Custom Software: How to Free Up Time for Contractors in 5 Steps?

Custom software offers to be the fulcrum to never ending office work. In the bustling world of construction, contractors often find themselves bogged down by back office tasks that consume their evenings and weekends. This blog explores how custom software solutions, like those offered by Revalate, can free up typical bottlenecks and 5 simple steps you can take to revolutionize the way your back office work is done.

The Back Office Burden

For many contractors, the end of the physical workday doesn't mean the end of work. Hours that should be spent recharging, or with family are instead dedicated to invoicing, scheduling, ordering, and other reporting. This not only affects personal lives, but also impacts business efficiency and overall satisfaction with the work.

Identifying the Time Sinks

Back office work typically involves several repetitive and time-consuming tasks:

• Invoicing and Payment Processing: Manually creating invoices and tracking payments can be tedious and filled with errors. Read about 4 Tips to Trim Invoicing Time if you find this work is more tedious than it should be.
• Scheduling: Coordinating between projects, workers, and resources without something to catch the gaps can ripple into conflicts and delays.
• Procurement: Tracking supplies and managing orders without automation is a constant challenge that can be costly too.
• Compliance and Reporting: Staying on top of regulatory requirements demands tedious record-keeping and the regular reporting is a time suck.

The Role of Custom Software

Custom software from companies like Revalate are designed to tackle these issues and more head-on. Here’s how:

Real-Time Data Management

By integrating real-time data processing, custom software keeps an open eye on all financial, operational, and compliance-related information so updates happen instantly and are available at your fingertips. This eliminates the need for batch processing or end-of-day updates, reducing the hours spent on cross-verifying everything.

Automation of Repetitive Tasks

Automating repetitive and tedious tasks like estimating, invoicing, payroll, can be a huge time-save! For example, a custom software with AI can be built to prep quotes based on project specifications and agreed milestones, send them to clients, and update your project in minutes, if not seconds sometimes.

Enhanced Scheduling Tasks

Advanced scheduling tools in custom software allow contractors to efficiently distribute workload and tasks, avoid confusion, making sure that every step in the project workflow is taken care of. These tools can also adapt to changes dynamically, sending real-time updates to everyone who needs the information. 

5 Steps to Start when Everything is Manual:

Step 1: Review Your Workflow

Identify and document all your back office tasks such as invoicing, scheduling, and procurement. Note which tasks take the most time and have the most frequent errors so you can start thinking about ways to automate them. 

Step 2: Identify Key Data to Manage

Figure out the important data you use like client details, project timelines, and payment records. Understand how this data is connected across different tasks and roles and how they may be delegated with the right tools. 

Step 3: Set Clear Goals

Define the tasks you want to keep doing, what tasks should be assigned to different roles and what can be built into custom software. This could be reducing invoicing time, improving schedule accuracy, or automating quoting or even compliance.

Step 4: Get Team Input

Involve your team who handle these processes to get insights on what can be taken away from the daily task load and which of these can be built into features to ensure the software will be user-friendly and welcomed. 

Step 5: Research Your Options

There are different ways to build systems to help you run operations. Paper and pen are fine, but low-code and full-code options can be game changing when it comes to freeing up your time. Both have different benefits and should be researched to make sure you’re choosing the right tool to handle your specific requirements.

Is this You?

A Mid-Sized Contractor Looking to Streamlining Operations

Mid-sized construction firms often struggle with their scheduling and excessive overtime costs. Have you considered implementing custom software to drop administrative hours spent by you, the owner, or your administrative staff? Custom software has proven to augment workload by 30%, and cut overtime expenses by 25% over a 12 month period (sometimes sooner).

A Specialty Contractor Who Can’t Seem to Boost Productivity

It’s common to hear about specialty contractors who face challenges in managing a large inventory while having to comply with industry-specific safety standards. This is where custom software developed for a specific workflow not only automates inventory management, but also integrated safety compliance checks. We’ve seen in some cases a 40% reduction in compliance issues and a 20% increase in order processing speed (now that the KPIs are actually being tracked).

Summing it up

For contractors bogged down by back office demands, custom software offers a new way to free up time for contractors working and building a construction business. By automating routine tasks, providing access to real-time data, and maintaining compliance, software allows contractors to reclaim their time and focus on what they do best: building and creating. Revalate was built so that contractors can leave office work where it belongs—at the office, not at their dinner table.

Investing in custom software is not just about improving efficiency—it’s about improving quality of life. 

For more information on how Revalate can help streamline your back office operations, visit our website at Revalate.com. Your weekends and your business don’t need to share the same time anymore.

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