In today’s competitive environment, running a construction company remains an increasingly complex and challenging task. You have to stay on top of many different aspects of the business, including finances, payroll, jobs, materials, and labor, to name a few. Each aspect is critical to your company’s well-being.
Savvier construction businesses that have turned to technology to help manage workflow realize that critical aspects of business—like accounting, project management, procurement, and operations—can be handled from a computer. With so many tasks contractors have to stay on top of nowadays, and limited personnel to handle them, turning to construction accounting software is a beneficial move. The idea behind construction accounting software is to alleviate front-office responsibilities by leveraging software that can handle it for you.
IMPLEMENTATION
Normally, when you purchase new computer software—even if you are not sure how it works—you simply install it and begin running it right away. A key distinction with construction accounting software is that users typically receive extensive training before the system is implemented. The date you actually begin using the software is called the “Go Live” date. Because the software has so many features and capabilities, it takes time to fully understand how to use it. Since the software will be handling critical jobs for your company—such as payroll—and since the company will be using the software to its full extent once the “Go Live” date is reached, extensive training before-hand is the best move.
There are plenty of benefits to using construction accounting software. Within the solution, each function is broken up into individual modules. The four major categories are: accounting, project management, operations, and procurement.
ACCOUNTING
One of the biggest advantages of construction accounting software is the actual accounting solutions. Critical tasks, such as payroll and accounts receivables and payables, can be automated and managed. The software can calculate employee pay and email paystubs directly to employees automatically. Data entered through all of the various other modules can accumulate into the job cost module. Users may opt to categorize their job costs by type of cost, such as labor, material, and equipment. In addition, the systems allow the costs to be broken down to the task itself, like concrete flatwork, to better analyze where they are on a job at any given moment. Users can enter the cost to complete a project before the job is finished.  All of these important business functions can be managed directly from right from your PC or mobile device.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
With construction accounting software, all pertinent information about any active job is easily available and located in a central repository. Additionally, the right accounting solution will enable organizations to: manage an address book of all the contacts needed for each project; quickly access the status of purchase orders, subcontracts, and change requests related to each job; review a cost inquiry with “drill down” to budgets and detail information; customize and generate transmittals, submittals, and RFI’s, and track them through the reporting logs available in project management.
OPERATIONS
What if you could predict your future workforce requirements? Well, you can do that and more with the software. Create labor forecasts to determine how many workers you will need for a job. Establish a database of skill sets that are required for certain projects and assign employees based on the skills and availability. Your long-range workforce can be changed into a daily schedule using labor classifications or specific employees. Keep track of which employees are available by producing a calendar that monitors employee availability.
PROCUREMENT
Efficient management of purchase orders keeps projects rolling. Leveraging construction accounting software, you can create P.O.’s that satisfy all methods of purchasing. Whether you are buying in lump sum, lot price, or detail, your solution should handle them all.
Construction accounting software also makes materials management fast, easy, and efficient. Enter your receipts into the software directly and receive via a packing slip or invoice receipt.
CASE STUDY: ALLEGHENY
Allegheny Contract adopted a time reporting mobile application over the past year. It allows the user to deploy a specific list of jobs, cost categories, employees, and equipment to specific mobile devices in the field. It also allows the foremen to enter the daily time for labor and equipment. All of the information is then uploaded into their construction accounting software for producing payroll and updating the job cost. Before adopting the mobile application, all of their time reporting was done by collecting manual time cards. The office employee would have to spend hours looking and sorting through them. Allegheny realized that this method could lead to inaccurate information and was time-consuming. The decision was made to improve their workflow by using a software solution.
TRY IT OUT
The amount of time and money you can save by implementing construction accounting software makes it a worthy investment. Rather than having to be responsible for so many different office functions, you can rely on the software to do it all for you, freeing you up to focus on the more important task of running your business. ■
About The Author: Eric Goldstein is the president of C/F Data Systems. With more than a quarter of a century of experience in the construction software arena, Eric has led C/F Data’s ongoing development of the company’s flagship solution, STRUCTURE.
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Modern Contractor Solutions, October 2015
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