The following content is sponsored by Trimble Viewpoint.
With modernized job costing, construction teams can improve their productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Digital cloud-based construction management tools have opened the door to job costing that is highly connected and far more streamlined than conventional methods.
Benefits of Digital Construction Job Costing
Effective, efficient job costing allows construction companies to optimize their spending and budget more accurately. Conventional methods are time and resource intensive, leading to poor flexibility and little room for optimization. However, with modernized digital job costing tools, construction companies can conduct their processes much faster and easier and gain access to a wealth of new improvements — including access to real-time data and automated accounts receivable (A/R) billing.
The following are three major benefits to implementing a connected job costing system for your business.
1. More Accurate Job Costing
Accurate reporting means better project health. Job costing software gets rid of manual processes and automatically generates reports that reflect major cost categories with integrated data for accurate, easy-to-understand metrics. In other words, you’ll have a wealth of data that you can use on future projects; project leads are able to store digital information from previous projects’ job costing for future analysis. Additionally, high-end job costing programs even come with built-in data analysis features.
There are benefits higher up the company ladder, too. CFOs and project finance managers can use this data to make more precise, accurate project budgets in the future and gain insights into their spending patterns. For example, the job costing data collected from half a dozen projects might reveal that a particular supplier has been raising its prices for raw materials. Construction CFOs can use data and insights like this to optimize spending over the long term.
In fact, job costing software in a connected construction environment could even project the potential return on future projects. CFOs and project finance managers can use the data they have compiled on previous projects in their construction management software to generate an estimated return on investment (ROI) for future projects. Every CFO considers estimated ROIs when faced with a new task, but construction management software can provide the data and analytics tools to give a more precise estimate based on concrete information.
2. Secured, Real-Time Data in the Cloud
Not only are construction companies that use these programs for their accounting needs more connected between their office and field teams, they tend to be more productive, experience fewer setbacks and delays, and experience fewer data breaches. Cyberattacks that target critical business data can cripple operations for weeks or even months, and the construction industry is among the most targeted.
The cloud makes project data accessible to anyone in the company, so team members in the field can easily update job costing data in real time. Office team members can view this information immediately, even in a dispersed remote work scenario. Since everyone shares a common, up-to-date data set, cloud-based connected construction software minimizes the risk of confusion, errors, and rework.
3. Improved Visibility into Expenses
Job costing with a connected construction suite means contractors are able to easily automate updating records of their expenses, allowing project managers to quickly notice when costs seem to be expanding in one area or another. With this, construction job costing challenges can be caught earlier and corrections can be made more quickly.
With manual methods, project managers may potentially miss cost overruns — until it’s too late. The added efficiency of digital job costing lets construction companies respond to price fluctuations to stay on budget or adjust project plans.
Advancing With Modernized Job Costing
Construction companies can improve their productivity, efficiency, and ROIs by modernizing their job cost processes. Cloud-based construction management software is the ideal solution for unlocking the full potential of digital job costing, leading to more connected crews, more innovative operations, and a profitable project delivery.