How leveraging financial management software in your construction business can result in higher earnings 

You’re no stranger to the unpredictable nature of the construction industry.  

Supply chain disruptions, fluctuating financial landscapes, and unexpected labour shortages are the new normal.  

Despite these challenges, business is booming.  

According to GlobalData, the size of the Canadian construction market exceeded $349bn in 2022. Future growth in the industry will come from developments in the commercial, residential, energy, and educational sectors. 

There’s plenty of business to be won, which means the pressure is on for sales and finance teams to deliver rapid and precise bids.  

Quote quickly and accurately 

If you’re still relying on manual, paper-based estimates, you may be slowing down the bid preparation process.  

Picture this: your bid preparation process, but 50% faster. How? With financial management software. 

You can use it to standardize your best practices, and analyze costs, phases, and activities with a new level of precision. This will help to keep you ahead in the competitive construction market. 

Remember the days of manual material counts from blueprints?  

Those days are gone with electronic takeoff software, which streamlines and automates the process of measuring and quantifying building materials and labour costs from blueprints and digital designs.  

Financial management software for construction companies can transform how you extract material counts and it allows you to churn out more bids accurately, without increasing your staff.  

This is about more than software—it’s about revolutionizing your entire bidding process. 

Win repeat business 

The best way to win repeat business with a customer is to do the existing job well. 

Using job cost accounting software is a game-changer here.  

It enables real-time tracking of all essential costs, from labour and materials to overhead.  

This not only gives you a precise picture of profitability, but also lets you identify profit sources by cost codes, project managers, job types, and customers.  

Benefits of using financial management software include: 

• Accurate cost tracking. By allocating costs to specific projects, you can monitor expenses in real time, giving you a better chance of ensuring projects stay within budget.  

• Streamlined billing process. Automate your billing based on project milestones or other predefined criteria. This removes the need for manual calculations and facilitates timely and accurate invoicing.  

• Seamless integration with financials. Its project costing and billing features seamlessly integrate with its general ledger and financial modules. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and reconciliations. 

• Compliance with revenue recognition standards. Its project billing functionality is designed to comply with revenue recognition standards such as ASC 606 and IFRS 15.  

These and other project costing and billing capabilities can really help streamline processes by providing you (and your customers) with real-time visibility into active projects.  

The better your company performs, the easier it will be to win the next contract. 

Reduce time on proposal prep 

To get your bids out quickly and accurately, your company must reduce the amount of internal time it takes to put together a proposal.  

Using state-of-the-art estimating software will speed things up significantly.  

This tech can accelerate bid preparation by more than 50%, which gives your construction company a significant edge considering the traditional manual and paper-based processes.  

The key lies in improved analysis, standardized estimating practices, and built-in error detection, which enhances accuracy and speed.  

By analyzing historical project data and comparing it with actual costs, you can refine your estimates and develop more realistic project budgets.  

This can help your company to win more competitive bids. 

Empower your business beyond bidding 

Instead of continuing to invest in antiquated, on-premises systems, leading construction businesses have turned to SaaS and cloud-enabled software because they need flexible and agile financial applications that are relatively easy to implement, configure, and update. 

While financial management software shines in job costing and bidding, it’s also a powerhouse in other areas vital to your construction business: 

• Integration with Salesforce means you’re looking at enhanced customer relationship management and streamlined operations.  
• Cloud computing capabilities give your team access to your data anytime, anywhere, making sure you’re always on top of your projects.  
• An accounting system that is scalable and can easily accommodate additional users, transactions, and multiple entities. 

Manual entry of inter-entity transactions can drive up the time consolidations usually require, but with financial management software, you’ll be able to shorten your close time with automated workflows, streamlined business processes, and real-time integrated systems.  

In fact, by using software, you can reduce average month-end close time by 25 to 50%, so you’ll be freed up to support the bid process.  

It gets even better: our platform for multiple entities automates financial consolidation activities including currency conversions, inter-entity transactions, local tax reporting, and more.  

Financial management software isn’t just a tool, it’s your partner in building a more robust, more profitable construction business.  

Final thoughts 

Remember, staying ahead in construction isn’t just about the tools you use—it’s about how you use them. 

Financial management software that includes job cost accounting, estimating software, and advanced AI and cloud capabilities offers a robust solution for your construction company if you’re looking to streamline your operations, generate more revenue, and stay competitive in the flourishing Canadian construction industry.  

Find out more about Sage Intacct.