PermitSimplified · All Trades edition · for building departments
Every trade that needs a permit. One file.
A new building is one project and a dozen submittals: architectural, structural, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, sprinklers, alarm, site and civil. PermitSimplified All Trades reviews each one as its own section — its own examiner, its own permit, its own fee line — inside one file the applicant, the contractors and the department all read the same way.
- Configured to your code editions
- Unlimited users
- Self-certified inspections
- Building — architecturalCBC 14B · A- and S- seriesExaminer Ruiz · Cycle 2Approved
- ElectricalNFPA 70 · E- seriesExaminer Patel · Cycle 14 comments
- Mechanical / HVACIMC · M- seriesExaminer Okoye · Cycle 1In review
- PlumbingIL Plumbing Code · P- seriesExaminer Okoye · Cycle 2Approved
- Automatic sprinklerNFPA 13 · 14 · 20 · FP- seriesFire Prevention · Cycle 1Approved
- Site & civilMWRD WMO · C- seriesExaminer Lind · Cycle 11 comment
Fees assessed per trade · $14,260 invoiced · Permit issues per trade as each section approves
The trade register
Configured once. Every trade declared in one place.
Each trade knows the code family it is held to, the sheet series its drawings number into, the documents that must ride with it, the inspections it raises and the quantities its fee is assessed on. Scopes that are drawn as one set — sprinklers with standpipes and the pump, plumbing with water, waste and gas — stay on one submittal as parts.
Building
1 trade · 5 parts
- ArchitecturalCBC 14B
- StructuralCh. 16
- AccessibilityIAC / ADA
- Energy conservationIECC
- Exterior wall & facadeCh. 14
Trades
5 trades · 12 parts
- ElectricalNFPA 70
- Mechanical / HVACIMC
- PlumbingIPC / IFGC
- Elevator & conveyanceASME A17.1
- Solar PV & storageArt. 690/706
Fire & life safety
5 trades · 4 parts
- Automatic sprinklerNFPA 13/14/20
- Fire alarm / detectionNFPA 72
- Kitchen suppressionNFPA 96/17A
- Clean agentNFPA 2001
- Smoke controlNFPA 92
Site & civil
4 trades · 4 parts
- Site & civil engineeringCh. 18 / MWRD
- Excavation, shoring & caissonsCh. 18
- Demolition / wreckingMCOC 13-32
- Public way useMCOC 10-20
Minor works
Over the counter
- SignsZoning
- Reroof, windows, fencesExpress permits, no plan review
- Repairs & replacementsSame-day issuance
Your register will not look exactly like this one — this is Chicago's. Trades, parts, code editions, sheet series and fee bases are configuration, edited by your own administrators. Adding a trade later is a setting, not a project.
How it works
Choosing the permit type is the whole question.
A new house and a reroof are not the same conversation at the counter. The applicant picks a permit type; the type decides which trades are asked for, which documents are required, which inspections will follow and what the review clock is.
1 · Intake
The type sets the scope
Occupancy asked once. The permit type lists the trades and the documents. Incomplete packages are turned away before they reach an examiner.
2 · Review
Each trade, its own examiner
Comments pinned to the sheet and tied to the code section. Every trade runs its own cycle and its own clock; one late trade does not hold the others.
3 · Fees & permit
Assessed per trade, issued per trade
Fees calculated on each trade's own basis — square footage, fixtures, amperage, tonnage. The permit for a section issues the moment that section approves.
4 · Inspections
Witnessed or self-certified
Rough-ins, tests and finals raised by the trade. Where your department allows it, licensed contractors certify tests and file the record; the inspector verifies by exception.
The platform
What a building department gets.
Permit types with their own schedules
A reroof is over the counter; a new building is a full review. Each type carries its trades, documents, inspections and review clock. The department sets them; nobody codes them.
Trade-by-trade plan review
Separate review sections, examiners and comment libraries per trade, on one drawing set. Resubmittal cycles tracked per section, so a council report can say exactly where time went.
Fee schedule and estimator
Published fees applicants can estimate before they file. Bases per trade — area, valuation, fixtures, circuits, tonnage — with the schedule editable by the department.
Self-certified inspections
Duct leakage, insulation resistance, generator load tests, pressure tests: the licensed contractor files the test record; the step cannot pass without it. Witnessed mode is a switch.
Invoices, payments and close-out
Fee lines per trade on one invoice; payments recorded against them; permits closed as completed or lapsed with the record kept. Technology fee pass-through if your ordinance allows it.
Every side signs in
Applicants, architects, the general contractor and each trade contractor see the same file and only the sections that are theirs. Nobody on the applicant side pays a licence fee.
