§01 HERO · SHARED FRAME - VARIANT STRINGS: H1 · EYEBROW · CRUMB
Factory
INDUSTRIES / STEEL FABRICATION

Steel fabrication software for custom fab shops

Every steel job is a drawing, a pile of material and a date to hit. Factory keeps all of it in one place, from the quote to the invoice, and shows what the job made.

Built for custom fab shops of 1 to 50 people High-mix, low-volume, make-to-order Live in weeks, priced for smaller shops
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See if Factory fits your shop.

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We'll call you within one business day for a quick five-minute chat.

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§02 IS THIS YOUR SHOP · SHARED - SELF-QUALIFY CHECKLIST
IS THIS YOUR SHOP

We built Factory for steel fabrication shops like yours.

Factory gets the plan out of pencil and onto one board the whole shop can see, the pricing out of your head, and the quoting done before you go home. Then it shows you what every job actually made, before the job is finished.

1 to 50 on the floor
No two jobs are the same
The schedule is a whiteboard or spreadsheet
Pricing is mostly done from memory
The floor is disconnected from the office
Quoting often happens after hours
What a job made is a guess until tax time
§04 HOW FACTORY HELPS · SPINE-BAND ANATOMY (MIRRORS PAGE 1 §SP) + ARROW BULLETS
QUOTE TO PAID

How Factory helps steel fabrication shops.

AN ENQUIRY LANDS MONEY IN THE BANK
QuotePriced off the drawing, at your own rates.
BOMs and Kits: build a parts list for this job only, or save one to reuse
Your price list: sections, welding and coating at your own rates
Purchase prices: costs automatically updated as supplier prices do
PlanFab, coating and install, laid out on one week.
Planner: site measures, fabrication and installs on one plan
Estimated hours: written on every fabrication, measure and install block
Drag and drop: move a measure, build or install to another day
TrackWhere every job is up to, from cut to site.
Workflow: track every job through job statuses you set up yourself
Checklists: your own steps on every job, ticked off by whoever did the work
Time tracking: attendance, plus hours worked against each job
Get paidBill it in stages, then see what it made.
Progress claims: bill a stage at a time, off the job
Online payments: customers pay by card, you get paid sooner
Accounting sync: flows to Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks
Profitability: see what each job actually made
§04b OLD WAY vs FACTORY · VARIANT SLOT - PRODUCTION PLAN SHEET vs PLANNER
FEATURE SPOTLIGHT PLANNER

In steel fabrication, the whole plan lives in pencil on one sheet on the wall.

Fabrication, measures and installs all end up on the same sheet, because that is the only place they fit together. Factory puts all three on one plan, scheduled against your crew and machines, with the estimated hours written on every block.

HOW IT WORKS NOW
Paper production plan on a steel shop wall, fabrication stages, materials and crew written in pencil
THE SAME THING IN FACTORY
Planner Search for orders... Resources Week
Sep 1 - 5
Mon
1
Tue
2
Wed
3
Thu
4
Fri
5
SITE MEASURE
7:00-11:00 AM Warehouse mezz Order #1042
8:00-12:00 PM Plant walkway Order #1057
FABRICATION
6:30-6:00 PM Mezz beams and columns Order #1042 · 62 h estimated
PO-4571 · drawings approved IBMKSM
6:30-2:00 PM Walkway handrail 24 h estimated
CNC PLASMA
All day Maintenance Service booked
BLAST & PAINT
7:00-3:00 PM Stair stringers and landings Order #1035 · 18 h estimated
Primer · topcoat gloss white TBMK
7:00-3:00 PM Mezz beams Satin black
INSTALL CREW
6:00-4:00 PM Plant handrail install Order #1031
Crane booked · 3 crew RLDC
All day Sick leave Dave C.
WHAT THE PLAN ON THE WALL COSTS YOU
Shop hours, measures and crews, none linked.
One change means re-planning weeks by hand.
No hours on it, so nothing shows what is already booked.
WHAT YOU GET WITH PLANNER
Fabrication, measures and installs on one plan.
Drag a job to another day and everyone sees the change.
Estimated hours behind every block.
THIS WEEK
Thursday
Warehouse mezz · fab
Northgate Rail · install
Coastal plate · coating
IT WORKS ON MOBILE TOO
Check the week from the ute.
Open the Planner on a phone, see what your crew has on today, and mark a job complete as it finishes. The office sees the week move without a phone call, and you are not the one holding it all together.
§04c SECOND SPOTLIGHT · MARKED-UP DRAWING vs CHECKLISTS · PHOTO IN
FEATURE SPOTLIGHT CHECKLISTS

A step gets missed, and nobody finds out until it is too late.

The steps live on a printed drawing next to the work, ticked in pen by whoever remembers. Factory puts the checklist on the job itself, applied from your own template, so every step carries the name of the person who did it and the time they ticked it.

