Are you struggling to manage your projects, track bids, and log communications? Join us for a webinar to learn how Sage Construction Management can help you streamline your operations and maximize the efficiency of your company. This new solution was built to handle pre-construction, project management, and finances for construction companies large and small.
With Sage Construction Management, you can:
• Easily manage your leads and estimates from anywhere.
• Save time by handling the entire bid process all in one place.
• Improve profitability with project management and collaboration tools.
• Get robust functionality at an affordable price.
• Seamlessly integrate with existing tools.
Whether you’re a small contractor or a large construction firm, Sage Construction Management can help you achieve greater success.
Don’t miss out! Register for the webinar today and take the first step towards a more efficient and profitable business.
Are you struggling to manage your projects, track bids, and log communications? Join us for a webinar to learn how Sage Construction Management can help you streamline your operations and maximize the efficiency of your company. This new solution was built to handle pre-construction, project management, and finances for construction companies large and small.
With Sage Construction Management, you can:
• Easily manage your leads and estimates from anywhere.
• Save time by handling the entire bid process all in one place.
• Improve profitability with project management and collaboration tools.
• Get robust functionality at an affordable price.
• Seamlessly integrate with existing tools.
Whether you’re a small contractor or a large construction firm, Sage Construction Management can help you achieve greater success.
Don’t miss out! Register for the webinar today and take the first step towards a more efficient and profitable business.
Are you struggling to manage your projects, track bids, and log communications? Join us for a webinar to learn how Sage Construction Management can help you streamline your operations and maximize the efficiency of your company. This new solution was built to handle pre-construction, project management, and finances for construction companies large and small.
With Sage Construction Management, you can:
• Easily manage your leads and estimates from anywhere.
• Save time by handling the entire bid process all in one place.
• Improve profitability with project management and collaboration tools.
• Get robust functionality at an affordable price.
• Seamlessly integrate with existing tools.
Whether you’re a small contractor or a large construction firm, Sage Construction Management can help you achieve greater success.
Don’t miss out! Register for the webinar today and take the first step towards a more efficient and profitable business.
Why is real-time data so important in today’s construction industry?
In today’s fast-paced construction industry, a modern financial management system will almost always mean cloud-based financials. It’s tempting to put off change, to stay with the systems that your teams are comfortable with using. However, that approach may come with some risk. As systems become outdated, they require investment – time, money and skill – to maintain. Internal teams may not be connected and working with real-time information, management is unable to make decisions with accurate data.
To stay competitive, construction and real estate companies’ technology strategies are evolving. The real-time data trend has been studied by industry leaders, which is telling for the future. Forward-thinking businesses are architecting a modern technology strategy that includes cloud accounting financials. A recent Deloitte study discusses both these technology strategies and other construction industry trends to keep on your radar.
Here are my top three signs it’s time to move to cloud-based financials:
It’s hard to overstate the importance of real-time data access that you’ll find in cloud-based financials. One single source of truth gives people in the office and field the ability to view job costing, tools and equipment allocations and overall project status updates. Quick and easy reporting makes it much less likely that you’d miss warning signs that a project is losing money or going to take longer than projected.
Contractors who adopt a cloud-based platform that meets all their needs report that they immediately see improvements in workflows and communication. These forward-thinking business leaders have recognized the risk of delaying change and the advantages that a cloud financial system brings to their business.
Aktion Associates has teams of experts who understand the construction industry’s unique demands. We are ready to review your business needs and determine which cloud platform will fit you best. One popular and powerful choice among our customers is Sage Intacct Construction. Because Sage Intacct was born in the cloud, the accessibility and scalability are unrivaled in the construction industry.
Contact us today to begin your journey towards cloud-based financials, real-time data and position your company for growth.
Tracking the productivity of construction labor takes effort, but when it’s done right, the payoff for contractors is significant. Below you’ll learn more about how contractors gather and act on performance data to reap meaningful gains in profitability.
For many contractors, labor is the biggest cost. That is why so many construction owners devote the time and resources to measure the productivity of every type of labor that goes into a job.
How to Measure Labor Costs:
This will enable you to calculate team performance on each task. Having this data will help you in real time (on each current project), and in the future when you bid for and take on new jobs.
The Importance of Job Costing Visibility
On each project, job costing provides visibility into how labor productivity measures up to the estimated budget, and helps you identify areas that need attention. Here’s another real-time bonus to productivity tracking: when an unforeseen event occurs, such as a pandemic or disruptive weather, you have the data you need to make your case for a change order.
