Article

Construction companies: get paid for your records

By TrustPast

Updated November 7, 2026

This page is for the owner of a small general contractor, builder or specialty contractor. You have bid jobs for years, and you have the paper to show for it: the takeoffs, the sub quotes, the RFIs, the change orders, the daily logs and the punch lists. Most of it sits in closed projects nobody opens. Buyers license records like these to train AI models, and a construction company’s closed projects are among the most argued-over records any business keeps.

What a contractor usually doesn’t count is the argument. The final contract value is a number. The bid leveling sheet, the RFI that changed the footing detail, and the change order fought over for three weeks are the reasoning behind it. Our page on what data buyers want from a trade business shows the test buyers use, through four trades. A construction company meets it at a larger scale, with more parties on every job.

What this page says about Polyshares is quoted from its published pages. What it says about a contractor’s files is our own description.

The records a construction company keeps

Our examples, not a buyer’s list. These are the records a builder produces as projects move from a bid invitation to a closeout binder.

The takeoff and the bid. Quantities measured off the plans. Unit costs. Labour by trade. General conditions, overhead and the margin someone argued for on a Friday afternoon. Then the bid itself, with its qualifications and exclusions. Our page on estimates and quotes explains why the full chain of versions matters. For a contractor, the exclusions list is part of the reasoning: it records what the estimator didn’t trust in the drawings. Keep the bids you lost as well as the ones you won. A contractor that bids eight jobs to win one has seven records of a price the market turned down, each with a date, a scope and usually a bid result showing where the winning number landed. Over ten years, that is a record of how a local market moved.

The bid leveling sheet. Three electrical subs, three numbers, three different scopes. One excluded the fire alarm. One assumed the owner supplied the fixtures. The estimator lines them up, calls each one, adjusts, and picks. That sheet is one of the densest records a contractor keeps: a comparison of scopes, settled under deadline, with the reason for the pick.

The buyout. After award, the subcontracts and purchase orders, the scope letters, the negotiation that took a sub’s number down by four percent in exchange for a schedule change. Budget against buyout, line by line, shows where the estimate was right.

The RFIs. A superintendent finds a conflict: the duct runs through the beam. An RFI goes to the architect with a sketch and a proposed fix. The answer comes back in nine days, partly agreeing. The RFI log for a project is a list of every place the drawings and the building disagreed, and how each disagreement was resolved.

The submittals. Product data, shop drawings, samples. Approved, approved as noted, revise and resubmit. The comments on a rejected submittal say exactly what the design team would not accept, and why.

The change orders. The potential change order, the pricing, the backup, the negotiation, the executed change. Or the one that was rejected and became a claim. A decade of change orders sorted by cause, such as design error, owner request, unforeseen condition or code, is a contractor’s record of what drawings leave out.

The daily logs and the schedule updates. Weather, manpower by trade, deliveries, inspections, delays and what caused them. The schedule that slipped two weeks, the recovery plan, the date it was met or missed. Our page on job files and work orders explains why what was done, next to what was planned, carries the value.

The meeting minutes. The weekly owner, architect and contractor meeting produces a set of minutes: open items, who owns each, the date it was raised, the decision when it came. Item 14 stays open for six weeks while the owner decides on a window upgrade, and the minutes show what that indecision cost the schedule. A run of minutes over a two-year project is the decision log nobody set out to write. The subcontractor coordination meetings, the pre-installation meetings and the safety toolbox talks add the same kind of record at the trade level.

The punch list and the closeout. The items open at substantial completion, the date each closed, the warranty calls in year one. A callback on a roof drain eleven months later closes the loop on a decision made during the submittal stage.

How a bid was leveled, how a conflict was resolved, how a change was priced and settled: that is the how. Who the owner was, and the drawings they paid an architect for, are separate questions.

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What counts, in the buyer’s own words

Construction is one of the few sectors where Polyshares has published both a sector name and a deal.

On sectors, its home page lists “construction” among businesses with “real operating history” that qualify. Its case studies list a “General contractor,” under construction, at $300,000 (indicative, not an offer), described as a “Perpetual exclusive license to the operational record. Anonymized before delivery.”

On what it pays for, Polyshares’ data licensing page: “It is the record of how the work actually got done, accumulated year after year as a byproduct of running.” Nobody in construction keeps an RFI log for its own sake. It exists because the job needed it. That is the byproduct Polyshares means.

On the tools, its Procore guide says: “Procore projects hold the formal record of commercial construction: RFIs with answers, submittals with review decisions, daily logs, observations and punch lists tied to drawings. These show how problems are raised and resolved on real job sites.” Its Buildertrend guide, for residential builders: “Buildertrend holds the working record of residential construction projects: schedules, change orders, selections, budgets and daily logs. Planned dates and budgets next to what actually happened show how building projects run over time.”

Its CompanyCam guide covers the photos: they are “geotagged and time stamped by project, often with labels and checklists, so they show the condition of a job site before, during and after the work.” Its AutoCAD guide covers drawings: drawing sets “show how a design moved from early layouts to issued sheets.”

Our guides to exporting Procore projects, RFIs and change orders and to exporting Buildertrend data show what to count in each tool. You need the counts to apply, not the exports.

What is never included

Personal details are out. Polyshares’ data handling page says “Names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers, and addresses are removed or replaced by a specialist PII partner before Polyshares or any buyer sees the record.” On a residential job, that means the homeowner. On a commercial job, the owner’s representatives, the architect’s staff and every sub’s project manager. Our page on what is never included covers the general lines.

