Disclosure: The following content was written and sponsored by Procore.

What does it mean to have integrated project cost management from field to office?

Imagine a world where your field and office teams have a consistent, holistic view of a project and its costs. Where a change in the field is easily logged, and accounting stakeholders are instantly notified of the potential cost impact.

While having all of your teams working off of the same set of real-time data to proactively manage risk before it affects your bottom line may seem like the holy grail, it is possible.

Construction management platforms that have integrated project cost management built to give you real-time insight into the financial health of your projects with centralized, accurate data connecting all stakeholders, is essential to project success to project success.

How disconnected solutions can lead to problems.

One of the biggest risks to a project is the disconnected teams managing it.

The gap between operations and accounting teams causes companies to operate off of disparate sources of project cost data––forcing teams to make daily decisions without real-time insight into how the job is performing financially. Not only does this create inefficiencies just trying to keep both teams up to date, but it can also have severe impacts on the bottom line.

With a solution built for teams in the field, builders can dynamically track every dollar in the budget and forecast critical costs with real-time data while staying in sync with the accounting team. 

Before connecting office and field teams with real-time data, JR Allen from Rabren Construction said, “We did an amusement park down in Gulf Shores, and we ended up missing out on substantial savings just because our guys didn’t have updated information quickly. They didn’t have the access they needed.”

This realization at the end of a job that you’ve lost money because teams were operating blind is all too common. Throughout the project, the accounting team needs access to the latest information from the field. The operations team needs access to accounting data, but it lives in multiple different systems.

According to the 2020 Construction Technology Report, 51% of companies still rely on spreadsheets to manage ERP workflows. Unfortunately, spreadsheets are used as the band-aid solution for project teams to capture daily progress on a job because ERP systems weren’t built to track real-time cost impacts as they occur in the field. While spreadsheets can be simple to implement for project teams, using them leads to double-data entry and costly mistakes. It also creates a delay in data delivery back to the accounting team–– impacting subcontractors’ payment, account reconciliation, and change order processing because decisions are being made based on incomplete sets of data.

Without integrating your cost management systems and leveraging tools built for project teams to track daily job costs, you’re exposing your projects and your companies to financial risk.

The connected solution of the future

 The holy grail of shared, real-time data between operations and accounting is possible. According to Steve Means, Principal at Deloitte, it’s the way of the future. “Our data at Deloitte shows that the companies who have invested in automating, connecting, and digitizing their cost management practices are more competitive, are holding or improving their margins, and are delivering projects on time.”

Construction management platforms, like Procore, are making this a reality for the construction industry with their new ERP Connector Platform. The entire project team can manage collaborative workflows and centralize communication across the office, field, and trade partners to reduce project and payment delays. And quickly uncover cost details and create comprehensive financial reports from a single source of truth.

Companies can integrate their project cost management workflows end to end, regardless of what accounting system they use. In this new world of connectivity, accounting teams improve controls and oversight, double entry is reduced, processes are streamlined, the risk is mitigated, and there is greater clarity over roles and responsibilities between teams.

“I can’t emphasize enough the value of the integrations,” voiced Al Nover, Boston Children’s Hospital Facilities Finance and Contracts Manager. “They allow the PMs to have all the info they need in their own solution, but also give us confidence that we’re synced with the hospital’s corporate ERP and capital planning systems. There’s no manual entry, it’s synced with the general ledger, and it’s accurate.”

Procore’s Accounting Integrations connect the field and back office to reimagine this process and give all project teams access to the data they need to make confident, informed decisions.

Not only does Procore provide some of the more robust accounting connectors on the market on its powerful platform, it also offers integrations with major industry-leading ERPs. Procore’s platform empowers third-party app developers to build integrations with all of the same functionality that Procore-built accounting integrations deliver in order to create a flourishing ecosystem.

“We love working with Procore,” said Robert Leighton from Calance, a Procore marketplace partner and developer.“Their APIs are solid, reliable, extensive, and the API Support Team at Procore is great to work with. Procore’s investment in Webhooks has enabled us to create new capabilities and features for our ERP integration customers.”

Procore offers nine  ERP integrations directly to our customers including Sage 300 CRE, Sage 100 Contractor, Yardi, Quickbooks Desktop, Viewpoint Vista, and Viewpoint Spectrum.^[1] This is in addition to the hundreds of other partner-built apps available through the Procore App Marketplace.

Profitability should be a shared responsibility.

“It is all of our jobs to make money,” stated Morgan Traynor at Procore’s Cost Management Summit in April.

This is why ERP integrations have been a priority for Procore. No longer is it only the job of accounting to manage costs; it is a shared responsibility of both project and accounting teams.

In order to capture this cost information in real time across your field and office teams, your systems must be connected.

To learn more about how you can connect your systems, and to stay in the know on Procore’s newest releases, visit Procore’s website and App Marketplace, or schedule some time to talk to Procore’s team.

^[1] Some of these integrations were built in partnership with third-party developers and are not affiliated with the owner of the integrated application. All product names, logos, brands, trademarks, and registered trademarks of the integrated applications are property of their respective owners.