Optimising Job Costing, Contracting, Estimating, and Financial Processes for Construction Companies
Eque2’s latest rollcall of new customers across the UK suggests recent predictions* that the UK construction industry is poised for a major growth surge are correct.
More and more construction companies are currently investing in Eque2’s construction-specific solutions to not only prepare for potential growth but to help drive efficiencies, manage projects and provide a clearer, more accurate view of their data and finances.
Eager to control costs and maximise profitability, businesses the length and breadth of the UK – from MNM Developments, Elite Property Solutions and Blue Vale Structures Ltd in Scotland to O’Rourke Construction in Liverpool, IES Utilities in Stockport and IC Electrical Ltd in Burton-on-Trent down to Direct Line Structures in Ashford, Kent – are choosing to invest.
Notable across all the wins are the key drivers for these companies selecting Eque2 as their software partner:
- MNM Developments has chosen Eque2’s Construct for Sage solution in conjunction with EValuate, Eque2’s estimating solution, to streamline processes, reduce duplication and provide better visibility and control of costs moving forward.
- MNM Developments had previously used manual-based processes, which were extremely time-consuming. Transitioning to a fully cloud-based and integrated Job Costing and Estimating allows them to easily manage budgets and costs from pre-construction all the way through to post construction.
- EValuate will enable the housebuilder to produce fast, accurate and consistent tenders, with an integrated project enquiry portal allowing enquiries, drawings and revisions to be sent out to subcontractors quickly and easily.
- A fully integrated take off tool will enable MNM to manage the complete lifecycle of each project from take off and estimating through to job costing and final accounts.
- Construct for Sage will dramatically ease the company’s financial administration burden. Purchase Orders will no longer be entered manually with costs now fully captured at the PO stage, providing a complete view of committed costs and the ability to track against contract budgets to highlight any overspend.
- The risk of duplication during the processing of invoices will also be eradicated as Construct automatically flags a duplicate invoice with no manual checking required. In addition, the software’s approval module will not only save time but provide greater accuracy when approving purchase orders, timesheets and invoices.
- Finally, job cost reporting will be revolutionised with a suite of reports produced automatically to illustrate costs versus budgets, saving time previously spent on manual input from spreadsheets.
- Bluevale Structures Limited has selected Construction Manager Professional for Sage 50, including Advanced Approvals and the mobile timesheets App.
- Previously using Sage for job costing and POs, the demolition contracting business were not able to access a live view of costs and struggled for an accurate financial overview.
- The company is looking forward to getting rid of previous reporting issues, tightening up the application process and having the ability to better manage plant hire with Construction Manager Professional which will also see the introduction of an approval flow for POs and labour timesheets and provide real time visibility of committed costs.
- O’Rourke Construction Limited is introducing Construct Cloud and EValuate across its growing business, having become frustrated by the lack of reporting provided by its in-house system.
- Failing to access reporting early enough in the project cycle and a lack of consistency in the reporting, alongside duplication of data, meant a waste of valuable time and resources.
- Construct for Sage will enable O’Rourke to have full visibility of committed costs, track retentions simply and easily and allow the right amount to be applied at the right time to ensure cashflow is not affected.
- Tracking of plant will also be more accurate with users able to easily see plant hire status and location, extending POs when necessary.
- EValuate will enable O’Rourke to produce accurate and consistent tenders and track budgets and costs effectively against projects, with the on-screen take off tool allowing fast on-screen take offs from any file.
- IES Utilities is replacing Sicon with Construct for Sage 200, opting to also roll out the Construct approvals module and document capture.
- The multi-disciplined utility and civil engineering business had no singular approval system in place and was doing many key processes outside of the old system, including managing not only all the timesheets but also multi-stock locations with POs still being produced in an Excel workbook.
- CVR reporting was also all being carried out manually, taking up to two days a week.
- Collectively, these out-of-date processes were not only wasting man hours but had resulted in a loss of faith in the accuracy of the data.
- Construct will mean the consolidation and digitisation of all the different processes into one system, including the capture and processing of documents, resulting in access to live data for job costing and one version of the truth.
- IC Electrical Limited has chosen Construction Manager Premium for Xero, having previously been using general project management software, WorkflowMax, which did not provide them with the reporting capabilities they required.
- The electrical engineering contractor was finding the procurement process difficult and frustrating as they were unable to amend orders with the system being inflexible.
- Construction Manager will not only make analysing budgets much easier, but its construction-specific strengths will provide advantages such as approvals workflows, plant tracking and GRN processing for delivery notes.
- Directline Structures for opted for Construction Manager Premium, having previously relied on a highly complex manual process of Excel spreadsheets which resulted in duplication across a number of sources.
- The steel frame design and build specialists were using external accountants to manage their CIS verifications whilst tracking retentions and managing subcontractors had become extremely time consuming.
- The company is looking forward to greater visibility of projects and improved reporting capabilities
* Glenigan has predicted a projected increase in project starts of 16% over the next 3 years.
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