If you spend your days swinging a hammer, then you've certainly hit your thumb instead of the nail more than you want to admit! These painful memories give a true allegory for business: the moment you take your eye off the nail...ouch!
Whether you're in residential construction, plumbing, electrical contracting, or a jack‐of‐all‐trades, having a system in place to help you manage your business and its finances is essential to the growth and success of your company.
At Nimbus Integration, we're passionate about helping small businesses integrate these systems: and it's good news that there is a system like Knowify which is designed specifically for your industry.
Knowify helps organize contracts, track purchases and change orders, manage schedules and service tickets, and deal with invoices and billing.
Long story short, once you've set up Knowify, you can spend more time running your business, and less time buried under an avalanche of admin and bookkeeping!
Here are six areas where Knowify will help you systemize what's important in your construction business.
Whether you're in residential construction, plumbing, electrical contracting, or a jack‐of‐all‐trades, having a system in place to help you manage your business and its finances is essential to the growth and success of your company.
At Nimbus Integration, we're passionate about helping small businesses integrate these systems: and it's good news that there is a system like Knowify which is designed specifically for your industry.
Knowify helps organize contracts, track purchases and change orders, manage schedules and service tickets, and deal with invoices and billing.
Long story short, once you've set up Knowify, you can spend more time running your business, and less time buried under an avalanche of admin and bookkeeping!
Here are six areas where Knowify will help you systemize what's important in your construction business.
Job Costing tools
The old adage "knowledge is power" has never been truer when applied to your business.
Being able to see and understand how your business is performing at any given time saves you a lot of hassle - and being able to identify problems before they come up not only makes the process smoother, but it makes you more money, too.
When you set up Knowify for your construction business, you can track the progress of your projects in real‐time by automatically pulling in timecard entry and purchasing data into the project plan.
This level of insight is often available in other project management platforms, but usually it doesn't show up until everything is done. The project is over. That's helpful in looking back, but it only helps you see where you could have done better, rather than helping you proactively deal with sticky situations when they happen!
Imagine a project that is beginning to slip a bit. You planned for six weeks, but it's already looking like twelve, and you have barely started. Using your Knowify job costing, you can go to the client with clear data to explain exactly what is going to happen, and when. Best of all, you can begin to job cost before the work begins, so delays don't happen. (Read on below!)
Being able to see and understand how your business is performing at any given time saves you a lot of hassle - and being able to identify problems before they come up not only makes the process smoother, but it makes you more money, too.
When you set up Knowify for your construction business, you can track the progress of your projects in real‐time by automatically pulling in timecard entry and purchasing data into the project plan.
This level of insight is often available in other project management platforms, but usually it doesn't show up until everything is done. The project is over. That's helpful in looking back, but it only helps you see where you could have done better, rather than helping you proactively deal with sticky situations when they happen!
Imagine a project that is beginning to slip a bit. You planned for six weeks, but it's already looking like twelve, and you have barely started. Using your Knowify job costing, you can go to the client with clear data to explain exactly what is going to happen, and when. Best of all, you can begin to job cost before the work begins, so delays don't happen. (Read on below!)
Estimates, Bids & Contracts
On to estimates. Getting it right from the start is an absolute must - and being able to check the progress of your estimates helps you plan and scale the work before you.
With Knowify's brilliant estimating tool you can quickly plan jobs, itemize budgets, and schedule your team to create detailed cost estimates.
Bids and contracts are then quick and easy. You create them, brand them with your own letterhead, and use the Knowify platform to send them to your client for acceptance with an electronic signature.
Knowify not only helps you deliver on‐time and on‐budget to a satisfied client, it also improves your profitability.
With Knowify's brilliant estimating tool you can quickly plan jobs, itemize budgets, and schedule your team to create detailed cost estimates.
Bids and contracts are then quick and easy. You create them, brand them with your own letterhead, and use the Knowify platform to send them to your client for acceptance with an electronic signature.
Knowify not only helps you deliver on‐time and on‐budget to a satisfied client, it also improves your profitability.
Time Tracking
Naturally, as you build (see what we did there?) a profitable business, you need to know where your time, and that of your team, is being spent. Tracking the hours, minutes, and seconds is a piece of cake thanks to Knowify's built-in timekeeping functionality.
This handy feature includes the following options:
This handy feature includes the following options:
- GPS‐verified clock in / clock out on the mobile app
- Foreman timekeeping for the scheduled on‐site crew
- Classic timecards filled out from the office
Job Scheduling
If you're struggling to keep track of who needs to be where, or if you're busy scrawling a rudimentary schedule on a whiteboard (or chalkboard?) that has seen better days, it's time for Knowify. It updates everything in real time, and the team can review schedules to see what work they'll be doing that day - and you can track it as well.
We mentioned the link to your team's cell phones. They can use Knowify's smartphone app to record time spent on particular tasks or jobs, and as they do, the platform will track the performance of the job compared to your budget and estimated costs.
Again, more profitability for you.
We mentioned the link to your team's cell phones. They can use Knowify's smartphone app to record time spent on particular tasks or jobs, and as they do, the platform will track the performance of the job compared to your budget and estimated costs.
Again, more profitability for you.
Invoicing
Some systems only offer project management functions, and leave the financials to another platform. Not so with Knowify. And being CPA's ourselves, we know the power of finances to help you have a profitable business.
You can consolidate all this important information and see a start‐to‐finish overview of all your projects. No more spreadsheets, no more lost paperwork, no more hours and hours of bookkeeping and admin. Knowify helps with progress billing, time and materials billing, milestone billing, and more - so it's all straightforward (and headache free).
Oh - and Knowify integrates directly with our favorite cloud‐based accounting software, QuickBooks Online, so you can sync all that data and provide us with records that are up to the minute (not six months behind). You don't have to look for any pieces of paper, either - it's all there in the cloud.
You can consolidate all this important information and see a start‐to‐finish overview of all your projects. No more spreadsheets, no more lost paperwork, no more hours and hours of bookkeeping and admin. Knowify helps with progress billing, time and materials billing, milestone billing, and more - so it's all straightforward (and headache free).
Oh - and Knowify integrates directly with our favorite cloud‐based accounting software, QuickBooks Online, so you can sync all that data and provide us with records that are up to the minute (not six months behind). You don't have to look for any pieces of paper, either - it's all there in the cloud.
Expense Submitting
Keeping your costs under control is perhaps the most critical part of growing a profitable contracting business. Tracking these purchases can become a major job in and of itself, and understanding which materials have been ordered, received, and paid for involves a lot of moving parts.
Using Knowify, simplify this by first listing your materials as part of your budget. Once that's been approved by your client, you can then quickly and easily generate a PO from that very same list and email it to the vendor on a branded purchase order PDF directly from the system. Best of all, you can do this on your laptop at your desk, or on your smartphone on site.
Not only will you save time, you can eliminate paper from the equation.
Using Knowify, simplify this by first listing your materials as part of your budget. Once that's been approved by your client, you can then quickly and easily generate a PO from that very same list and email it to the vendor on a branded purchase order PDF directly from the system. Best of all, you can do this on your laptop at your desk, or on your smartphone on site.
Not only will you save time, you can eliminate paper from the equation.
Will Knowify help you?
Bringing Knowify into the circle of your best technology could end up being the best decision you've ever made. Not only is it helpful on its own to streamline your business and use the best in technology, but when integrated with QuickBooks Online (and other systems too), your processes will be improved and you'll see more clearly for a better overall performance.
Talk to us about setting up Knowify, and integrating with QuickBooks too.
Talk to us about setting up Knowify, and integrating with QuickBooks too.