Sortly Alternative for Construction: How TrackStock and Sortly Compare for Contractors

VMI and CMI for distributors and their customers

Another major difference is who works from the data. Sortly is designed for one business tracking its own inventory. TrackStock is designed so a distributor and its contractor customer see the same quantities, usage, and orders.

In vendor managed inventory, the distributor owns the replenishment process. Their rep scans your jobsite conex, or the stock replenishes itself through sensors, and the order goes straight into the distributor’s ERP system. In customer managed inventory, your own team scans and orders, often from several suppliers in one app. Switching between the two is a setting, not a new implementation.

This matters on a jobsite because the distributor is usually the one bringing material in. Loeb Electric, an electrical distributor in central Ohio, uses TrackStock to keep five to seven days of inventory on every contractor jobsite and replenish it before crews run out.

Consignment inventory management on jobsites

Consignment is the next big difference. Many electrical and mechanical distributors will stage consigned material on a jobsite in a conex, trailer, or locked clamshell. The distributor keeps ownership, and the contractor is billed only for what crews actually pull. At project close, whatever is left goes back to the distributor instead of onto the contractor’s books.

That arrangement only works if usage is tracked accurately enough that both sides trust the bill. TrackStock is consignment inventory management software that tracks consigned and customer-owned stock separately, batches pulls into consolidated invoices, and records every pull against a job. M&L Electrical returns unused material to Graybar at the end of each project. In Jason Barron’s words: “Where eTurns has saved me the most money is that it lets me give my inventory back to my vendors at the end of every job because it provides accurate consignment usage reporting that my vendors and I can trust.”

Sortly’s published features do not include consignment tracking or billing. If you want the full picture of how a consigned jobsite runs from drop-off to closeout, we cover it in detail in our guide to how consigned jobsite inventory works for contractors [PLACEHOLDER URL].

Modern sensor technologies for tracking: weight scales, RFID, and electronic labels

QR scanning covers most jobsite use. For high-volume consumables or stockrooms nobody wants to count, TrackStock also supports three hands-free options. SensorBins use weight sensors that count inventory automatically and trigger a reorder when the bin drops below its minimum. RFID towers read tagged items as they leave. Electronic shelf labels let a crew request a reorder with one button press and show when it has shipped.

These are hardware add-ons rather than defaults, and most contractors start with scanning. Sortly’s published features do not include weight sensors, RFID readers, or electronic shelf labels.

Integrated ordering into supplier and ERP systems

With integrated ordering, replenishment orders land directly in the distributor’s ERP, so no one retypes a PO. TrackStock integrates with distributor and end customer ERPs via API or EDI and routes each item’s order to whichever supplier you assign. Loeb Electric reports that its ERP integration was completed in days.

Sortly’s integrations center on QuickBooks Online, Amazon Business, Slack, Microsoft Teams, webhooks, and an API, according to its G2 listing. Purchase orders can be sent to QuickBooks Online, which records them on your side, but nothing in Sortly’s published integrations sends the order into a distributor’s system for fulfillment.

What Users Say in Reviews

Sortly holds a 4.5 rating from more than 950 reviews on Capterra, with ease of use rated 4.6. The Sortly reviews below are from that page and reflect individual users’ experiences.

Where Sortly users are happiest

Reviewers consistently praise how quickly a team can get started. Photos on every item, a folder structure that mirrors real locations, and a mobile app that works offline come up again and again. A Vice President at a construction company who switched from Fishbowl said Sortly helped them “get control of our inventory and increase workflow in the field.” They noted they needed an app-based system for inventory spread across many East Coast locations. An inventory manager at another construction firm credited Sortly for acting on customer feedback and adding requested features.

Where reviewers hit limits as item counts and locations grow

The most common complaints cluster around pricing and scale. One long-time user titled their review around a 300% price increase after Sortly retired its legacy plans, and Sortly’s public response confirmed it had adjusted pricing after holding legacy rates for six years.

Construction reviewers raised operational limits too. A logistics manager at a construction company said features like custom reports and multi-user access sit in higher-priced tiers and that the mobile app can lag with a large inventory. The president of a small construction firm found the QuickBooks integration cumbersome because it only works one way and uploads one document at a time. An IT security manager summed up the pattern: Sortly performs well for core tracking, but reporting, integrations, and scalability limits show up as requirements grow.

What TrackStock users say

TrackStock, listed as eTurns on review sites, holds a 4.5 rating from 80 reviews on Capterra, with customer service rated 4.6 and ease of use 4.3. The same reviews appear on Software Advice, where 95% of reviewers gave four or five stars. On G2, TrackStock averages 4.2 across 43 reviews. The reviews go back more than a decade, from distributors running VMI programs to contractors managing jobsite stock.

Easy for crews to pick up. Construction teams that rolled TrackStock out recently say adoption in the field was quick. A repair service manager at a construction company said “training the team on how to pull items has been easy.” He added that the suggested orders feature has made reordering simpler. A service manager in construction said the pull and receive process makes new users easy to train. A construction reviewer whose crews keep stock on their trucks said month-end counts are now more streamlined.

Reordering in a few clicks. A warehousing reviewer liked that TrackStock flags low inventory, and then “it’s only a few clicks to get what you need ordered.” A construction reviewer summed up the payoff of usage data: “Better decisions equals efficiency and profit.”

Job-level tracking and billing. Contractors point to usage tied to jobs. A reviewer at a construction company valued being able to bill material against multiple jobs through work orders, and called the scanning “premier and easy to setup.” Another construction reviewer said the team can now track and charge for all inventory used. An inventory controller liked tracking materials by project against a budget that draws down as items are pulled.

Consignment and VMI programs that last. An account representative running a Graybar consignment trailer praised the ease of use and live, up-to-date information. In his words, “Everything is located just a click away.” In 2016, a supply chain director at distributor Gexpro Services wrote that TrackStock had managed its customers’ stockroom inventory for 10 years. An inside sales lead said it makes “consignment inventory run seamlessly.”

Support that picks up the phone. Customer service is TrackStock’s highest-rated category. One reviewer noted that the support team answers questions quickly and will walk you through a problem by phone.

Where reviewers want more. The most common criticisms are speed and appearance. Several reviewers mentioned slow loading with large item counts, and a few asked for a more modern interface. eTurns responded publicly in 2025 that it had made database and caching improvements to speed up the app.

How to Choose Between Them

Sortly is the better fit when…

• You mainly need to know what tools, equipment, and materials you own and where they are physically located

• Photos matter more than usage data or auto-replenishment, for example catalogs of samples, assets, or staging inventory

• You run a small number of locations and someone is happy to reorder manually from low stock alerts

• You buy from many retail sources and do not have a distributor relationship to connect to

TrackStock is the better fit when…

• You want to keep inventory levels optimized to avoid stockouts and overstock

• Your crews consume materials on jobsites, in conexes, or on trucks, and you need usage recorded by job

• You want replenishment orders sent to your distributor automatically, triggered by min/max settings, instead of reordering by hand

• Your distributor offers consigned material, or you want to ask for it

• You need job costing from actual pulls rather than from estimates

• You expect item counts and locations to grow and want pricing tied to stockrooms rather than item caps

If the second list sounds like your jobsites, our construction inventory management software page shows how contractors set up TrackStock across jobsites and trucks. You can also compare how much labor you would save by reviewing manual versus automated inventory management side by side. When you are ready, see TrackStock in action with a walkthrough built around your own jobsite setup.