Fire prevention · Plan review · Inspections
Know where every fire permit stands.
Permit Simplified is the plan review, permitting and inspection platform for fire prevention — run by the fire department in some cities and the building department in others. Drawings in, comments out, inspections booked, permits closed out — one record, one clock, and an answer before anyone picks up the phone.
- Configurable to your code
- Your disciplines, your fees
- Personalized to your city
AnytownOverviewDashboard Deadlines 15PipelineIntake 8Under review 9Revisions out 3Re-review 3InspectionsSchedule Inspector app
Drawings, comments, documents, fees, inspections and correspondence on a single permit record — not scattered across email, a shared drive and a spreadsheet.
Your reviewers and the contractor work the same record from opposite sides. Nobody asks for a status update, because the status is on the screen.
Submittal to stamped approval to closed-out permit without printing, mailing or re-keying anything into a second system.
Every decision carries who made it, when, and against which code section — an activity log built for FOIA requests and appeals.
The problem
Fire plan review is the bottleneck nobody budgeted for.
Most permitting moved online years ago. Fire review is usually the part that did not — a high-liability, high-volume workload still running on email, a shared drive and a spreadsheet of due dates, wherever in the city it happens to sit.
The clock is invisible
A plan sits for six weeks and nobody knows whether it was your reviewers or the contractor holding it. Without a per-stage clock you cannot defend your turnaround, staff to demand, or answer a council member.
Comments go out as prose
Corrections written into an email lose the code section and the sheet they refer to. Contractors guess, resubmit wrong, and the file goes round again — each round costing a second review.
Inspections live in a different world
The permit is in one system, the inspection calendar in another, and the field result on a paper card. Nothing closes the loop back to the permit that authorized the work.
The platform
One system, from submittal to closed-out permit.
Not a document portal bolted to a filing system. A working surface for the people who actually review the drawings, write the comments and attend the tests.
Intake that rejects incomplete packages before they reach an examiner
The submittal form knows what each discipline requires. A sprinkler package cannot be filed without hydraulic calculations and a water flow test; an alarm package cannot be filed without battery calculations. Sheets are indexed on the way in, so the examiner opens a numbered set, not a pile of PDFs.
- Discipline-aware requirements — the checklist is generated from what the drawings cover
- Sheet register — every sheet the file has ever held, and the revision it stood at
- Contractor registration gate — only firms in good standing can file
Signed calculation sheet with the remote area shown
Witnessed within 12 months of submittal
Heads, valves, devices and panels as specified
Review comments pinned to the sheet and tied to the code
Examiners mark up the drawing where the problem is, choose the section from your comment library, and the correction letter writes itself. The contractor answers each item in place; the examiner accepts the correction against a named revision or sends it back. No item closes without a reason on the record.
- Standard comment library — your own citations, edited by your own administrators
- Revision comparison — see what changed between cycles rather than re-reading the set
- Generated correction letters — on letterhead, with every open item and its citation
Sheet FP-101 · NFPA 13 (2022) 8.6.2.2.1
Sheet FP-501 · NFPA 14 (2019) 7.3.2
Inspections booked, attended and recorded against the permit
When the permit issues, its inspections open with it. Contractors request a half-hour slot from your own calendar; your office confirms, blocks out holidays and training days, and books over the counter when someone calls. Inspectors work from a field view with the approved drawings, and record a pass, pass-with-conditions or a numbered list of deficiencies that the contractor must tick off before rebooking.
- Real capacity — slots, closures and inspector loads, not a request inbox
- Deficiency loop — each item cleared individually at the re-inspection
- Witnessed or certified — attend the test, or accept a signed certificate. Your call
2515 N Clark St · 11:00 AM–11:30 AM · confirmed
1846 W Grand Ave · 1:00 PM–1:30 PM
Fees, permits and the numbers your council asks for
Approval raises an invoice from your fee schedule and holds the permit until it clears. Then the analytics answer the questions you are actually asked: how much came in, how much went out, and whose days the cycle time belongs to — your office's or the applicant's.
- Your fee schedule — per-head, per-device, per-valuation or flat, verified before billing
- Where the days go — the median cycle split by the stage that consumed it
- Year over year — filed, approved, issued and closed out, by month or by year
28 days end to end — 24 on your clock, 4 waiting on the applicant.
- Intake 1d
- Under review 19d
- With applicant 4d
- Re-review 4d
Personalized to your city
Your city's process — not ours, and not somebody else's.
No two departments review the same way. We personalize the platform to how yours already works, and from then on it is yours to adjust — set in your own settings screen by your own administrators, without a change order and without waiting on us.
