Project Management: Stuffed With Features

The holiday season brings more than just food. It signifies the close of the year which means you have to decide how you are going to make the next year even better! When you get down to the nitty-gritty, project management is the glue that holds your organization in place. You could create a detailed project record, but if no one is taking the time to maintain current communications and update documentation, tasks start falling through the cracks.

Project Management Made Easy

Your contracts are constantly changing. Whether it is the amount of total labor hours worked on the jobsite or a renegotiation of contract terms. Managing these changes properly allows your team to review all the details of a current contract at a moment’s notice. You have to know where you are before you can get directions to where you’re going.

Contract vs. Job

Within TRUE, the first step is deciding if your new project is a contract or a job. If you’re in the service industry, job management is where you will live and breath. However, if you are operating under an awarded bid, contract management will be your go-to workflow. Correctly categorizing your projects will ensure you are only tracking information that is critical to your workflow.

Live Up-to-Date Project Details

On any given day within the TRUE Contracts Module you can review live up-to-date data on estimated versus actual labor hours, job costing, purchased job materials, active transmittals and submittals, assigned materials, daily reports, subcontractor details, payments, and so much more. All of your data, in one solution, to make finding the information you need easier.

Take Your Project To The Next Level

When you have all of your information in one place, where and how do you manage changes? Be sure all of your subcontractors, vendors, and employees are on the same page with TRUE, an effective project management tool.

Repository

The repository module keeps all of your contract communications (RFI’s, transmittals, submittals) in one easy-to-find location. Track these changes as well as milestones, new tasks, and jobsite weather.

Individualized Alerts

Once information is added to a contract in TRUE, alerts are fired to all individuals assigned to the project. Activity records are created to be referenced at any time, directly from the project record. Your team will be up-to-date from the time they clock-in to the time they drive off the jobsite, with no extra communication required!

New Year, New Software

Contracts are managed when everyone is on the same page. The easiest way to get everyone on the same page is to stay organized, and have a plan in place. Begin your year right, with TRUE.

TRUE allows your whole business to run from one solution. One login, and all of your opportunities, bids, contracts, work tickets, and time clock data is at your fingertips. Manage your projects better today with TRUE.

Want to learn more about the Contract Management features TRUE has to offer? Contact us today!

(833) GET – TRUE (438-8783)

sales@archive.constructtrue.com

www.constructtrue.com

Already have TRUE and need some help? Check out our help center to learn all about project management!

TRUE Contract Management Help

eSign: Digitally Sign Quotes and Proposals

Work only occurs when both parties sign on the dotted line – so how do you make sure you’re the top pick?

Implementing eSign (electronic forms and digital signatures) into your workflow will instantly improve your sales team’s close ratio by allowing your customers to digitally sign quotes and proposals whether you’re in person, or with a click of the mouse on your customer’s computer.

“Old School” Workflow

First of all, you know the drill and it’s cumbersome:

  1. Create a quote/proposal and save it as a PDF.
  2. Email the quote/proposal to your customer and ask them to sign and return it.
  3. Customer has to open the PDF, print it, sign it, scan it, reattach it to a reply to your email and send it back to you.

The problem is, just like you, your customer is busy. They might delay, forget, have terrible scanning skills, or just ask you to proceed without signing it.

TRUE eSign Workflow

In contrast, with TRUE, closing a sale is so much easier with eSign:

  1. Create a quote/proposal fully within TRUE.  If the client is there with you, they can sign on your tablet and you’re done.
  2. Otherwise, within TRUE, simply email your quote/proposal to your customer.
  3. Customer clicks on a link within the email, sees your quote/proposal, accepts your terms, and digitally signs right on their screen.  They can save a PDF of the signed document, email it, or print it for their records. You receive an alert within TRUE immediately that it was signed.  You’re done. It’s that easy!

eSign with TRUE comes standard

Most noteworthy, no matter which version of TRUE you’re using, your staff can easily send out quotes/proposals for digital signatures effortlessly.