Once you have a storehouse of reliable productivity data, that data becomes an asset for every future project you bid on. Your data will inform every facet of your business. It will give you a benchmark for estimating, budgeting, and scheduling, as well as for performance-based bonus programs. Each step in the process relies on the prior one: estimating informs your budgeting, scheduling, and then labor on the job. Your data can make your bids more competitive – and insulate your profits.
In Summary
An investment in the right construction technology is step one in mastering how to track your labor productivity. If you have just recently started looking at your software options, Sage Intacct Construction software is a flexible financial management solution that adapts to your workflows and reporting requirements. This next-gen cloud platform gives you real-time visibility with built-in and adaptable dashboards, reports, graphs, and charts. Multidimensional reporting and dashboards provide faster and deeper insights into accounts, helping to save hours per month.
You can learn more about how to avoid unexpected cash flow issues by governing your spending against a budget here. Interested in learning more about using data to maximize your profitability, job after job? Take the first step by talking with Aktion Associates to find the best technology solution for your unique needs.
Today, most general contractors subcontract out up to 80-100% of their work. In a competitive bid, or design/build project, the race is to find qualified sub-trades that can cover the scope of work on projects. It’s not just dollar comparisons, but also “scope checking” the sub’s “quantities” of systems so you can qualify the validity of their “price.”
Here are some common examples of this:
How do you prepare your estimate, and “scope check” your subcontractors (subs)?
At Aktion Associates, we created a Divisions 1-48 specifications driven estimating database for Sage Estimating. Our estimating database has 4,653 Spec Sections as cost items, waiting for you to enter the price from “scoped checked” subs on bid day. Beyond Spec Section items, we also created 260 Scope Check items to check quantities, which are expandable.
Here is Aktion’s quick and easy process using our Division 1-48 Spec Section Database.
Grow your business with Aktion’s proven Specifications Estimating Database, paired with the most widely used estimating platform in the United States, Sage Estimating. This combination becomes the major difference between you and your competition. Best of all, Sage Estimating integrates with all Sage Construction Accounting products. With Aktion Associates, you get real fast, and real easy solutions that produce winning results.
Business Intelligence (BI) software provides a fact-based, real-time, singular version of the truth, empowering construction companies to build and maintain a competitive edge. Project managers who use BI have immediate access to critical information about their projects such as labor, scheduling, suppliers and detailed financials. BI software aggregates information from multiple data sources, transforming it into actionable insights that project managers can use to steer their projects towards success.
Time is critical to the success of construction projects, and delays usually translate into dollars. Project managers can use BI software to quickly analyze data and develop reports that lead to more strategic decisions. In the past, the analysis and reporting was likely managed by an IT department that was likely focused on more IT-centric needs of the business. The IT department can be a bottleneck and cause delays to the field, leaving project managers to make decisions on gut-feel or intuition rather than true intelligence. Intuitive BI puts the onus of data analysis and reporting into the hands of those in the field who need the data the most, and want to make quick decisions based on fact. Project managers use BI to decide how to prioritize project workflows, allocate labor, schedule equipment and supply deliveries, and manage costs and risks. The ability to use data and manage reporting for their areas of responsibility has tremendous impact on whether current and future projects are successful
Labor can be one of the biggest variables for construction projects. The better it can be managed and anticipated, the better chance project managers have of controlling their costs and turning a profit. The jobsite is traditionally a wide array of activity with contractors and subcontractors, and materials and equipment coming and going. Data is coming from all parts of the operations, and by aggregating and analyzing the information, project managers can quickly identify areas where labor can be reduced and or allocated to increase efficiencies, improve productivity and or drive completion. Project managers can also monitor the effectiveness of labor, whether it’s his or her own staff or contractors and subcontractors. Keeping and comparing labor with project timelines, supply and waste and other aspects of the jobsite can help project managers identify sources of labor that they will want to use on future projects.
BI can help project managers to identify problem areas and opportunities and make decisions that will refine their projects’ efficiencies. For example, nothing slows a project down faster than if the crews run out of supplies or if shipments are delayed. Project managers can use the data analytics to better understand when and how much materials need to be ordered and when to ask suppliers to deliver them. Ordering too much product can impact project budgets, while also creating challenges for how and where to store any excess. With better visibility into project data and workflows, a project manager can make better decisions on what suppliers to work with to keep things moving forward. Knowing supply ordering and delivering patterns, along with the best times, prices, and quantities to buy, also allows project managers to negotiate the best pricing tiers to increase profit margins and capitalize on every opportunity.
