BidCraft Tile
BidCraftTile
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2026-08-09

Tools & Equipment is its own expense category now

Saws, rentals, blades and bits get their own line on a job instead of hiding inside your material cost.

That saw wasn't a material

Here's a thing that was quietly wrecking job numbers: you buy a $1,000 wet saw in the middle of a bathroom remodel, log the receipt, and the only sensible-looking category is Materials. Now that bathroom looks like it blew its material budget by a grand — and the margin you thought you earned on it is off by the same amount.

But you didn't buy that saw for the bathroom. You bought it for every job after it too.

So tools have their own category now: Tools & Equipment.

What goes in it

Anything you keep and use again. Wet saws, mixers, levels, a day's rental on a floor grinder. The wear parts count too — diamond blades, drill bits, polishing pads.

The rule of thumb: if you keep it, it's a tool. If it gets used up on this job, it's materials. Sponges, tape, buckets, cleaners — those still go in materials, because they're gone when the job's done.

Where you'll see it

  • Logging an expense — Tools & Equipment shows up in the category list whether you snap a photo, record a voice note, or type a memo.
  • Scanning receipts — Biddy now recognizes tool and rental purchases on its own and picks the category for you. As always, one tap changes it if it guessed wrong.
  • Predicted vs actual — there's a sixth Tools tile on the cost card, so tool spend sits in the open next to materials, labor, permit and dump.

Most jobs won't have anything predicted against tools — you don't usually quote a client for a saw. That's fine. The tile starts at zero and fills in as real purchases land. It's there to show you the spend, not to hold you to a budget you never set.

What hasn't changed

Tools still count toward the job's total cost. You did spend that money while this job was running, and pretending otherwise would be its own kind of lie. What's changed is that you can finally see it as its own number instead of digging for it inside your materials.

Splitting a tool's cost across all the jobs it serves is a bigger idea, and it's on the list.

Already logged some tool purchases as materials? Nothing moves on its own. Open the receipt, change the category, and it'll land on the new line.