Want to learn more about the eSign features TRUE has to offer? Contact us today!

(833) GET – TRUE (438-8783)

sales@archive.constructtrue.com

www.constructtrue.com

 

Job Management: A Lesson in Time Management

When your team is managing a job how many places do you have to look to review its progress, track active tasks, calculate total labor time, or approve related expenses? Do you and your team find yourselves sifting through papers, inboxes, and multiple software solutions just to confirm you’re progressing as planned?

All of this equals valuable minutes, hours, and days of simply hunting for information you already have. Valuable time that translates into hundreds, if not thousands of dollars that could be better spent on machinery updates and new fleet additions. But how do you transition your business to cut the search time costs?

Since time travel isn’t an option…yet… here at TRUE we like to break things down into three basic components

  1. Information Collection
  2. Information Processing
  3. Information Availability

Information Collection

How is data, updates, and communication being filtered into your company? Do you use time cards that are filled out by your field foreman who email them to your HR department for processing? How do your vendors and clients contact you? Identifying these channels are key to finding those lost hours in your job management process.

Within TRUE your employees can clock-in from the job-site to the appropriate job and they will appear automatically in that project’s job record. The same goes for task and job expenses; the information can go straight from the employee’s device to the job.

 

 

Information Processing

Now, once you have the information, what does your team have to do to make it visible to everyone else? Are large portions of data tracking reliant on a single employee tracking one aspect of the job and reporting it to everyone else?

Every individual on your team may be responsible for one or more aspects of a job. Use that to your advantage. Have clearly defined processing roles so every team member knows what to do during every stage of a job.

TRUE will take you through clearly defined processing paths to ensure every piece of information is accounted for. Directly assign equipment, products, services, personnel, and work tickets to each job. Track tasks, inventory, expenses, and job costing all in one place clearly defined by company, specific categories, and stages.

 

 

Information Availability

Finally, where do you go to pull the information you need to present or review with your team? If you are spending time tracking the same information in multiple places, you’re losing precious time!

Have a system in place that eliminates double entry. Within TRUE, once you enter a bill, purchase order, expense, time punch, or payment and then relate it to the desired job, that data appears automatically and is compared will all existing data. Finally have the tool you need to easily see labor costs on a per job basis, balances due, and gross profit. Need a report outlining all currently active jobs and how they are performing? TRUE has it! No double entry, no scrambling 30 minutes before your weekly meeting to quickly calculate your receivables.

 

 

Identify your collection, processing and availability to begin to streamline your job management processes. In return, get major cost savings due to your time management savvy!

Want to learn more about the job management features TRUE has to offer? Contact us today!

(833) GET – TRUE (438-8783)

sales@archive.constructtrue.com

www.constructtrue.com

Already have TRUE and need some help? Check out our help center to learn all about job management!

TRUE Job Management Help

Schedule Management Planning

How to get Everyone on the Same Page

Scheduling and executing a project can be a mess. Whiteboards and walls filled with project progress updates, crew assignments, and vehicle locations. Papers shuffled from one office to the next in the hopes that they make it down the hall fast enough to notify the field supervisor of the new schedule before they leave the jobsite at the end of the day.

Making sure everyone has the most up-to-date information before the fleet leaves the next morning, or even in the next minute, can take countless emails, phone calls, and text messages. So how do you manage it all? How do you ensure everyone is seeing the same information at the same time?

We have seen a lot of companies struggle with these very questions. Over time, our specialists have developed some key questions for you and your team to answer when evaluating your schedule management plan.

  1. What tools do you have to create your schedule?
  2. Who will be in charge of creating and approving the schedule?
  3. What tools do you have to distribute your schedule?
  4. Who will be in charge of distributing the schedule?
  5. How will you manage schedule changes that occur one week, one day, and one hour before work is supposed to be performed?

 

Scheduling and Planning with TRUE

Within TRUE, project planning, scheduling, and even milestone tracking are equipped for you to have a plan in place when a new project is won. Create a gantt chart of your contract’s full prospective timeline and stages. Build schedules and assign the appropriate crew, equipment, and vehicles. Develop company-wide milestones to see how every project is performing across the board. All of this, related to individual project records for easy tracking and review.