Executives can use BI to make decisions based on statistical facts. These facts can guide choices about future growth by evaluating a long-term view of the market and competition. Executives can use the data to help decide where to focus growth, how to streamline processes, identify productivity levels among staff and suppliers, monitor cash flow and project profitability, among other ways. While managers can use the actionable insights to determine the most effective strategies to improve individual projects, BI allows Executives to see the bigger picture, funneling all of the facts from across the portfolio of projects to make crucial operational decisions.
Business Intelligence offers a real-time picture of a project’s financial risk, cost variance, cash position, change orders, AR retainage, AP aging and profitability of the job. Top-notch BI allows project managers to drill all the way down to individual transactions to get instant answers to money-saving opportunities and cost concerns. By examining incoming and outgoing finances of the present and past, construction companies can make decisions based on future financial status. Breaking down costs by job give project managers the information that is relative to them. Customizing the BI dashboard allows project managers to track key performance indicators (KPIs) that enable effective financial oversight and management.
Aktion Analytics business intelligence for construction professionals makes it easier for project managers to access the information they need to better understand their project’s past and present performance in order to make the right decisions to increase the chances of success in the future. Companies will be better positioned to make successful strategic decisions when they analyze data and monitor critical business operations from a single source of truth.
To learn more about the value of business intelligence for your construction business, download this white paper.
More and more, construction companies are turning towards technology to streamline their operations instead of away from it. But being able to find the right fit for your needs requires a strategic approach to effectively implement and use that technology.
Here are three key tips for evaluating and selecting the kind of solutions that will meet and even exceed your construction company’s needs.
Designate a team
Identifying needs and wants takes a broad amount of participation across different departments and different levels. But you’ll also want to select a designated team that can systematically evaluate your options. These people will be charged with ensuring your technology investment is a good fit and will be embraced by the entire company as an effective and useful tool.
Make a “needs” list
The pain points are often well known amongst your team members but making a clear list of what you need is very important. Company leadership may want to get employee feedback to help develop this list, allowing them to feel a part of the process. It might sound simple, but clear goals make a significant difference in identifying what kind of technology you need. Instead of broad complaints, turn the pain points into specific objectives that can be achieved. Below you’ll find a few examples of ways to hone your pain points into needs for a legitimate solution.
Pain Point: Sharing reports with different people in my construction company is difficult to do.
Need: We need a way to quickly and easily share reports with multiple people in the company so that people have information needed to do their jobs.
Pain Point: The data I need is not available to people in the field.
Need: A mobile solution that can be used from anywhere would allow better collaboration among different departments.
Participate actively in the implementation
After your designated team makes recommendations and a decision is made, you still need to remain involved. Getting a solution implemented requires active participation. You will want to stay in close contact with the people at the solution provider you selected. There will be timelines, training and possibly occasions to adjust as needed when any roadblocks come up.
Strong planning leads to success, so approach this strategically. Once you’ve selected the solution or solutions needed, gone through training and implementation, your patience and hard will be apparent. Aktion supports a wide variety of technology options for the construction industry. When you’re ready to look at those choices, please reach out to us.
As we’ve seen increasingly lately, being able to work efficiently while also being mobile is critically important. As is the case with technology in general, the construction tech marketplace has seen an increased focus on the cloud. In particular solutions that are focused on collaboration and visibility into key financials. Being a long time Timberline / Sage partner, we’re excited to see the Sage Intacct product and offer it as a next generation option for the construction industry.
Sage Intacct sets itself apart from much of the competition. You get custom dashboards and reporting, streamlined access to your products and projects as well as a unique handling of multi-entity accounting. Many of our customers have multiple companies, and often those entities don’t communicate efficiently. We often hear how much customers appreciate the automation for financial consolidation activities and how it eliminates the manual processes. The inter-company eliminations are also automated to save time and smooth out the common multi-entity complexities.
Additionally, because Sage Intacct has an open API, you can connect to existing systems through a true cloud platform. This lets you integrate with the applications that are critical to your organization’s success in areas such as:
Sage Intacct is a cloud product that gives you the capability to see things real time from anywhere, with any device. So, your business grows, you’re truly able to take it to the next level. Technology continues to grow at an amazing pace. I’ve been in the business for quite a few years and I’ve seen many progressions and enhancements within the construction and real estate landscape. But with Sage Intacct, you get a true cloud solution that is constantly evolving with a best-of-breed approach.
