The GC’s Procore invite lands in your inbox before you’ve signed the contract. Drawings, RFIs, and submittals are all in there, and the super expects your daily report in it by end of day.
So the question isn’t whether to use Procore. On that job you will. The question is what else you need to keep, because the GC’s system was set up to run the GC’s job.
Do You Have to Use the GC’s Procore?
For whatever the GC requires, yes. If the contract says submittals and RFIs go through Procore, they go through Procore. Fighting that costs you goodwill and gets you nothing.
What the GC requires and what you need aren’t the same list. On most jobs the GC is the one paying for Procore, and you’re invited in. What you can see and do is set by the GC’s permissions, not yours.
What Stays in Procore
Anything the GC has to act on or approve:
- The contract drawings and specs as the GC issues them
- RFIs and their responses
- Submittals
- Whatever reports or paperwork your contract says must be filed there
Do these the way the GC wants them done, in the GC’s system. LogLoon doesn’t run RFI or submittal workflows, and this article isn’t going to pretend otherwise.
What Belongs in Your Own System
The things the GC doesn’t ask for, but you’ll wish you had.
Your hours, by your cost codes. The GC cares whether the work is on schedule. You care whether rough-in on Floor 3 is burning hours faster than you bid it. That lives in time tracked against your own cost codes, and the GC’s project system has no reason to hold it.
Your own daily record. A log of what your crew did, who was there, and what got in the way, written by your foreman the day it happened. If a delay claim shows up six months later, the record you want is one you control, not one living in someone else’s project that may be archived or locked when the job closes. The daily report compiles from the time and tasks already logged rather than being one more thing to write.
Your own plans. The GC’s set is the contract set. Your shop drawings, your coordination markups, and the sheets your foreman actually works from are yours. Put them where your crew can pull them up by sheet without a GC login.
History across jobs. You’ll have a different GC on the next one, maybe a different platform. Your record of what a job really cost in hours only compounds if it lives in one place you own. That’s the longer argument for running your own system.
Can You Get Your Own Procore Account?
You can. Procore sells sub-side products too, including project management, estimating, and financials, and its own pricing page says it charges an annual fee by product, based on annual construction volume, with unlimited users.
It publishes no prices, so you’ll have a sales conversation to get a number. Third-party estimates for typical companies run from about $10,000 to $60,000 a year. A sub with a dozen people and a couple of crews is usually not the company that pricing was built around. We broke the cost comparison out here.
If your GC is on Procore this year and someone else next year, that’s a lot to pay for a record of one relationship.
The Double-Entry Problem
This is the honest cost of the two-system approach, and it’s real.
LogLoon has no Procore integration. Nothing flows between them. If the GC requires your daily report typed into Procore, and you also keep a daily record of your own, that’s two entries.
There are two ways to keep it manageable:
- Check the actual requirement first. Ask whether the GC needs the report typed into Procore or will accept a PDF attachment. LogLoon reports export as a PDF, and they can be emailed to outside addresses. Some supers will take that. Some won’t.
- Enter each thing once, where it’s used. RFIs and submittals only in Procore. Hours, cost codes, and your crew’s own log only in yours. The only overlap should be what the GC insists on.
If the GC insists on retyping, you’ll retype. Budget for it instead of being surprised.
What It Costs
Nothing to start. LogLoon has a free plan for up to 5 users and one active project. Pro is $15 per user per month with unlimited projects. Pro Unlimited is $299 a month flat for unlimited users, and it’s the plan with the QuickBooks and Sage sync. No contract, cancel anytime, and a 30-day guarantee.
If you’d rather test it than read about it, run one real job through it alongside the GC’s Procore. One week will tell you whether your foreman opens it without being asked.
Where This Doesn’t Help
- It doesn’t replace the GC’s Procore. You’ll still need it for anything the GC controls.
- It doesn’t sync with Procore. You’re entering some things twice.
- It’s not an all-in-one. No estimating, invoicing, online payments, or CRM. If you want those in one tool, see Contractor Foreman vs. LogLoon.
- If your GC requires daily reports in Raken rather than Procore, that’s a separate comparison.
See the current plans. They’re public, and there’s no sales call to get a number.