How Hard Is It to Switch From American Contractor Software to FOUNDATION?

American Contractor software has been a solid choice for construction businesses since it first released in 1983, passed to Maxwell Systems in 2000 and was acquired in 2014 by Viewpoint, which joined the Trimble family of products a few years later. Many contractors have enjoyed it as an industry-leading program and would love to continue using for years into the future. That said, some American Contractor users may be looking to gain more long-term support and hardware compatibility, more product growth and development, and more stability.

While they have several options in front of them, one option is to convert their data over to FOUNDATION construction accounting software. So just what would that look like?

Key Features for American Contractor Users

Why American Contractor Users Get Excited About FOUNDATION

Clients who do move to FOUNDATION can look forward to a number of highlights that we’ve seen former American Contractor users love about switching.

Additionally, only one company has owned FOUNDATION and taken care of its clients exclusively since Version 1.0. Foundation Software has been free of outside investors since we started in 1985, and we’ve always refused acquisition offers, because we’re really that committed to giving our clients stability.

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What’s the Learning Curve for American Contractor Users?

What to Expect From the Differences

New software will never be exactly like your old software, and many differences are neither good nor bad — just different. Fortunately, a lot of how FOUNDATION is set up will make sense to American Contractor users. Both FOUNDATION and American Contractor are designed for similar-sized companies, and moving from construction software to construction software you’ll see a lot of similarities.

At the same time, some things might feel less familiar or be a small change. To take a little fear out of the unknown, here are some of the bigger differences you can expect.

Other than that? Some things do have different names, which you’ll get the hang of quickly. And you’ll need to hit “Tab” instead of “Enter” to key through fields. So, sorry, that might take a little time getting used to.

How Long Does It Take to Get Started?

We would love to tell you exactly when you could plan to run live on FOUNDATION. However, it depends in large part on a number of factors.

• how prepared your office is for the change
• how prepared your accounting is and any cleanup that’s required in your financial data
• how much dedicated time your team can commit

In our experience, we find that most contractors are best positioned for success with roughly 35-50 hours of training on new construction accounting software.

And in order to practice, get comfortable and instill long-term learning, those hours do need to be spaced out. Contractors with lasting success will typically allow for three to six months, from change planning through wrap-up and review.

That time is a long-term investment in software you want to be getting the most out of and growing with for the next five, 10 or more years. Having developed FOUNDATION and other products and services for this long as a fully independent company, we have every confidence we’ll be with you down the road to support your business.

Just Take the Next Step

The best way to find out how to get your business started on FOUNDATION is to kick off a conversation. Begin with a video tour of our job cost accounting, project management and mobile software. Then, schedule a live demo with us to dive deeper in specifics and talk about your ideal path forward.

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