A lot goes into knowing how to manage your construction business. Aside from learning about local zoning regulations, you also must be knowledgeable about accounting, new building techniques, and networking.
As a manager, you should also know how to handle the myriad of obstacles and novel situations you will find yourself in. However, many companies still prefer to do things manually, leading to miscommunication, scheduling conflicts, and an overall loss of productivity.
There are ways to mitigate these problems and make running projects smoother. Here are some ways to better gain control over your construction business using the latest technologies.
5 Ways to Gain Control Over Your Construction Business
1. Use estimation software to improve your margins
Construction work is costly and requires careful handling of finances. It would help if you scored good deals when sourcing your equipment, vehicles, and materials. Getting it right the first time is crucial because fixing mistakes adds more expense and can shrink your overall margins.
Acumatica ERP solutions can help solve these issues through its job costing module. It allows you to input labor, material, and equipment costs to help you more accurately estimate how much an entire project will cost and charge your clients accordingly.
Moreover, this data can be accessed by your employees from any device. They only need to make sure that they are connected to the internet to provide quick updates and keep project management and accounting in sync.
2. Improve your finances using accounting software
Handling finances is one of the most important parts of managing a construction project. Costs must be within estimates, and you need to pay your workers on time. You would want to ensure you’re still making a profit and have enough capital to make necessary adjustments.
You can utilize Acumatica ERP’s accounting and finance module to manage costs in real-time, track payroll for accurate payouts, calculate profit, and balance your revenue. It also includes support for other currencies and languages, making it helpful if you’re working on a project in another country.
3. Find and nurture customers with lead generation software and a CRM
Part of the challenge in maintaining your construction business is to have a steady stream of clients. Though not every client will be pleasant to work with, your goal should always be to complete a project with a satisfied client.
In addition, having a good reputation makes it easier to obtain more projects. You can cultivate this by showing up to the site on time, answering your client’s questions, and being careful in handling disputes.
Acumatica’s Customer Relationship Management software helps you nurture client relationships. Based on your criteria, you can automate marketing to different leads you’ve obtained through your website or trade shows.
Your customer service team can also utilize the software with templated responses to specific issues and monitor your previous communications with them across all channels. Having issues resolved fast is crucial in keeping your clients happy.
4. Manage your workforce better
A project can have several participants with different roles and responsibilities. Coordinating between suppliers, architects, and contractors can be tricky since each team has a lot of tasks. Productivity is the reason why many projects go over budget or getdelayed. Solving all of these little issues is time consuming.-
Software like Acumatica’s Daily Field Reports and Payroll modules help you manage your workforce better. Daily Field Reports ensure that everyone is receiving and reviewing the same information. These reports include any changes in the weather, progress updates, and if anyone visited the site.
The Payroll module supports multiple unions and packages, ensuring that your workers are paid on time and correctly.
5. Get a bird’s-eye view of every project using a project management platform
As the owner, you need to oversee every part of the project. Because you’re juggling so many teams, you may not have time to talk to your team leads all the time to get information. It would be best if you also were constantly working on the business and not in the weeds making sure everything is running smoothly.
A project management module is also available with Acumatica ERP. You’ll have access to all details of all tasks in real-time across all teams, giving you a bird’s-eye view of all changes, progress, issues, and costs from a single source of truth. Knowing everything going on will help you coordinate with each team and step in and resolve issues if necessary.
Avoid Problems with Acumatica’s ERP System
Technology has advanced so much that companies can integrate solutions into their processes to make things easier. However, many construction companies adopt new methods slowly, so this is your chance to avoid productivity problems and race ahead.
ERP software can help you immensely by giving you all the data you need in one place, calculating your finances, and even helping nurture your clients through CRM.
For construction companies in the Philippines, Acumatica’s local partner, Yondu, can help you fully integrate construction modules within your system. Apart from Acumatica, Yondu also develops customized construction management software to fit your business model and process.
Grow your construction business by scheduling a consultation with Yondu’s ERP experts today.
