Measurement software for painters: capture room by room, deductions as their own lines, calculate straight away
Stairwell, third floor. Folding rule in one hand, phone in the other, and the numbers end up on the back of a delivery note: wall areas, ceiling area, and next to them the deductions — two doors, one window, the radiator. Back at the office that same slip gets typed up again, and on one of the figures nobody is quite sure whether it is a 7 or a 1. krafteq Handwerk is the measurement software for painting businesses in which the measurement is created where the measuring happens — room by room, in the trade's own units, with every deduction as its own line. From there it goes into the calculation and the quote without being retyped. krafteq Handwerk is standard software for trade businesses — not a project built for you from scratch. We are currently rolling it out with the first businesses: you test it free of charge, receive an individual offer afterwards, and we set up your business together with you.
The installation arrives with the units and line items of the painting trade — square metres, linear metres, pieces — not as an empty system.
Where you are nowDoes this sound like your painting business?
This page is for painting and decorating businesses with 5 to 50 employees where the measurement still starts on paper and ends in a spreadsheet. Six situations that keep coming up in the painting trade:
Measuring twice because the slip is no longer legible
The pad was in the footwell, the pen wrote on a damp page, and the ceiling area can only be guessed at. So either you drive back out or you estimate generously — and your margin is decided at exactly that point.
The deductions are only there as a total
Two doors, three windows, one radiator: deducted in your head, and only the result written on the slip. Three months later the customer asks how the square metres came about — and nobody can explain it any more.
The measurement spreadsheet is on the office computer
The journeyman is standing in the flat without it. So it gets noted down, photographed, sent by message and entered again at the office. Every stop along that chain is a place where a line goes missing.
After a change on site, nothing adds up any more
One wall becomes two, a room is added, an area disappears. If the measurement sits in one spreadsheet and the calculation in a second, every change has to be maintained in two places — or, in practice, only in one.
The program feels like one big spreadsheet
It can do a lot, but it jumps around: no clear sequence, no beginning, no end. Reviews of trades software contain one sentence that says it all — if you would rather go back to pen and paper afterwards, something is wrong.
The on-site licence costs extra
For the journeyman to be allowed to record the measurement at all, he needs his own account — and with plancraft that is a separately charged seat, with HERO an additional app licence (as of Aug 2026). Where that applies, digitalisation gets more expensive as the team grows.
Competitor price sources (regular prices, net, as of Aug 2026; promotions not included): plancraft price list, ToolTime price list, HERO price list
Try it freeFeaturesHow measurement works in krafteq Handwerk
Anyone looking for painter software for measurement and calculation is usually looking for one thing: that the figure from the site gets touched only once. That is exactly what the sequence is built around.
Measurement per room and per area
You capture wall and ceiling areas where they are measured — room by room, area by area, in the trade's own units: square metres, linear metres, pieces. No collective line item that nobody can later read a meaning out of.
Every deduction as its own line
Doors, windows, radiators, recesses: whatever is deducted is added as its own line, not as mental arithmetic. That keeps it traceable why the full wall area ended up as fewer square metres — with the customer, in a variations discussion, and on the final invoice.
Site work in the browser, no app store
The interface is a web application and runs on tablet and phone in the browser. Nothing to install, nothing to approve, no device management — the journeyman gets an account and gets going.
The site only sees what it needs
Office and site deliberately see different programs: the office has the full scope, the site a lean daily view with job, measurement, hours and receipts — no prices, no customer data, no settings. That scoping is enforced on the server, not merely hidden in the menu.
From measurement into the calculation, without transfer
The measurement hangs on the job. Areas become line items, and the calculation works with a real markup structure per cost type — material, labour, equipment, subcontracted work. Catalogue and supplier prices come in via Datanorm, and wage groups are pre-set for the painting trade.
Photos on the same record
Before and after photos, the site diary and defects hang on the same job as the measurement. When a question about an area comes up, the picture is right there instead of buried in a chat thread.
