JobTread Custom Fields: Capture the Data Your Business Actually Needs

Sound Familiar?

Signs you're missing data that JobTread custom fields could capture:

• You have a sense that kitchen and bath projects are more profitable than room additions, but you've never been able to confirm it from your job data
• You don't know which lead source — referral, Google, yard signs, Houzz — produces your best clients or your highest close rate
• You've wondered whether your repeat clients are more profitable than new clients, but can't pull a comparison report
• Your QuickBooks reports show company-level financials but you can't slice profitability by project type, neighborhood, or referral source
• When you sit down to review your pipeline in JobTread, you have no consistent way to see which leads are realistic versus wishful
• You've tried to answer "which sub produces the best results on this type of work?" but the data isn't captured anywhere

What We Found

What Custom Fields Are and What They're Built For

JobTread custom fields are additional data points you can attach to leads, projects, contacts, and cost items — data that the default JobTread fields don't capture. You create them in JobTread's settings, assign them to the relevant record type, and then fill them in as you work.

The reason they matter is reporting. JobTread's built-in reports run against the fields that exist in the system. When you create a custom field, it becomes a filterable, groupable dimension in your reports. That turns a single database of project records into a business intelligence tool — one that can answer "which project types are most profitable?" or "which lead source closes at the highest rate?" from your own real data.

Without custom fields, you can see everything that happened on each job. With custom fields, you can compare across jobs along the dimensions that matter for your business decisions. The difference between those two things is the difference between knowing what happened and understanding why — which is the difference between reactive management and deliberate growth.

Custom fields come in several formats in JobTread: dropdown lists (great for project type, lead source, neighborhood), text fields (for notes and qualifications), date fields, checkboxes, and number fields. For most reporting use cases, dropdown lists work best — they force consistent categorization rather than free-text variations that make reporting messy.

Here's what I mean by messy: if you use a free-text field for lead source and one entry says "Google," another says "google search," and another says "found us on google," those are three separate values in a report. A dropdown with "Google / Organic Search" as the standardized option keeps the data clean and the reports meaningful.

The Custom Fields That Actually Move the Needle

After setting up JobTread custom fields with builders across dozens of configurations, the fields that consistently produce the most useful business data fall into three areas: leads, projects, and contacts.

Lead Custom Fields

These are the fields you fill in when a new lead enters your pipeline:

• Lead Source (dropdown): Referral from past client | Referral from trade partner | Google / Organic | Google Ads | Houzz | Yard Sign | Angi/HomeAdvisor | Repeat Client | Other. This is the single most valuable custom field for most builders — it tells you where your best clients come from, which is where your marketing budget should go.
• Project Type (dropdown): Kitchen Remodel | Bathroom Remodel | Addition | New Construction | Whole House Renovation | Outdoor Living | Commercial. Categorize by the type that matches your service offerings. Filter your profitability reports by this field after 12 months of data and you will see a pattern.
• Budget Range (dropdown): Under $50K | $50K-$150K | $150K-$500K | $500K-$1M | Over $1M. Helps you see which budget range converts best and where your pipeline is concentrated.
• Referred By (text field or contact link): For referral leads, who referred them. This tells you who your most valuable referral sources are — information most builders don't have quantified.

Project Custom Fields

These are filled in when a lead converts to a signed project:

• Neighborhood / Area (dropdown): Your top 5-8 geographic areas. Useful for identifying where clusters of referral-generating work happen.
• Client Type (dropdown): First-time Client | Repeat Client. Repeat clients are often more profitable — fewer scoping calls, more trust, faster decisions. Confirming this from your data is worth knowing.
• Design-Build or Plans-Provided (dropdown): Did the client come with plans, or are you involved in design? This affects your pre-construction overhead and is a meaningful profitability variable.
• Financing Type (dropdown): Client financing | Construction loan | Cash. Relevant for payment schedule risk assessment.

Contact Custom Fields

These apply to your vendor and subcontractor contacts:

• Trade Type (dropdown): Framing | Electrical | Plumbing | HVAC | Roofing | etc. This enables filtering your vendor list by trade, which is useful when you're building a bid or looking for a coverage sub.
• Preferred Status (checkbox or dropdown): Preferred | Approved | On Hold. Separates your go-to subs from your backup list without creating separate folders.

Start with lead source, project type, and client type. Those three fields give you 80% of the business intelligence most builders are missing. Add others as you identify specific questions you want to answer from your data.

How to Set Up Custom Fields and Start Using the Reports

The setup process in JobTread is straightforward. Go to Company Settings, find Custom Fields, and create fields one at a time — selecting the record type (Lead, Project, Contact, Cost), the field name, and the field type (dropdown, text, date, number, checkbox). For dropdown fields, add your values when you create the field.

Two configuration tips that save headaches:

Keep dropdown lists tight. Start with 5-8 values per dropdown, not 15-20. More options mean more variation in how people use them, which degrades report quality. You can always add values later. You can't easily consolidate fragmented data retroactively.

Make critical fields required. For lead source and project type specifically, set the field as required on the lead or project record. If it's optional, it won't get filled in consistently — and inconsistently populated fields produce misleading reports. Required fields are filled in when the record is created, when the data is freshest and most accurate.

Once the fields are set up, you'll find them on each lead and project record in the "Custom Fields" section. In the first few weeks, the discipline is filling them in on every new record and backfilling them on recent open projects. Don't try to backfill more than 3-6 months — the older the data, the less reliable the categorization.

For reporting, use JobTread's Leads and Projects reports with the custom fields as grouping or filter dimensions. Filter your Job Profit Summary report by Project Type. Group your Leads report by Lead Source. Sort by close rate. These reports don't require custom setup — the custom fields become available as filter and group dimensions automatically once the data is populated.

What you're looking for after 6-12 months of consistent data: Which project type produces the best margin? Which lead source closes at the highest rate with the lowest cost? Which referral sources are sending you the most profitable projects? These are the questions that most builders answer with gut feel. Custom fields let you answer them from your own numbers — and the answers are frequently different from what the gut says.

One builder I worked with was convinced his Google Ads leads were his best clients because they called with large budgets. After 9 months of lead source data, his numbers showed that referral leads from past clients closed at 3x the rate of Google Ads leads, with 18% higher average project margins and fewer change order disputes. He shifted his marketing budget accordingly. That decision came from custom field data in JobTread. It wouldn't have been visible any other way.

Frequently Asked Questions