Grafter Lab didn't come from a tech startup. It came from a decade of running a real trade business, juggling too many systems, and being tired of never quite knowing where things stood.
I've run a painting and decorating business for over ten years. For most of that time, I was drowning in admin.
Multiple software systems. A spreadsheet to link them together. Hours every week trying to make it all talk to each other — and at the end of it, I still couldn't answer the basic questions. Is this job making money? Can I afford to take on more work? Am I going to be able to pay the lads this Friday?
Every day felt like guessing. Cash flow was a worry I carried around constantly. Thirty, sixty day payment terms means money is always somewhere in the pipeline — just never quite where you need it. Jobs would overrun and I wouldn't know until it was too late.
Then there's overheads. When your business grows, your overheads grow with it. Vehicles, insurance, tools, subscriptions — they creep up quietly. You need to know exactly what they cost down to the penny, and see how they land in your cashflow week by week alongside your payroll.
I built Grafter Lab as a tool for my own business first. Something that tracks every job down to the penny, shows me my cashflow for the next twelve weeks, tells me when a job is going off track before it becomes a problem, and gives me total visibility over overheads and payroll in one place.
Once I could finally see everything clearly, gross profit stayed above target. Every month. Because when you can see it, you can manage it.
I've built AI into the core of it — so the system learns your business, learns your patterns, and starts telling you things you didn't even know to ask. It's like having your own CFO in your pocket. Over 60 jobs tracked. Nearly half a million pounds managed. 15 staff clocking in every single day. This is the tool I always needed. Now it's yours.
Every feature exists because a real contractor hit a real problem. That's why it works the way it does.
Most software tells you what happened. Grafter Lab tells you what's about to. Cashflow forecast, RAG job health, AI assistant — all designed to give you information before you need it.
29 modules across operations, finance, workforce and intelligence. Job tracking. Cashflow forecasting. Quoting. Invoicing. Estimates. Purchase orders. Invoice chasing. Staff scheduling. GPS clock in. Leave management. WIP. Retention. AI assistant. Supplier invoice reader. Xero. And more. One platform. One price. Go nowhere else.
14-day free trial. Full access. No credit card. Or book a demo and we'll walk you through everything.