Changes in one place
If a room is added or an area drops out, you change the measurement and carry it into the scope of work again. There is no second spreadsheet to forget.
And the honest limits
The system does not measure for you: there is no laser coupling and no area recognition from a photo. You capture the dimensions, the system holds them properly, calculates with them and does not lose them. No stock control, no bookkeeping, no payroll, no portal for your customers.
How it runsFrom the room to the quote — without an evening at the kitchen table
The detour that costs time is not the measuring. It is the transfer afterwards. These three steps replace it.
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Capture on site
You walk the job room by room and enter the areas directly — on the tablet or the phone, in the browser. Deductions are added as their own lines, and photos attach to the same job.
The paper slip disappears — and with it the question of whether that is a 7 or a 1.
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Calculate instead of retyping
The measurement becomes line items in the units of the painting trade. The calculation works with markups per cost type, material prices come from the catalogue, labour from your own wage groups.
The same figure is touched once, not four times.
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Quote out, invoice later
The calculation becomes a quote with hierarchical line items. If it turns into a job, the interim and final invoices know the same line items — and the final invoice deducts the interim payments already made.
In private-customer work, whoever quotes first often gets the job.
Take a real measurement
We set up your test instance, configured for the painting trade. You measure a room from your next job, enter the deductions and see what arrives in the calculation. Usually within three working days, without a sales call.
- No subscription
- No sales call
- No obligation
The modelWhy bought instead of rented monthly
A measurement app is either used by the crew or not at all. So what decides is not only what it can do, but also what it costs as the business grows — and what happens when something does not fit.
One system instead of three
Paper on site, spreadsheet at the office, quote in a word processor: at every handover the same figure is touched again. One body of data from measurement to invoice makes those transfers unnecessary.
The software does not get more expensive when you hire
With the usual subscription vendors every site account costs extra, often with its own price list alongside the office licence. We bill per business, not per head — the accounts for your crew are included.
No price-increase email
Bought is bought: a perpetual right of use, no monthly rent, no contract renewal you overlook. And no feature that suddenly carries a surcharge mid-contract.
Your own installation — including inside your own network
Your own database, your own domain, your own configuration instead of a shared system. Operated by krafteq on servers in Germany, on your own server, or entirely inside your company network with no internet connection. Data export at any time.
And what if our measurement works differently?
Units, line-item structure, wage groups and print templates are settings, not a development project. And whatever still does not fit in the first few months, we fine-tune — that is included, and its scope is stated in your offer.
OrientationWhat exactly are you looking for?
Measurement is rarely the only topic. Four cases, and where they lead:
You want to understand first where the manual work sits in the sequence.
A detailed article on this is coming shortly — this page shows the mechanics from the paper slip to the finished quote in overview.
Try it freeThe measurement works, but the invoicing eats the time.
Interim payments, final invoice with deduction of payments made, e-invoicing, receivables and the export to your tax advisor — that is the sister page to this one.
See the invoicing software for paintersNot just the measurement — the whole business should sit in one system.
Measurement, calculation, photo documentation, time tracking, defects and invoicing on one record — with the terms and templates of the painting trade.
Painter software for painting and decorating businessesThe open question is rent or buy.
Perpetual licence, your own installation, operations as you choose and fine-tuning after go-live — the model in detail, without figures on the page.
Buy trades software instead of renting itFAQCommon questions about measurement
More than the measurement: the whole painting business in one system
Measurement, calculation, photo documentation, time tracking, defects and invoicing on one record — with the terms, units and templates of the painting trade, in a dedicated installation for your business.
See the painter software for painting and decorating businessesWould you rather talk first?
Book a 30 to 60 minute first call. You describe how your measurement works today — who measures, who retypes, where it snags. We give you an honest assessment, even if the answer is that your spreadsheet is still enough. No sales pitch, no obligation.
- No sales call
- No obligation
- 30–60 minutes