How to Automate PermitFlow

Nothing on the site starts until the jurisdiction says yes

PermitFlow is permitting software for construction. It holds the permit side of a project: what the authority having jurisdiction requires, the forms and drawings that go in, the corrections that come back from plan review, the issued permit, and the inspections and closeout that follow. Commercial contractors, home builders, developers and architects use it, and so do home services firms running solar, roofing and HVAC across a lot of small cities at once.

It exists because permitting is not one process. Every city, county and building department writes its own forms, sets its own fees, runs its own portal and holds its own opinion about what a complete submittal looks like. A company working three counties learns three sets of rules. One working thirty is running a research department whether it meant to or not.

So the permit file quietly becomes the schedule. Crews, subcontractors, a client's move-in date and the next draw on the loan sit behind one line nobody in the company controls.

The permit desk spends its day asking other people for a date

Filing is the short part. An afternoon, once the package is together. The work is what happens in the weeks either side of it.

A submittal goes in and nothing happens for eleven days, and somebody has to decide whether that is normal for the department or whether the application is sitting in a queue it should have left. Plan review comes back with corrections, which starts a clock on a resubmittal the design team has not been told about. A fee goes unpaid because the notice went to an address nobody reads. A permit issues on a Tuesday and the crew hears on Thursday.

Then the asking. The superintendent wants to know whether he can pour this week. The client wants a date. The scheduler wants to release a subcontractor. All three ask the same coordinator, who answers by opening the file and reading it out.

PermitFlow

Stalled submittals chased on day eleven Every application sitting longer than that department normally takes, listed by jurisdiction each morning, while there is still a review cycle left to save.

The approvals no building department issues Utility service applications, interconnection queues and architectural committee reviews read on their own sites and set beside the permit for the same address.

A sub's paperwork checked before he is scheduled Subcontractor licences, bonds and certificates of insurance verified on the state board and the carrier, not on whatever copy is in the folder.

PermitFlow's own agents already work the AHJ portals

PermitFlow is not a filing cabinet that waits to be updated. It is built around agents that go and do the outside work themselves.

The Intake Agent pulls project details out of a CRM, files and contracts to start a permit. The Research Agent confirms requirements, fees and timelines against PermitFlow's own database and the AHJ's portal. The Submission Agent completes forms, attaches documents and files with the jurisdiction, and the Coordination Agent tracks updates, captures comments and follows up. License Management does the same job for a contractor's own licences and registrations, sorted by authority and expiry, with renewal alerts. A company still tracking any of that on a shared spreadsheet should turn it on and stop reading here.

The boundary is the word permit. Those agents are pointed at building departments, and a construction job needs more approvals than a building department issues. The utility that has to energise the service, the architectural committee, the subcontractor whose own licence and certificate of insurance must be current before he can be scheduled: all real gates, and not one of them an AHJ.

An issued permit should reach the crew before the coordinator does

Read the permit file each morning, then go and check what is standing around it, and the answer reaches the person before the question does.

Every submittal sitting longer than that department normally takes, listed by jurisdiction each morning, so a stall gets chased on day eleven instead of noticed on day thirty. Correction comments set beside the design team's resubmittal date, so the city's clock and your architect's appear on one list. Utility service applications and interconnection queues read on the power company's own site against the building permit for the same address, because a solar install with a permit and no permission to operate is not finished.

Fees confirmed as paid on the jurisdiction's payment page, not as sent from your accounting system. Subcontractor licences, bonds and insurance certificates checked on the state board and the carrier before the sub goes onto next week's schedule. Overnight inspection results collected into the morning list, so a failure reaches the superintendent before he loads the truck.

And the outward half. Whoever is waiting on the date gets it without asking: the scheduler, the client, the lender's draw file, the app the crew actually opens.

Chasing a jurisdiction is not the same as arguing with one

A permit coordinator's morning goes on four jurisdiction websites, checking whether a status moved overnight. That is clerical work, currently done by the one person in the company who can hold their own with a plans examiner.

WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in as you. It opens PermitFlow, reads the projects and permits you point it at, then opens a utility's portal, a state licence register, a jurisdiction's payment page or your own scheduling tool, and writes what it found where the person waiting on it will look.

Reading and reporting run unattended on a schedule you set, and you can watch a run and stop it. Anything filed with a jurisdiction, paid or sent to a client is drafted and waits for the coordinator.

Each workflow below is built already, and every one names what it opens.