Comparison
SpoilStack vs Spreadsheets
Most excavation contractors I talk to track jobs in Excel or Google Sheets. It's free, everyone knows how to use it, and it gets you started. So why switch?
The spreadsheet problem
Your foreman isn't going to open Excel on his phone at a dirt site. So the spreadsheet lives on your laptop at the office, and by Thursday it's out of date.
Then the trucker says 16 loads. Your foreman's paper tally says 14. You look at the spreadsheet. Someone typed "14" in a cell at some point. No timestamp. No idea who typed it. Good luck in that argument.
Meanwhile your CAT 330 moved from Henderson to Maple St at 2 PM and nobody updated the sheet. Photos of the work your guys did are sitting in three different phone camera rolls. Rain is coming Thursday and you have to call everyone to tell them.
The same thing happens after the job is won. Daily logs sit in notebooks, extra work tags (T&M) sit on paper, plan markups sit in screenshots, and closeout backup gets rebuilt at the end from whatever everyone can still find.
That's the spreadsheet. It works great until you have more than one person needing to update it from the field.
What we do different
| Feature | Spreadsheet | SpoilStack |
|---|---|---|
| Timestamped haul counts | Manual entry | One tap per load |
| Works offline | Google Sheets needs signal | Full offline |
| Photos attached to jobs | No | From phone camera |
| Machine location | Manual, always stale | One tap to reassign |
| Machine hours | Hand-keyed, if at all | Logged per job, weekly totals |
| Daily logs | Separate file or paper | Attached to the job |
| Extra work tags (T&M) | Paper and signatures | Approved field record |
| Plan markups | Screenshots and emails | PDF plan markup |
| Closeout package | Manual folder chase | Branded export |
| Weather per job site | No | 5-day forecast |
| Morning briefing email | No | 6 AM, weekdays |
| Cost | Free | $99/mo, unlimited users |
"Free" is never free
Spreadsheets are free. One disputed trucking invoice where you can't prove the haul count costs more than a year of SpoilStack. One missing extra work signature or closeout photo can cost more. Sunday nights spent reconstructing the week from texts and scraps of paper aren't free either.
$99/month flat. Whole crew. 14 days free, no credit card required.
Frequently asked questions
Should an excavation contractor use SpoilStack instead of a spreadsheet?
Once you have crews updating job info from the field, yes. A spreadsheet works until more than one person needs to update it away from the office. SpoilStack keeps haul counts, machine locations, daily logs, plan markups, photos, and closeout records current across the whole crew and works offline.
Can a foreman use it from his phone on a job site?
Yes, and that is the point. Nobody opens Excel on their phone at a dirt site, so the spreadsheet lives on a laptop and goes stale. SpoilStack runs on iPhone and Android, works fully offline, and syncs when signal returns.
How does it settle haul count disputes a spreadsheet cannot?
Every load is one tap and gets a timestamp and the name of who logged it. A spreadsheet just has a number someone typed in a cell with no timestamp and no idea who entered it, which is useless when a trucker says 16 and your tally says 14.
A spreadsheet is free. Is SpoilStack worth $99 a month?
Free is never free. One disputed trucking invoice you cannot prove, one missing extra work signature, or one lost closeout photo can cost more than a year of SpoilStack. So can the Sunday nights spent rebuilding the week from texts and scraps of paper.
What does SpoilStack not do that a spreadsheet might?
SpoilStack does not do invoicing, estimating, job costing, or payroll. It is a job and field-documentation tracker. Most excavation contractors use QuickBooks for invoicing and SpoilStack for the field record.
Keep reading
- Excavation daily log app. The field record a shared sheet can't keep offline.
- Dump truck load tracking app. Timestamped haul counts instead of a tally column.
- SpoilStack vs Jobber and vs the shop whiteboard.