In today’s fast-paced business landscape, leveraging the best-in-class business technology and software for your construction business is crucial for increasing efficiency in your business. You’ll get more (money, time, profit) for less.

With the rapid advancements in cloud services, artificial intelligence, data management, and IT services, businesses now have a plethora of solutions at their disposal. However, choosing the right technology can be overwhelming. There is so much ‘construction software’ out there, it can be difficult to decide which one is the right solution for your business.

In this article, we share the software we recommend to our clients in the Construction industry.

We highly booking a software review with one of our team to identify inefficiencies, explore the best solutions for you and how we can help you implement the software. In this meeting, we will review:

  • What problems you need to overcome
  • How to overcome obstacles to implementing new software (like training your team)
  • Your budget
  • The best software solutions for your individual needs

Automation is the future, and switching to new technologies that automate tedious processes in your construction business can save you time, significantly improve efficiency, and eliminate erroneous manual work from the business.

men with hard hard and his vis using construction software on ipad

Core circle – Finance 

Financial software is usually the first bit of software you will have in your business as it is quite often the most important. You need to know your finances, so you know how much you earn, how much tax you need to pay etc.

It will usually encompass all areas of the business ecosystem into one package.

The core circle provides the foundation of a business’s software ecosystem as it not only includes turnover, gross profit, but also overheads and financial position.

The finance function is normally the only thing accountants advise on as it is the biggest impact to their role. It also most within the accountants comfort zone.

Our recommendation for your finance construction software is Xero. With Xero, you:

  • Clear overview of financial position
  • Mobile invoicing and automatic reminders for faster payments
  • Multi-user access for easy online collaboration
  • Time saving with automatic bank transaction imports and reconciliations
  • Integration of payroll with accounting software

If you’re already using Xero, book a free Xero Healthcheck to ensure you are maximising ALL the benefits Xero has to software.

Middle Circle – Operational

The operational circle takes management of the business processes to the next level giving you more control over each section of businesses processes.

These applications are usually designed to meet specific needs of the user designed specifically with a function in mind. They will not generally be generic “one-size-fits-all” software.

It’s therefore important to consider which software fits your business needs and the plans of the business in the coming 5 years, otherwise there may be additional costs in changing software as the business grows.

Sales & Marketing

Typically, a Customer Relationship Management package which manages relationships and sales enabling you to grow your business faster than ever before by building stronger customer relationships and exceeding expectations every step of the way.

Benefits of having a CRM:

  • Better customer service
  • Increased sales
  • Improved customer retention
  • Detailed analytics
  • Higher productivity and efficiency
  • Centralised database of information
  • Managed communications with prospective leads
  • Improved customer segmentation

Our recommendations:

Operations

Operational software is often a hosted application that allows you to manage all facets of a business. It will guide you from job quoting (or job estimates) right through to invoicing on completion. You will have real-time information on what jobs are currently active, what quotes have been issued to clients, and where and when staff are at clients sites.

They are designed to be used by everyone in your business, from each individual staff member, to back office staff, through all levels of management. It is simple and effective, and best of all, it’s available anywhere, anytime.

This means you can streamline workflows, automate processes, connect the office and the field and gain essential business insights.

Our recommendations:

Human Resources

As your business grows, you need a solution to managing your team efficiently to avoid things going wrong or eating up too much of your time.

With HR software, you can:

  • Manage holiday requests in one place
  • Store documents safely in the cloud
  • Plan appraisals and recognise achievements
  • Track and monitor sickness & absence
  • Log and manage expense
  • Integrate your Xero Payroll account
  • Run insightful HR reports
  • Create and share new vacancies
  • Manage rotas

Our recommendations:

Outer circle – Reporting

A reporting software may needed when reporting within the accounting system isn’t enough and you need more flexibility.

Specialist reporting software can provide scenario planning or forecasting using the information entered earlier within the ecosystem.

Benefits of reporting software:

  • View your cash and performance today
  • Forecast automatically and explore unlimited scenarios
  • Get unique business insights needed to make the right decisions
  • Create a budget to track your expected sales and expenditure
  • No more labour-intensive spreadsheets

Our recommendation: Syft

Automation and AI

Bills and expenses

Our recommendation: Dext

Dext saves time through more straightforward and real-time accounting. The key benefit of Dext is its simplicity, allowing you to easily get receipts and invoices into Xero.

You can take a picture using the Dext mobile app, send an email to your unique Dext email address or link it straight up to your PayPal account. Never will you have to worry about losing a receipt again.

You can also use Dext to better manage your own and employee expenses. You can oversee the whole process, and become more efficient at doing your own bookkeeping, or you can take a picture and leave the magic up to your accountant.

Dext not only saves you time, but gives you the opportunity to stop working in your business

Credit control

Our recommendation: Chaser

According to recent research, SMEs in the UK are owed £55 billion in overdue invoices, and this can significantly harm their cash flow and lead to financial problems.

Chasing payments is a time-consuming and expensive process, and disorganized accounting systems can worsen the situation. Chaser, a Xero App Partner, is an app that helps automate the accounts receivable process and reduce the time spent on chasing customers for payment.

Chaser lets businesses customise reminder templates, send automated reminders via email or SMS, and maintain great customer relationships.

On average, a Chaser user sees a cash flow boost of £4,400 per £100,000 turnover and saves 7.3 hours a week on credit control activities.

Chaser securely connects to your Xero account and will never chase any unpaid invoices without notifying you beforehand, ensuring that invoices that have already been marked as fully paid will not be chased.

There are so many tools and apps to help you streamline all of your business processes, saving you time and money so you can focus on growing your business. The market is incredibly overwhelming. Above is our recommendations for Construction businesses as a whole, but it is also best to get specialist advice.

Book a free 1-2-1 with Joseph Cutting to go through your specific business needs and we can find the right solution for you.

Read how Joe helped a Construction business improve their profitability with simPRO.

Book a free 1-2-1 with Joe (our Construction specialist) 

Complete the form at the button below and we’ll contact you to book a free 1-2-1 to discuss your specific business needs. Or you can give us a call on 01474 853 856 or email enquiries@a4g-llp.co.uk.

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