Integration Before You Commit
The demo will show you the best-case version of every integration. What you need to understand before committing is whether the integration works in your specific environment.
Ask for a live export, not a screenshot. Have the vendor run a time export from a test account and show you the actual file format. Open it. Does it look like something your payroll processor or accounting system will accept without reformatting?
Ask what happens when the integration breaks. Every integration breaks eventually — a platform update on either end, an API change, a credential expiration. What’s the recovery path? Is there a manual export you can fall back on while it’s fixed?
Ask who manages it. Some integrations require a consultant to set up and maintain. Others are turnkey. For a specialty sub without an IT department, “requires initial setup by our implementation team” is a yellow flag. “Upload your QuickBooks export and the columns auto-map” is not.
Test it with your actual data. Run a one-week pilot with real job data and real payroll. The integration that works in a demo environment with clean sample data may behave differently with your actual cost code structure, your actual pay types, and your actual accounting chart of accounts.
What the Right Integration Stack Looks Like
For most specialty subs, the right stack is simple: time tracking that exports to payroll, cost codes that flow to job costing in QuickBooks, daily reports that produce a PDF the GC will accept, and plan sheets that get on the crew’s phones without a platform license.
Four connections. None of them require an enterprise implementation. All of them reduce double entry and keep the field record and the office record from diverging.
See how LogLoon’s integrations work for specialty contractors, or check the pricing — it’s on the website.