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Technically Speaking
BY FRED ODE
Editor’s Note: Looking for answers to your tech issues?
Send your construction-related technology questions to heyfred@foundationsoft.com.
Q: I’ve worked at the same construction
company for the past twenty
years since graduating from college.
When I started here, the company had
no historical data for job costing. I
set up a good job costing system (first
on Lotus 1-2-3 and now via Microsoft
Excel). Everyone is dependent on
these reports; they are the heart of
the company and keep both the field
and office on task and on budget. The
problem is, the owner is convinced
that we need to upgrade to a database
system for job cost accounting. He was
told we are missing information that
we can’t get through spreadsheets
alone. My attitude is: If it’s not broke,
why fix it? What’s your suggestion?
Al
A: It’s commendable that you
took the time to establish good job
costing processes for your company.
I’m sure that your reporting methods
helped the company improve profits
and productivity over the years.
Today, however, there is a better way.
Here are a few things you need to
consider:
While your spreadsheet reports
may contain valuable job data,
you are undoubtedly spending a
lot of time preparing them. Aside
from job cost reporting, there are
many other areas that suffer from
inefficiency. For example, are you
aware that a good construction
accounting software package will
automatically feed your labor
4
dollars (wages plus burden costs)
into job costing, general ledger,
etc., which you currently do by
hand?
Many of the accounting tasks you
now do in spreadsheets (payroll,
billings, accounts receivables)
would automatically happen in
an integrated job cost accounting
system. Information is collected
once, flows to appropriate modules
and is available for up-to-date
reporting.
Most good job cost accounting
programs include hundreds of
standard reports and customizable
report writers, which allow
you to recreate your must-have
spreadsheet reports or create new
ones on-the-fly, without re-entering
data.
The time you could save from
manually entering data into
spreadsheets could be better spent
analyzing data or on other high-level
activities.
Al, you owe it to your boss to
consider newer technology that can
greatly improve job cost reporting as
well as the management of the business.
I’m telling you straight: Your
methods may not look broken, but
they need fixing! Don’t continue to
hold your company hostage to outdated
spreadsheets simply because you
are unwilling to change.
Fred
Disclaimer: Technically Speaking
reserves the right to change names and
edit questions for privacy, length, and
readability issues. |
