• The Customer Relationship

  The biggest challenge in the contract construction business is your relationship with the customer. The problems always result from a lack of agreement on the definition of the job - especially when changes are made after work on the job has begun.

  The only way to eliminate these problems is to use clear documentation throughout the entire job process. This includes:
  
  

  • Job Estimate 

    A big source of problems is that customers make changes to the job after it has been bid and started. The only way to prevent problems is to have clear documentation of the job estimate before you begin. Smart Contractor makes this easy.

  • Customer Documents

    It's not enough to just provide a customer with a contract. There are a number of other documents customers need in the course of a construction project. Smart Contractor automatically generates these by merging job and customer data into your customized documents to produce all of the customer documentation needed, including..

  • Draw Schedule

    A draw schedule provides a clear definition of when payment for each element of a job must be made.

  • Allowance Schedule

    An allowance schedule provides clear documentation of the dollar amount allowed for allowance items. This lets the customer know exactly how much they can spend, item by item, while shopping for their materials, appliances, and fixtures. The allowance Schedule also shows the date on which each item must be ordered so as to be delivered and installed according to the job schedule. 

  • Allowance Variance Reporting

    After the customer has selected their allowance items, you must be able to document which items varied from the allowance amount, and by how much. The Allowance Variance Report provides this.

  • Change Orders

    When changes to the job inevitably occur, change orders define what has been changed. This includes a listing of the job items that have been changed, what they have been changed to, and the net change in customer costs that resulted from the change.

  • Job Progress Tracking 

    As the job progresses, you need to keep the customer updated on your progress to let them know you are on schedule and on budget. Smart Contractor allows you to automatically post updated customer job information on your web site so that customers can have access to it around the clock. This keeps them feeling warm and fuzzy, and frees your time so you can get the work done.

  • Invoices or Draw Requests

    Smart Contractor automatically generates and prints customer invoices, or standard (AIA G702/G703 form) draw requests for submission to banks for draws on construction loans.

  • Payment Tracking

    Smart Contractor allows you to enter and track customer payments.

  • Job Accounting And Recap

    Smart Contractor automatically generates and prints a job accounting and recap to track and reconcile everything that has happened in the job, starting with the original estimate and deposit, and including all allowance variances, change orders, invoices, and payment receipts, to provide a final billing.

  • Web Based Customer Access To Job Information 

    Not only do you need to document all of this information, you need to make it available to customers when they need to see it. Smart Contractor automatically generates web pages for each of your customers, and uploads them to your website to make them available on the internet.

  Smart Contractor provides all of these tools to help you manage your relationship with your customers.

Smart Contractor also provides tools to help you manage the following aspects of your construction business:

• Job Scheduling 

  Another huge issue in construction project management is scheduling. Most contractors don't bother using software to manage their project schedules because 1) it takes too long to set up, and 2) the schedule is always changing. Smart Contractor automatically generates a schedule from your estimate (based on a pre-defined model of work activity sequence and duration), and allows you to easily modify the schedule in a graphic Gantt style interface.

• Purchasing

  Another challenge in the contract construction business is the process of purchasing job materials. There are a number of issues:

  • Competitive Sourcing

    Who has the time, or the means, to get prices from a number of vendors? Unless there is a way to do this automatically, it's just not feasible. Construction materials vendors know this, and can only be expected to take advantage of it. But Smart Contractor allows you to:

    • Request vendor price quotes
      
      These can be emailed, and the quoted prices returned by email, and imported automatically.
      
    • Select a preferred vendor.
      
      This allows you to print purchase orders based on job items and quantities.
      
    • Print Materials Ordering Schedule
      
      The Materials Ordering Schedule shows the date on which products must be ordered in order to be delivered by the date the item is scheduled for work.
      
    • Print Purchase Orders
      
      Purchase Orders automatically combine job materials to be purchased from a particular vendor, and display and total the vendor's quoted prices.

• Subcontracting

  Problems that happen between you and your customer also happen between you and your subcontractor, for the same reasons. Again, the only way to avoid this is by thoroughly documenting the details of the job being subcontracted. Smart Contractor allows you to print a subcontract Quote Request, and Purchase Order, in which all of the details of the subcontract job are clearly defined. If the sub asks for more money after the job is completed, you can refer to the Purchase Order and compare that to the work completed.

• Employees

  Smart Contractor provides you with a full suite of tools to help you get the most efficienct use of your employees time: Scheduling, Work Orders, Time Tracking, etc.

• Cost Tracking, Analysis, and Profitibility 

  Customer relations aside, in the end of the day, the thing that really matters to your business is whether you are making or loosing money, and why.

  Some contractors operate under this model:

  • Make a bid.
  • Do the work.
  • Deposit the final payment; check my balance. If I lost money, ask for more.

  This is about the best you can do if there isn't a better way. The disadvantage is difficult customer relations, and more important, you don't know where you are making or losing money, so you can't do any better estimating the next job. So the cycle continues...

  Unless you use Smart Contractor. Smart Contractor allows you to:

  • Itemize job estimates,
  • Track actual item costs (labor and materials),
  • Report the difference between estimated and actual costs - by item, or summarized by category, for one job or for all jobs.

  That way, you can know exactly where you are making or losing money.

Using Smart Contractor is smart is because it allows you to:

• Better manage your customer relationships,
• Better manage your construction schedule,
• Better manage your materials purchasing,
• Better manage your subcontracts,
• Better manage your employees, and
• Better manage your bottom line.

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