Every trailer, machine and pooled tool gets its own QR tag. A crew member points the phone's own camera at it — no login, nothing to install — and one tap on a return time checks it out, with the job picked from where the phone is standing. When they are done they tap Back at the yard, Leaving it at the job, Extend or Hand it to someone. Every scan records where the machine was and who had it. In the office, Equipment lists every piece with where it is, who has it, when it is due back, what it is booked for next and whether a service is due. A board lays the machines against the next two weeks, Moves suggests hauling a machine straight from one jobsite to the next instead of back through the yard, and Demand reads the upcoming stages on your schedule — dirt work, trenching, septic, framing — and shows where you will be short. Bookings, check-outs and downtime also appear on the company calendar on their own.
Also called: equipment tracking · tool tracking · asset tracking · qr check out · trailer tracking · equipment check in check out · equipment scheduling · equipment calendar
Where everything is, on one list
Try itEvery trailer, machine and pooled tool on one screen: whether it's Available, Out, Overdue or Down, who has it, where it was last scanned and how long ago, when it's due back, what it's booked for next and whether a service is due. The header counts it for you — 11 pieces · 3 out · 1 overdue · 1 down. Nobody types any of it; it comes from the scans.
Finding a machine meant calling the foreman, who called the crew lead, who thought it was still at the last job.
The question the office asks ten times a day — where's the mini excavator, and who has it — is answered without a phone call.
Add a machine in a minute
Try itAdd equipment needs a name and a kind. The kind decides what it tracks — hours for a skid steer, mini excavator or lift, miles for a truck, nothing for a trailer or a laser level — so service plans can run off the meter. Identical items like two laser levels are one entry with a quantity, and an owning division decides whose managers hear when it's late. The QR tag exists the moment it's saved. Bookings and downtime then show on the company calendar without anyone entering them twice.
Asset-tracking setups that wanted twenty fields per machine never got past the first trailer.
Equipment tracking only starts if setting it up is quick, so the form asks for what the system can't work out.
One scan, one tap
Try itThe tag is a normal link, so the phone's own camera opens it. If the machine is free, the return-time buttons are the check-out — tap Tomorrow 5 PM and it's done. Someone with the crew app on their phone is known straight away; anyone else picks their name once and the phone remembers it.
The sign-out sheet on the shop wall was blank by Wednesday, and the trailer was somewhere in Wagoner.
Field people skip anything slower than just taking the trailer, so the honest way has to be the fastest way.
Hand-offs on the jobsite
Try itMachines change hands on site. Scan one that someone else has checked out and the page says who has it and when it's due back, with I've got it now — which takes it over, keeps their return time and logs the hand-off in Where it's been. If it's yours, Hand it to someone does the same from the other side. A crew member with our app is known straight away; anyone else taps their name once and the phone remembers it.
The office chased Gus for a skid steer that Wes had been running for two days.
The record has to follow the machine, not the first person who signed it out.
Location without tracking
Try itThe phone's location is read once, when the page opens, to say which job the machine is at. Nothing runs in the background and nobody's phone becomes a tracker. If location is off, the crew picks the job from a list. Each scan lands in the machine's Where it's been history, beside its QR tag, its bookings and its service plans; a location the office sets by hand says so.
A crew whose phones feel followed around stops opening the app, and the record goes blank.
The crew gets a record of where the machine is without anyone's phone being followed around.
The next two weeks on one board
Every machine is a row across the next fourteen days. Bookings are teal — lighter when tentative — a check-out is dark teal, red once it's overdue, and downtime for maintenance is hatched amber so nobody books a machine that's in the shop. Pooled items like two laser levels read 2/2 on a full day. A double booking is listed above the board the moment it's made.
Two crews were both told the skid steer was theirs on Tuesday.
The clash between two jobs is seen on the day it's booked, not on the morning the trailer is already gone.