 

TRUE Calendar and Scheduling

 

Since TRUE allows you to customize access permissions, only individuals with the correct permissions can approve, edit, distribute and change your schedules.

Have a last minute schedule change? Immediately notify the crew assigned to the project. With a simple click you can distribute alerts customized on an individual level to fit the communication needs of each crew member.

 

TRUE Milestone Tracking

 

Gone are the days of whiteboards, paper schedule pickups, and crew text group chats!

Want to learn more about the scheduling and planning features TRUE has to offer? Contact us today!

(833) GET – TRUE (438-8783)

sales@archive.constructtrue.com

www.constructtrue.com

Already have TRUE and need some help? Check out our help center to learn all about planning!.

TRUE Planning Module Help

contractor esign

Why Contractors Need eSign

Adopting an eSign tool for contract processing allows construction businesses to increase their efficiency and profitability. By now, most people have become familiar with the idea of approving and signing documents electronically. However, TRUE’s eSignature tool allows contractors to email proposals, changes orders, and other key documents to stakeholders directly so that they can review and sign them from anywhere in real-time. This is not only a popular feature but a necessary one when competing in today’s market. For any construction business, it is essential that the approval processed be clear to everyone involved. When the projects can be worth millions of dollars, everything should be crystal clear to everyone. TRUE was designed with the tools to help contractors be successful in every aspect of their construction projects.

The benefits of utilizing TRUE’s eSign tool, include:

Professional Appearance

First impressions are everything and it is important to start the relationships with potential clients on the right foot. During the bid process, your organization and professionalism should set the standard for the customer and how you will handle their business.

Simplicity

By using construction management software with an eSign tool, like TRUE, customers are able to review documents, request changes or approve and sign it within the app. Immediately after the signing, both signers are sent the signed copy of the document. This way there are no misunderstandings about what was approved and what needs to be done.

Efficiency

No more paper being shuffled around and no more delays because the necessary paperwork is not properly filled out or wasn’t filed correctly. Once the document is signed, you don’t have to worry about storing the paper copy or scanning it. TRUE automatically stores it in the Documents & Images module of your solution to reference whenever you need to. With TRUE, you are able to entering standard terms and conditions into the system to auto populate into the appropriate documents, streamlining the document generation process. You can then take the information from the quote or contract into a plan to track your job or bill your customer knowing that the invoice will reflect the terms of the agreement. This is ideal if you have multiple people in the office involved in the bidding/billing process.

Legality

Disputes around jobs are a serious issue. You want to avoid them by all means and having a signed document with the terms of the agreement can be a life saver. In both the US and Canada, e-signatures have the same validity as paper signatures. We would argue that they are even stronger: you have an email trail of the document being sent to the customer and signed back, and we store additional information on our end about this transaction in case you ever need it. eSignatures are legally recognized as legitimate forms of signature, and oftentimes are even more secure than paper and pen. Most reputable eSignature services also provide legal assistance if a dispute arises over the legitimacy of a signature, so sign away, knowing you are covered.  Using a time stamped eSignature with location accuracy eliminates the worry for potential forgery or dispute.

Security

In construction, paper can be easily damaged or lost, and signatures can be forged, smudged, or missed completely. When your signed contracts are stored in the cloud, documents cannot be lost, and your office staff has real-time access to completed files, giving them a jumpstart on file processing.

Customer Satisfaction

Your customers expect fast, safe and accurate contract documentation. Once your electronic contract has been ratified by both parties, all parties will receive a copy of the signed, legal documentation.  Having immediate access to their own electronic copy for insurance or personal use is a convenience they will appreciate, and expect.

We’ve worked with thousands of contractors over the years and the best ones always have a high level of organization around their contracts. Do not wait until it’s too late to get organized. Start today with your free trial by going to www.contructtrue.com/trial.