Cherry Roofing, a family-owned and operated business since 1954, has built their reputation on quality craftsmanship and customer service across both residential and commercial properties. Like a lot of businesses that have been around that long, they had developed some habits along the way, including a photo documentation process that wasn’t working anymore.
Jennifer Cole joined Cherry Roofing ten years ago as office manager. Her fiancé inherited the company after his father passed, and Jennifer came in with fresh eyes. What she saw on the documentation side was a workflow full of manual steps, lost photos, and wasted time — the kind of job process breakdown that’s easy to overlook when you’ve always done things the same way.
The Problem: Photos That Ended Up Everywhere Except the Right File
Before CompanyCam, getting job photos from the field to the right place was a multi-step process that regularly fell apart. A project manager would take photos on their phone at the job site, drive back to the office, find the pictures, print them out, and file them by hand. When it worked, it worked. When it didn’t, photos ended up in the wrong folders — or disappeared entirely.
The process created real problems for the office:
- No way to pull up a job’s full photo history quickly
- Printed photos that couldn’t be shared with clients or insurance carriers without extra steps
- Project managers spending time on filing instead of field work
- No central record anyone in the office could access in real time
Jennifer knew the company was leaving job site documentation on the table — not because the crew wasn’t taking photos, but because there was no system to make those photos useful once they were taken.
How Jennifer Found CompanyCam
The introduction came through a charity project. Jennifer was working alongside Lynne from Earl W. Johnston Roofing on a home improvement project for a single mom in need. She watched Lynne take photos during the project, then heard her say: “We’ll put these on CompanyCam and send you the link. You have CompanyCam, right?”
Jennifer had no idea what she was talking about. Lynne showed her the app on the spot, and Jennifer was sold immediately. The price was reasonable, the setup was straightforward, and it solved every problem she’d been trying to fix. She brought it back to Cherry Roofing and introduced it to the team.
Getting a 60-Year-Old Business on a New System
The biggest challenge wasn’t the technology — it was the habits. Cherry Roofing had been doing things the same way for decades, and change doesn’t come easy to a crew that’s been in the field for years. Some of the workers were apprehensive at first. Most were content with the existing system, even if it wasn’t working efficiently.
Jennifer pushed through it. Once the crew realized how simple the app was — no downloading, no printing, no filing — the resistance faded fast. Photos taken in the field appeared in CompanyCam instantly, organized by project, accessible from the office without anyone having to do anything extra. Within a short time, keeping the crew in the loop went from a daily struggle to something that happened automatically.
A useful reference for any office manager navigating a similar rollout is the quickstart guide for onboarding new users in CompanyCam — the faster you can get the crew comfortable, the faster the whole operation improves.
How CompanyCam Runs the Office Now
For Jennifer, CompanyCam didn’t just fix the photo problem — it became a tool for the whole operation. She uses it for things that have nothing to do with roofing photos. When she needed to catalog the fund and toll passes across all the company’s vehicles, she had someone go car to car taking photos in CompanyCam. Everything landed in one place, organized and accessible.
On the job side, the shareable gallery feature changed how Cherry Roofing communicates with clients. Jennifer can select specific photos from a project, build a gallery showing a repair from start to finish, and share it with a client or insurance carrier in seconds. Customers get a clear visual record of what was done and why — the kind of customer communication that builds trust and keeps disputes from starting in the first place. The share gallery feature is the one Jennifer relies on most, and she says her customers love it.
The Case for CompanyCam
Cherry Roofing has been in business since 1954. Changing how a company that old does things takes conviction — and Jennifer had it. She saw what CompanyCam could do, pushed through the resistance, and built it into the way the company operates.
Her advice for anyone still on the fence is delivered in the bluntest possible terms: “Stop it. Stop being stupid. Just pull the trigger. This is worth it.” Sixty years of history, and the documentation system that finally works is the one that fit in a phone.