Service off the hour meter
Try itEach machine can carry service plans that run every so many days, every so many hours on the meter, or both, and read OK, Soon or Due. Log a service records what was done, the hours and the cost, and resets the plan it completes. Put down for maintenance refuses new bookings, tells the crew on the scan page to ask the office first, and shows the downtime on the board and the calendar. The office hears when a plan is coming up or due — at most once a week per plan.
The skid steer's 250-hour service was two hundred hours overdue when the hydraulics went.
A missed service shows up later as a breakdown on a job day. Counting hours from the scans and the meter keeps it on the calendar instead.
Moves from the schedule you already keep
Try itBookings already say where machines are needed. When one job ends and the machine's next booking is at a different jobsite within two days, Moves turns the two into one direct haul — Coweta Sun → Bixby Mon · 15 mi · skips 2 yard trips. The miles are straight-line, so they're labelled as an estimate. Pick who hauls it, Plan move, and mark it Moved when it's there.
The skid steer came back to the yard on Friday and went out again on Monday to a job thirteen miles from where it had been.
Jobsites are often an hour or more from the yard, and a trip the schedule makes obvious shouldn't depend on someone noticing it.
What the next stages will need
Try itDemand reads the upcoming stages on your active jobs — dirt work, building pads, trenching, septic — and counts the machines they need, day by day, against what you own. A stage's own equipment list wins; otherwise it's guessed from the stage's name and marked Guessed from stage. A red day needs more than you own. Book puts a tentative booking on the first free machine, so timing stays flexible.
Three dirt-work stages landed in the same week, and the company owns two skid steers.
A shortage seen a week out is a rental or a moved stage; seen the morning of, it's a crew standing around.
- 1Add equipment with a name and a kind; it gets its own tag straight away. Two identical laser levels can be one entry with a quantity of 2.
- 2Print tags lays out a sheet of QR tags with the machine's name and a short code to read out if a tag gets scratched.
- 3The crew scans the tag with the phone camera. If it's free, tapping Today 5 PM, Tomorrow 5 PM or the end of its booking checks it out. The job is picked from the phone's location, read once at that moment and never tracked.
- 4If they have it: Back at the yard, Leaving it at the job, Extend (+1 day, +3 days or pick) or Hand it to someone. If someone else has it: I've got it now, which logs the hand-off.
- 5Reminders go to whoever has it two hours before it's due, at the due time and an hour late, each with a link to return or extend. Someone with no login gets them by text from the company's line. Twelve hours late, the managers of the division that owns it hear about it.
- 6The board shows bookings, check-outs and downtime for 14 days; a double booking turns the day red and a booking can be dragged to another day or machine.
- 7Moves spots a machine whose job ends close to its next booking at another jobsite and suggests the direct haul, with the straight-line miles and yard trips it saves. Plan move picks who hauls it.
- 8Demand turns upcoming schedule stages into the machines they need, day by day, against what you own. Book makes a tentative booking you confirm later.
- 9Put down for maintenance blocks new bookings, tells the crew to ask first, and shows the downtime on the calendar. Service plans run by days or hour meter.
Trailers, mini skids and machines move between jobs that are an hour or more apart, and the question "where is the dump trailer?" gets answered by phone calls. Tracking tools that need an app, a login and a form get used for a week. So the field side is one scan and one tap. The location comes from the phone at the moment of the scan — which is exact enough to say which job — and nothing tracks anybody in the background. Reminders carry their own Extend button, so keeping it longer is as easy as giving it back. The office side is built from things that already exist: bookings, scans and the schedule. That is what lets it suggest a direct jobsite-to-jobsite move, warn about a double booking, or see that two dirt jobs land on the same day with one skid steer — without anyone entering equipment twice.
- Equipment whose location lives in someone's memory
- Check-out sheets the field never fills in
- Double bookings found on the morning of the job
- Empty trips back to the yard between jobsites
- Machines needed by upcoming stages that nobody booked
- Services missed because nobody watched the hour meter
