Data Files samples / Builder

Kilnside Builders

Enquiries, site visits, quotes, contracts, stage payments, variations, retentions, job costs and the site diary for a small building firm.

Download 208 KB15 tables, 18 queries, 12 reports, 5 print templates and 7,978 invented records, dated back from 2026-10-22.

Rutba Data Files with Kilnside Builders, the builder sample, open at its print template Quotation: a page laid out with the business's own name and address at the head and one of its records filled in, beside the list of the database's tables and how many records each holds — Kilnside Builders in Rutba Data Files, made with its invented records and open at its print template Quotation.

Overview

Kilnside Builders is an invented building firm in Bristol with eleven people on its own books: a contracts manager who visits and prices the work, an office manager, two crews of three who build extensions and loft conversions, a joiner and an apprentice who refit kitchens and bathrooms, and a maintenance builder on repairs. Scaffolders, roofers, a steel fabricator, an electrician, a plumber, a plasterer, a tiler, a drainage firm and a damp specialist come in as subcontractors.

Every piece of work starts as an enquiry. The contracts manager visits, measures up and sends a quote set out in sections (preliminaries, groundworks, roof, finishes and so on), each line marked as labour, materials or subcontract, with a contingency for what cannot be seen. About a third of the bigger quotes are accepted. An accepted quote becomes a job with a contract, a start date given by when a crew is free, and stages: a deposit on signing, a payment as each stage is reached, and the last on completion. Changes agreed on site are variations, priced and signed before the work is done, and charged on the next stage invoice. Five percent of each stage payment is held back as retention and released when the defects period, three or six months, is over.

Every cost is charged to its job in the Job Ledger: each week's labour of the crew, every merchant's and subcontractor's invoice, and the skips. The contract sum and each agreed variation go in the same ledger as the job's value, so the profit on a job is the ledger added up. The crew keeps a site diary every working day: the weather, who was on site, what was done, anything that held the work up.

The records cover about eighteen months up to the morning the file is made, with more enquiries in the spring and fewer over Christmas, when the firm shuts. Visits, starts and stage payments are booked for the weeks ahead, some quotes are waiting for an answer, a variation is waiting for a signature, and a few clients and subcontractors are behind with what they owe or are owed.

In Rutba Data Files, choose Builder on the start screen, then With sample records to look around, or Empty for the same design with nothing in it.

It suits, with small changes

An extension and loft conversion builder
A kitchen and bathroom fitter
A roofing contractor
A landscaper or groundworks firm
A shopfitter or joinery contractor
An electrical or plumbing contractor working to contract
A property maintenance firm

Read on

Tutorial: the everyday tasks: 8 everyday tasks, step by step, each naming what to open.
Tables, fields and relationships: every field of 15 tables, and how they are related.
Queries, forms, reports and print templates: what each one shows, its criteria and calculated columns, and when to print it.

Things you should know

Everything in a sample's records is invented: the business, the people, their addresses, e-mail addresses on example domains that reach nobody, and phone numbers from the ranges kept for drama and fiction. Tax, company and bank numbers are placeholders of zeros.
The dates count back from the day the file was made, and some run on into the weeks after it, as real bookings and due dates do. Made from the Data Files start screen, a sample is dated from that day. Queries that compare with today (overdue, due this week) show more as a downloaded file gets older.
To start empty, choose the same business on the start screen and then Empty: the same tables, queries, forms, reports and print templates, with nothing in them but the Start Here guide.
Your records live in one file on your computer. Keep copies: File, Save As makes one, and a copy on another drive or in your own cloud storage keeps it safe if this computer is lost. Close the database before copying the file by hand.
Every change to the design (a new field, a renamed table) is a numbered step that Data Files keeps, so you can see what was changed and when.
Prices and amounts are before VAT throughout, and VAT is charged at the standard rate, 0.2, as it is on work to an existing home in the UK. New-build homes and some other work are charged at a different rate: change Tax Rate on those lines.
The contract sum includes a contingency, but the firm does not keep it: work found on site is charged as variations, and the whole contingency is credited back on the completion invoice. So a job's value is the contract sum, plus variations, less the contingency.
Retention is taken off every invoice except the deposit, and released with one invoice of Kind Retention once the defects period is over. Repairs have none.
The Job Ledger holds a job's value as well as its costs, so that the Job profit query can add them up in one go. Contract, Variation and Contingency entries are value; Labour, Materials, Plant and Subcontract are costs.
Labour is costed once a week, on Friday, from who was on site; this week's labour is not in the ledger until then. Office staff are not costed to jobs.
Stage amounts are worked out when the contract is signed and must add up to the contract sum. Variations do not change them: they are charged on their own lines.
Every record of a print template's table prints, so the Statement prints for every client and the Contract for every job. Choose the ones you want, or print the one on screen.
Document numbers run in date order with a new run each year. When you type a new one, look at the last number in that table and add one.

Starting with your own records

Start with Business: your firm's name, address, VAT number, bank details and payment terms, which every document prints. Then Staff with their crews and hourly costs, and Suppliers: your merchants, hire firms and subcontractors. Clients and Enquiries come in as people ring; Quotes and their lines follow the site visits; Jobs, their stages, invoices, variations, ledger entries and the site diary follow when a quote is accepted.

Making it yours

Every change to the design is a numbered step in Data Files, so a change can be seen and undone.

Hold retention on the deposit too, or release half of it at completion: add a second Retention invoice and change the contract's clause 6 to match.
Keep the subcontractors' own retention: add a Retention field to Job Ledger for what you hold back from them, and a query of what you owe them later.
Value work by applications for payment instead of fixed stages: add a Valuations table (job, date, value of work done) and invoice the difference from the last one.
Track plant and tools: add a Plant table and a Plant field to Job Ledger for hired or owned machines, with a day rate.
Record snags: add a Snags table pointing at Jobs, with what, when reported and when put right, and print it for the defects visit.
Work on new builds: give those lines a Tax Rate of nought, and add a Plot field to Jobs.
Plan the crews: add a Crew field to Jobs and a query of start and finish dates by crew to see who is free when.

Questions people ask

How do I print the contract for a new job?: Open Print templates, choose Contract, pick the job and press Print or Save as PDF. Its stage payments come from Job Stages, so add those first.
How much is a job really making?: Open the Job profit query for finished jobs, or Job costs to date for jobs on site. Both add up the Job Ledger: the value (contract, variations, contingency credited back) less labour, materials, plant and subcontract.
Why is the completion invoice smaller than the stage payment?: It credits back the contingency held in the contract sum, and takes off the retention. The variations agreed during the job are charged above those lines.
What is the difference between Finish Date and Completed On?: Finish Date is the date planned when the contract was signed. Completed On is the day the work was actually finished. The Site Diary usually says why they differ.
How do I see what we owe subcontractors?: Open the Subcontractors unpaid bills query, or print the Subcontractors to pay report before the payment run. Type Paid On in the Job Ledger as you pay.
Can I keep several sites for one client?: As it stands the address of the work is the client's address. Add Site Address, Site City and Site Postcode fields to Jobs for clients with more than one property, and print those in the Contract.
How do I start with my own firm?: Make the sample empty and fill in the Business record with your name, address, VAT number and bank details. Then add your Staff, your Suppliers and subcontractors, and take enquiries as they come.

Data Files is free

It comes with Rutba Office, with no account and no trial.

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