Payment details, lien waivers with bank information, payroll and certified payroll reports are not how the work was done, and stay out as our own advice. So do employee files and safety incident reports that name a worker.

Site photos need care. Polyshares’ CompanyCam guide says: “Photos can show homeowners, faces and house numbers, and your company decides which projects are included.”

The owner’s and the designer’s material is the biggest question. The architect’s drawings and specifications usually belong to the owner or the architect, not the contractor. The contract may also say who owns the project records. Polyshares’ legal answer page says client material held under an agreement that assigns ownership to the client “cannot be licensed regardless of value, and only the contracts separate the two.” It also says customer agreements “often contain restrictions on use and disclosure that reach further than owners remember.” Our page on client-owned work and NDAs explains how to read those clauses. The contractor’s own estimates, logs, RFIs it wrote and change orders it priced are usually its own record; the contracts say for certain.

Pricing is the contractor’s own choice. Polyshares’ Procore guide says “Commitments, prime contract values and bid pricing can be left out by unchecking those tools when you run an extract.” A builder who would rather keep its unit costs to itself can still put its RFIs, submittals and logs in scope.

How de-identification works

Here is Polyshares’ published sequence.

Counts, not files. Its data handling page: “Intake asks for record counts, not files or exports.” Its Procore guide says a company admin “exports the project list from the Portfolio tool to get the project count, then counts items such as RFIs, submittals and daily logs in each project’s tools.” Its Buildertrend guide says to “Count jobs from the Jobs List.”

The PII partner, before anyone reads. Polyshares says “A specialist PII partner anonymizes the record first,” and “Roles, timestamps, and the work itself are kept.” An RFI keeps “superintendent” and “architect” as roles, the question, the sketch, the answer and the nine days. It loses the names and the address.

A sample, read before the price. “Someone on the team reads the anonymized sample before Polyshares prices the record.” Anything still identifying, such as a job name on a drawing title block, goes back for another pass.

A bounded licence. “Defined systems, a defined term, and exclusive by default unless we agree otherwise. Nothing outside that scope is covered.” And buyers see “a code instead of your name.”

Our page on how de-identification works explains the general process.

What decides the price

Polyshares prices each company after reading the record. Here is what it publishes.

The range: its home page says “Typical deals run $100K to $2M and above” (indicative, not an offer). Its data licensing page lists deal size as “Typically $100K to $2M, paid by us to the company” (indicative, not an offer).

The deals: four published, among them the general contractor at $300,000 and a roofing company at $450,000 (indicative, not an offer). Polyshares does not publish the size of either company or how many years of records sat behind it, so neither predicts an offer.

What raises it, in Polyshares’ words: “Length of continuous operating history, because a record that spans years shows how judgment changed as conditions did.” A builder that bid through two downturns has that. “Visible disagreement and correction.” Rejected submittals and negotiated change orders are exactly that. “A specialized domain, because material from a trade with few written records is scarce.” And “clean rights.”

What caps it: “A short operating history.” Records “the company holds but does not own” are another, “since material governed by a client master agreement belongs to the client regardless of value.” And “material that is already public, published, scraped, or widely syndicated.” Public bid tabulations, for one, are already public.

Polyshares also says “Two records that look identical on an intake form can be worth very different numbers” on its deal page, and on its value page “The buyer decides the number after that review.” Our page on what decides the price goes through the general factors. How many closed projects, with their RFI logs and change orders intact, does your company hold?

Which programme fits

Polyshares’ programme on this site is for US companies with fewer than 30 people. Many residential builders, remodellers and specialty contractors are inside that line. Our page on the programme for 29 or fewer people explains it.

The estimate asks how many people work at the company. Count everyone on the payroll: office staff, estimators, project managers, superintendents and field crews. It names the programme that fits. A larger contractor, or one based outside the US, is pointed to the programme for it.

Polyshares says “The length and texture of the record matter more than headcount or revenue.” Headcount decides where you apply. Fifteen years of RFI logs decide the rest.

Law firms keep the same kind of matter-by-matter history, with client files where a builder has the owner’s drawings; see law firms. Accounting and tax firms share the habit of estimating work, then tracking how far the hours moved; see accounting and tax firms. Imaging and diagnostics centers run work orders and service records on costly equipment, much as a contractor runs a job file; see imaging and diagnostics centers.

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Questions and answers

Has Polyshares licensed a construction company’s records?

Yes. Polyshares’ case studies list a general contractor, in construction, at $300,000 (indicative, not an offer), under a perpetual exclusive licence anonymised before delivery. It does not publish how many years or projects sat behind it.

Do the architect’s drawings count?

Usually not as your own record; the contracts decide. Polyshares says its licence does not cover what you hold on behalf of your own clients, and that only the contracts separate the two.

Can we keep our bid pricing out?

Polyshares’ Procore guide says commitments, prime contract values and bid pricing can be left out by unchecking those tools when you run an extract. Scope is agreed in the licence before anything moves.

What about site photos with homeowners in them?

Polyshares’ CompanyCam guide says photos can show homeowners, faces and house numbers, and that your company decides which projects are included. Its PII partner removes identifying fields before Polyshares or any buyer sees the record.

Do we have to export Procore or Buildertrend to apply?

No. Polyshares says intake asks for record counts, not files or exports. Its guides say to count projects, RFIs, change orders and daily logs from the tools.

What does it cost the company?

Nothing. Polyshares says there is no fee and no commission, and that money moves one way, from Polyshares to the company. Polyshares pays TrustPast a referral fee; you pay us nothing.