Article written by Gallit Itzhaki on the Viewpoint blog
According to a recent U.S. Bank study, 82% of businesses that failed noted sagging cash flow as a leading indicator.
If you’re a construction financial professional, you know how true this rings, as a strong cash flow is the key to keeping your company’s doors open and projects moving. If your cash flow dries up, it becomes extremely difficult to take on new projects — where up-front costs are almost always a significant part of the construction workflow.
Manual Processes are Draining Your Cash Flow
As the construction industry, and the world around us — modernizes, it’s becoming more important to ditch manual billing and cash management processes. Here’s why:
- Quick and accurate billing is difficult with slow, manual processes and limited tools that capture job costs from the bill to the office
- Manual and double-data entry leads to higher costs due to more time spent trying to find, update and correct construction billing errors and duplications
- Collaboration is difficult because many organizations continue to use an email review process — passing spreadsheets (that are used to track project billing information) back and forth
- These spreadsheets (and other manual processes for financial data) lack real-time data accessibility, version control and visibility, and email communication is confusing especially when those emails are regarding spreadsheets that need to be updated.
If the right people never seem to have access to review the right invoices or bills at the right time and it’s hard to tell if a bill has been approved, then how accurate is your cash flow?
Of course, this can be solved by allowing secure, real-time access to approvers who can view and quickly “OK” a bill and send it to the appropriate parties. Additionally, giving your entire project teams the instant visibility they need to see billing status and any changes made is key to faster, more accurate billing, increased project productivity by keeping work on projects moving, and, ultimately, stronger and more reliable cash flow for your organization.
But how do you know where to start with modernizing your billing and cash flow processes?
A unified construction management system helps your organization collaborate and adjust billing needs as necessarily due to improved transparency. Faster billing processes means higher profit margins, reduced project risks and a stronger cash flow.
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