» Ten must-have features of construction management software
The construction management software is created to make business processes like budget management, decision making, communication, etc. easier in the construction industry. These are done with the help of innovative and revolutionary facilities which reduce both time and usage of finances. So, let’s have a detailed study on the various features working together to make the construction management software a huge success.
1. Project tracking
This feature is essential to ensure that projects are completed on time and budget. You should be able to set milestones and task deadlines using visual dashboards and track project progress on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
A centralized dashboard system will help your general contractors and vendors stay on the same page with you, and get quick access to information such as assigned and completed/pending tasks, document updates, or any other changes to the schedule.
Project tracking is crucial for the early detection of issues and bottlenecks that might cause project delays down the road.
2. Materials and equipment tracking
This essential feature allows you to control and monitor all resources and materials that your suppliers deliver, as well as review quotes and payments. Thanks to this feature, you can keep better track of your own equipment and know for sure where it’s used, by whom, warranty expiration dates, repair needs, etc.
3. Invoicing and payroll
To invoice your contractors and vendors accurately, you need to make sure your timecard contains correct data and can be processed for payroll and extended to other projects. Therefore, a timesheet feature should be implemented and include various pay rates and different transaction activity types.
Also, sending accurate invoices is the backbone of a healthy vendor relationship and healthy project margins. Any out-of-scope work should be recorded, reported, and charged accordingly.
If deployed incorrectly, the invoicing feature will create havoc and roadblocks in your vendor relationship and cause a lot of arguments and disputes. Your ability to show an accurate log and invoice out-of-scope work properly will demonstrate to your partners your professionalism and commitment to quality and long-term cooperation.
All data collected via field mobility functionality provides a good foundation for rapid payroll processing. So, instead of collecting paper timesheets and punching numbers in accounting software, your vendors should be able to export timesheet data from their software directly to yours. This will also make your payroll process less prone to errors.
4. Project budget tracking
Your bespoke software should be able to provide you with insights into which projects give you higher margins and which projects you’d be better off not taking, as they only provide you with pain in the neck.
Budget tracking allows you to collate the data towards a project and track down the actual costs versus the budget.
5. Document management
Construction is a highly regulated sector, so it’s critical to comply with industry-wide and national rules and standards. If you, as a construction company, are going to work with government projects, you should have respective ISO accreditation. As part of the accreditation process, you have to prove that your workforce is competent enough to perform the assigned tasks. Keeping track of all certificates and licenses and their expiry dates, and keeping the Competency Matrix up to date is a daunting challenge.
A correctly implemented document management feature allows you to provide a real-time view of your Competency Matrix and send it straight to clients and/or contractors in a matter of minutes.
6. Job scheduling
When you’ve confirmed that your entire workforce is compliant with specific job requirements, you’re ready to assign employees and allocate equipment for successful job performance. A useful feature would be to add a scheduling calendar that would allow your operators and project managers to better collaborate with subcontractors and have better transparency into processes.
7. Bid management
If your annual revenue exceeds $25 million, you’ll most likely need a bid management functionality to manage subcontractors efficiently. With such a custom feature, you can perform several related tasks in one place. For instance, you can review documentation such as financial status, licenses or insurance that subcontractors submit during pre-qualification stages, compare bids from different subcontractors or verify them against specific criteria, etc.
8. Custom reports
The ability of companies in many industries to make use of the data they’re sitting on has been key to their business success and better efficiency. With the right reporting feature, you can collect and process real-time data in easy-to-digest custom reports, which will help you increase thin margins and improve safety procedures on site.
9. Custom checklists
Most construction sites today are still relying on clipboards and paper inspection forms. As such, a flexible form building wizard will help you reduce the paper clutter on-site and push data instantly to different devices for aggregation and visualization. No wonder that a digital form that notifies the right person when something needs to be done saves a lot of time and enables faster responses.
Custom checklists are essential when it comes to compliance verification (cybersecurity, health, and safety), incident reporting, equipment and people management, and more.
Digital forms can be used by your subcontractors and vendors to support their health and safety policies, plant maintenance, toolbox talks, change orders and inductions, etc.
10. Surety bonding
This is an important feature that is missing in the vast majority of ready-made construction management software solutions.
As a matter of fact, no contractor can do the job legally without being licensed and bonded. Bonding is typically a slow process, with approvals from paper-based bond applications taking ages.
Although many surety bond agencies have already begun offering bond applications or renewals online, off-the-shelf construction management software doesn’t yet provide a feature to handle this. As such, some of these agencies build their own bespoke software solutions to enable access to one’s bond and print it within 30 minutes of applying, which removes the burden off contractors who are on a tight schedule and who might have left their bond renewal for the very last minute.
Such functionality with a feature of sending out bond renewal reminders in advance would be helpful.
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