Building a Custom Photo App: A Smarter CompanyCam Alternative for Construction and Trades

If you're in construction, trades, or home services, you know how critical it is to efficiently document job progress and communicate with your team and clients. While apps like CompanyCam offer convenient photo documentation and reporting tools, they can quickly become costly and cumbersome as your team grows and your tech stack expands. That’s why building your own custom photo app tailored to your business workflow can be a game changer.

In this article, I’ll walk you through how you can create a flexible, scalable photo documentation system using no-code tools like Glide. This approach not only mimics the core functionality of CompanyCam but integrates seamlessly with your existing processes—saving you time, money, and frustration.

Why Move Beyond CompanyCam?

CompanyCam is great for quickly capturing photos and generating reports, but there are two main reasons you might consider a companycam alternative:

1. Pricing scalability: The cost per user increases steeply once you have more than three users, which can add up to a hefty monthly fee for growing teams.

2. App stacking complexity: Most businesses juggle multiple apps for scheduling, estimating, photo management, and more. These tools often don’t integrate well, forcing you to switch between platforms and manually sync information.

Instead of forcing your business to fit into rigid software, why not build something custom that fits your unique workflow?

Building Your Custom Photo App with Glide

Glide is a no-code platform that lets you quickly build and configure mobile and web apps using spreadsheets as a backend. Although not specifically designed for construction, it’s a powerful tool for creating custom apps tailored to your needs.

When building a photo app with Glide, you can easily design interfaces for field workers and office staff alike. The mobile experience is streamlined for on-site use, while the web version keeps administrative users focused on essential data without clutter.

Organizing Jobs and Photos by Phase and Room

Imagine you’re managing a residential remodeling project. The first screen you see lists all your jobs. Clicking into a job reveals photos grouped by project phase—like foundation, framing, or finishing—or by room, whichever makes it easier for your team to navigate.

This flexible grouping lets you quickly find and add photos relevant to the current stage of work.

Tagging Photos and Adding Context On-Site

Adding photos is simple and smart. For example, if you’re on the foundation phase, you can add a foundation photo that’s automatically tagged with the phase and job details. You can also add additional tags like the specific room.

On your phone, tapping to add a photo opens the camera or lets you upload from your camera roll. You can even record voice notes that get automatically transcribed and attached to the photo. This is perfect for capturing quick observations, such as:

GPS coordinates are also captured automatically, so you know exactly where each photo was taken.

Viewing Photos with Detailed Metadata and Before/After Comparisons

Each photo entry shows key info like date/time, tags, notes, and GPS location—often displayed on a map. For residential jobs, you can convert GPS coordinates into addresses for easier reference.

Before and after images are easy to create too. You can attach an after photo to an existing before photo and use a slider to visually demonstrate progress or repairs.

Team members can add comments directly on photos, facilitating quick, contextual communication without endless back-and-forth emails or messages.

Tracking Photos Against Specific Tasks

Photos don’t have to exist in isolation. You can link them to specific tasks on your punch list or task list. When you add a task, it automatically records the date and allows custom fields to suit your workflow.

Photos, voice notes, GPS tags, and status updates can all be attached to a task, making it easy to monitor progress and issues in one place.

Automating Progress Reports to Save Time and Money

Generating reports manually is time-consuming and expensive. One roofing company we spoke to even pays a full-time admin just to compile photos and documentation into client reports using tools like Canva.

With a custom app, you can automate report creation. A single click generates a PDF progress report that includes photos, notes, dates, and project phases. The layout and information are fully configurable, so you can tailor reports to your clients or internal needs.

This automation frees up valuable time and reduces errors, letting your team focus on the work instead of paperwork.

Flexible Photo Storage Options: Control Your Data

One common question is where photos get stored. You can choose to store images directly within the app or use external document storage solutions like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Using cloud storage gives you full control over your data and prevents vendor lock-in. Folders and files can be automatically organized by job, phase, or room, making it easy to find what you need later without navigating complex app interfaces.

Final Thoughts

Building a custom photo documentation app tailored to your business processes offers tremendous benefits over off-the-shelf solutions like CompanyCam. You get more flexibility, better integration with your existing tools, and the ability to scale without breaking the bank.

By leveraging no-code platforms like Glide, you can create a powerful system that helps your team capture, organize, and report job site photos with ease—without writing a single line of code.

If you want to explore building a custom solution that fits your unique workflow, feel free to reach out for a free 30-minute consultation. Tailoring your tools to your business instead of forcing your business into software is the smartest way to work.