This article is sponsored by GCPay.
CFOs and finance leaders are the key to growing construction businesses. Their challenge is to drive expansion without proportionately increasing the number of employees.
For construction businesses, scaling operations means taking on more projects and greater workloads.
Unfortunately, much of the responsibility of managing additional work falls on you and your finance team. It’s up to finance leaders to navigate the increased complexity of managing more projects with limited staff. This added pressure can lead to bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and errors, making it harder for you to focus on strategic growth.
Despite these challenges, CFOs can get more done without adding headcount — as long as they’re equipped with automation and the right purpose-built tools. In fact, 86% of finance leaders already use automation to do more with less. Another 81% of CFOs state that automation frees them up to focus on high-value tasks, as revealed by a recent Sage report.
With CFOs going all in on automation, this article shares insights about why technology is key to scaling your finance operations. It also shares a checklist to help you choose the ideal automation tools for your business.
Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room: implementing technology is complex and disruptive. Even worse, it’s expensive. But is it worth it?
Is Technology an Investment or an Expense For Finance Teams?
Successful CFOs see technology as a strategic investment. This is why the vast majority are taking responsibility for leading digital transformation in their organizations, as shown by Gartner survey data.
Sure, technology takes time and money to implement, but many solutions prioritize user-friendliness, including being simple to use and easy to learn. This limits onboarding pains and helps you see faster return on investment (ROI) from tool adoption. Tools designed for construction, in particular, are designed for your exact use cases and workflows — making onboarding that much easier.
As we’ll explore, tools like automation speed up the back-office, reduce errors, and enhance data-driven decision-making. By sacrificing hours to learn new technology, you’ll gain days and eventually months back in productivity.
With so much to gain, the potential benefits far outweigh the initial investment. For an idea of what you could be saving, this Cost-Benefit Calculator can help you quickly work out how much you pay employees to perform repetitive tasks when processing pay applications.
While construction organizations already benefit from technology — think 3D modeling and project management tools — many lag behind when integrating technology into back-office, pre-construction environments.
As a financial leader, it’s your job to lead your business into the future.
How Automation Supercharges Your Team’s Productivity
By implementing technology that automates routine activities, you can enhance efficiency and productivity, enabling you to manage more projects with the same team size.
For GCs, automation can help:
1. Eliminate Manual Data Entry
Remove the need to manually enter information such as schedules of values, change orders, and other company, project, and contract data. This significantly reduces instances of human error, from simple math mistakes to pressing the wrong key.
Often, your teams redo tasks and perform reconciliations when data is inaccurate or outdated. Automation ensures that data is entered correctly, and the math adds up the first time, avoiding redundant work.
2. Track & Confirm Payment Applications
Track payment applications, ensuring all requirements are met and all documentation is in place. Automation can also enable real-time updates, providing a clear and accurate view of project health.
3. Simplify Lien Waiver Creation & Exchange
Create, send, and track notarized lien waivers while minimizing back-and-forth between subcontractors. Lien waiver automation tools can keep track of every action and ensure transparency throughout the lien waiver exchange process.
4. Build Customized Workflows
Automation can streamline a staggering number of daily tasks unique to your requirements. Along with relieving tedium and freeing up time, automated workflows will often complete tasks faster than your teams can.
5. Improve Financial Accuracy & Oversight
Track costs and project budgets with accurate, automatically generated financial data. With improved oversight, you can better predict cash flow, manage finances, and make more data-driven financial decisions.
6. Digitize Payments & Eliminate Paper Checks
If you’ve successfully automated the payment application process and embraced digital payments, payment can be released at the click of a button.
Automated clearing house (ACH) transfers, for instance, are faster and more secure than paper-based checks. They also create proof of payment, which automated systems store in your records.
“To keep up in this industry, you have to be as lean and competitive as possible. We couldn’t afford the manual processes with invoices and compliance documents anymore.” — Carmina Cardenas, Billing Supervisor at Dome Construction
Unleash Your Strategic Potential
Download our exclusive report How CFOs Can Drive Growth without Adding Headcount to learn how to unleash your strategic potential with a checklist for choosing the right automation platform, how to use automation for to overcome talent challenges, and for access to an ROI calculator.