The systems you review
Switch disciplines on and off — sprinkler, standpipe, fire pump, alarm, kitchen suppression, clean agent, smoke control, high-piled storage. A discipline you do not take simply stops being offered.
The documents you require
Decide which documents each discipline demands at intake. Tick fire alarm on the water flow test and every alarm submittal starts asking for one, on both sides of the counter.
The inspections you open
Choose which inspections a permit raises and which systems each applies to. Attend them, or accept a contractor-certified test certificate — the platform runs either way.
Your code and your comments
Load your municipal code sections and adopted standards into the comment library. Administrators add, edit and retire citations; edits follow through onto letters already issued.
Your fees and targets
Your fee schedule, your review target, your lapse rule, your working days, your holidays and closures. The clocks and the invoices follow from those settings.
Your seal on every page
Department name, seal and letterhead across the portal, correction letters, permits, invoices and inspection reports. Applicants see your city, not a vendor.
Both sides of the counter
The applicant portal is not an afterthought.
Every hour your counter spends answering "where is my permit" is an hour not spent reviewing. Applicants get their own view of the same record: what is open, what is owed, what is booked, and exactly which comment is holding the file.
- Company accounts with named contacts for drawings, site, billing and correspondence
- Registration and renewal — insurance, bonds and licenses tracked against your own requirements
- Self-service scheduling, optional — bookings arrive for confirmation rather than being final
Fulton Market Cold Storage · 1 still without a response
Permit 100996780 is held until fees clear
All earlier inspections passed
Security and governance
Built to survive a records request and a security review.
A plan review file is a regulatory record. It has to hold up in an appeal, a FOIA response and a procurement questionnaire.
- Role-based permissions
Positions decide what a person can be given: only plan review roles receive files, only field roles can be put on an inspection, only administrators change settings.
- Immutable activity log
Every action carries an actor, a timestamp and a reason. Approvals, denials, waivers and reassignments are recorded, not overwritten.
- Encrypted in transit and at rest
TLS 1.2+ throughout, AES-256 at rest, with regional data residency available for jurisdictions that require it.
- Records retention and export
Your data stays yours. Full export of files, drawings, letters and logs on demand, and on exit — no hostage clause.
- Accessibility
Designed against WCAG 2.1 AA — keyboard navigable, screen-reader labeled, and legible on a phone at the job site.
- Procurement-ready
Security questionnaires, insurance certificates, SLA and reference architecture supplied for your RFP or sole-source justification.
Full security documentation, insurance certificates and our reference architecture are available on request for your RFP or security review — write to security@permitsimplified.com.
Implementation
Live in a quarter, not a fiscal year.
There is no data migration marathon, because the platform starts from your settings rather than your legacy schema. Most of the work is deciding how you already do things and writing it down.
Configure
We sit with whoever runs plan review and set the disciplines, required documents, inspections, fee schedule, targets and holidays.
Weeks 1–2Load your code
Your municipal sections and adopted standards go into the comment library, along with your letterhead, seal and permit formats.
Weeks 2–4Pilot
One discipline, a handful of registered contractors, running alongside your current process until your reviewers trust it.
Weeks 4–8Open the counter
Registration opens to every firm, the remaining disciplines switch on, and the old intake closes behind you.
Weeks 8–12
Why we built it
Nobody's turnaround is slow because a permit was hard to print. It is slow because the review lost the thread — a comment nobody answered, a revision nobody compared, a day nobody could account for.
Disciplines, referenced standards, witnessed tests and per-head fees are the shape of the product rather than fields configured into a generic form — the detail a fire review turns on, present by default.
Written with a working plan review counter's process in front of us — the markup, the correction letter, the re-inspection, the invoice that holds the permit. Every screen is a job somebody actually does.
The settings that decide how review works belong to your administrators. We would rather you changed the process yourself on a Tuesday than waited a quarter for us to do it.
Questions
What procurement always asks.
How does this fit with the permitting system we already have?
We have adopted a different edition of the code. Is that a problem?
We do not attend hydrostatic tests — the contractor certifies them.
What does the contractor have to pay or install?
Who owns the data?
How is it priced?
Book a demo
See it running as your department, not ours.
Send us your disciplines and your fee schedule before the call and we will configure a working instance in your city's name. Thirty minutes, your own process on the screen, no slideware.
- Configured demo, not a canned one
- Bring your reviewers
- No obligation
Or reach us directly
- Demos, questions and solicitationssales@permitsimplified.com
- Security questionnairessecurity@permitsimplified.com
Working on an RFP or a sole-source justification? Send it to the first address and we will respond in your format.