HOW IT WORKS NOW
A printed shop drawing weighted down on a fabricated stair stringer, a hand-written tick list down the right margin: four steps ticked in pen, Galv still open and Paint crossed out with leave raw written beside it
THE SAME THING IN FACTORY
Order #76158 Northgate Rail FABRICATION Work order
Details Items Checklist Tracking Collaborate
Stringers and landings Template · Fab and coat 4 of 5
Cut to lengthDMMon 9:40 AM
Drill fixing holesDMMon 2:15 PM
Fit treads (temp)DMTue 1:05 PM
Check squarenessMKWed 8:50 AM
GalvaniseUP NEXT
Last ticked Wed 8:50 AM by MK Add step
WHAT THE MARKED-UP DRAWING COSTS YOU
The ticks sit on a drawing out in the shop.
No name and no time against any of them.
A missed step turns up after the steel is coated.
WHAT YOU GET WITH CHECKLISTS
Every step ticked, with a name and a time on it.
The same steps on every job, from your own template.
See what is left before you book the truck.
ORDER #76158
Northgate Rail
4 OF 5 DONE
Drill fixing holes
Fit treads (temp)
Check squareness
Galvanise
IT WORKS ON MOBILE TOO
Ticked on the floor, not written up later.
The person doing the work ticks the step off on their phone as they finish it, so nothing waits for someone to walk back to the office with a drawing.
§05 PROFITABILITY · SHARED - COPIED FROM THE LANDING PAGE, WORDED FOR FAB WORK
KNOW WHERE THE MONEY GOES

The jobs that lose you money look exactly like the ones that don't.

No two steel jobs are the same, so the only way to know a job made money is to watch the hours and the material go on it. Factory tracks estimated against actual across labour and materials as the work happens, so you see what a job is making while it's still on the floor - not months later at tax time.

Watch the quoted margin hold or slip before the job ships - estimated against actual on every one-off.
Margin broken down by labour and materials, so you can see which one ate the profit.
Price the next job from real numbers, not the last guess.
Profitability Order #76158 · Northgate Rail
You made $5,170 on this job - a 26% margin.
Over on cost $1,840 under your $7,010 estimated profit.
ESTIMATED
Cost $12,990
$7,010
35%
ACTUAL
Cost $14,830
GAP
$5,170
26%
CHARGED
$20,000
Fixed quote
COST
$14,830
+$1,840 over
PROFIT
$5,170
26% margin
Have a five minute chat with us → We will walk you through the numbers on the kind of jobs you build.
§07 PROOF · SHARED - COPIED FROM THE LANDING PAGE

What other fab shops say about us.

300+
shops run on Factory.
Hours
already booked on the week, instead of a plan you re-write in pencil.
"Factory allows me to create a work order, generate invoices, schedule deliveries, manage contacts, and notify customers all in one place."
- Academy Sheetmetal Academy Sheetmetal
"My husband, who is not technical at all, can actually jump in and do his own invoices - and now raves about it to all his mates."
- Mezcal FabricationMezcal Fabrication
"The list of things I love about Factory is long. It's helped us exponentially in our business."
- Balamara MechanicalBalamara Mechanical
"We've used it for a few years at my other business and found it seamless."
- EG RoofingEG Roofing
§03 FOUNDER STORY · SHARED - COPIED FROM THE LANDING PAGE
WHO YOU'RE BUYING FROM

We were in the same position you are.

We ran our own custom fab shop, and every tool out there was an enterprise ERP built for the big 5%, or made by people who never worked in the industry. Nothing fit shops like ours. So we built it ourselves - not just for our shop, but for every custom fab shop that's outgrown the spreadsheet but has no business buying an ERP.

"You're buying from a family that ran a fab shop for almost 50 years - and built the software it always needed."

ML Michael · ran our fab shop for 20+ yrs
The two of us, Paul and Michael - on our shop floor
§06 SET UP RIGHT · SHARED - SUMMARIZED FROM GETTING SET UP
SET UP RIGHT

A dedicated team gets you live, and stays until it's working.

Real people who've set up hundreds of fab shops. The heavy lifting is on us: we migrate your customers, suppliers, products and pricing, and build out your kits and BOMs, not dump it on your already busy crew.

4-6
WEEKS, START TO LIVE
01
WEEK 1
KICK-OFF & DATA
You're in from day one

You explore the platform while we import your customers, suppliers, products and pricing - and agree on the first problems it has to solve for you.

02
WEEKS 2-4
BUILD & TRAIN
We build it out and train your crew

Kits and BOMs built for you, then each person trained on what matters to their role - no one-size-fits-all.

03
WEEKS 4-6
GO LIVE
You go live on something real

Quotes with clear profitability, job statuses tracked, time on jobs, your accounting integrated and invoices getting paid.

ONGOING
WE KEEP GOING
Going live is the start, not the finish

No surprise bills, no being left on your own. We stay with you well past go-live.

The full story, session by session: how we get a shop set up.

§08 INTEGRATIONS · SHARED - COPIED FROM THE LANDING PAGE
INTEGRATIONS

Keep the books you already keep.

No switching, no double entry. Connect the accounting package you already run and let quotes, invoices, and payments flow straight through.

QuickBooks Online
Xero
MYOB
DEVELOPER API

Need something of your own? Build it.

Our API is open, so your team can connect Factory to the other tools your shop runs on.

Talk to us about the API →
§09 FAQ · SHARED - EXCEPT Q1 KEYWORD STRING (+ SCHEMA IN HEAD)
STRAIGHT ANSWERS

Questions steel shops ask

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§10 FINAL CTA · PAGE-SPECIFIC
WHERE EVERY JOB IS UP TO

Nobody should have to ring the floor to find out.

Every job's drawing, hours and ticked-off steps sit on the job itself, so the office and the floor are looking at the same thing. Bring the drawings for a job you have on now and we will set it up with you on the call.

See it on your own jobs →
ONE BUILD, THREE URLS
Variant-owned (swapped in this file): H1 + eyebrow + crumb, FAQ Q1 keyword, seo-config title + description + schema Q1.
Everything else is shared and inherited verbatim from Industries - Metal Fabrication v2.
THIS FILE: P3 /industries/steel-fabrication
Canonical: P2 /industries/metal-fabrication · sibling: P4 /industries/sheet-metal-fabrication