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It’s no secret that cash flow will make or break a construction business.
Without a controlled cash flow, it can be impossible to cover project expenses, pay for labor, subcontractors, materials, and equipment — or even, in worst-case scenarios, have the money needed to pay taxes and keep the lights on.
What is an ugly but well-known “secret” is how little grasp many construction businesses have on their cash flow situation. According to a 2021 Construction Cash Flow Report by Levelset, 97 percent of construction pros say they experience stress from slow payments and cash flow challenges1.
It’s true that cash flow management is not a simple task. Construction businesses face an incredible number of variables and fluctuations that they have no control over, making revenue and costs unpredictable. Still, predict we must.
Precise and accurate projections are crucial to the success of any project, and ultimately, the company. How can you make forecasts or know when you need to save for an upcoming expense without an accurate understanding of the cash coming into and going out of the company?
With inaccurate cash flow forecasts, projects can become stalled as you are unable to pay workers or rent the equipment needed. In fact, the start-and-stop that occurs doesn’t just delay projects, putting them at risk, it increases costs.
A major contributor to the lack of accurate cash flow is how many companies have managed it for years — manually, using spreadsheets. Excel is a fine tool, but for managing cash flow and other money workflows it’s slow and painfully time-consuming. Not only does it eat away at hours and days of productivity, but also the time traditional spreadsheet-based approaches take means that having real-time insights and, therefore a true understanding of cash flow is impossible.
If the data you’re seeing is already weeks (or months) out of date, it’s not accurate.
Briq solves this problem by helping you capture spend in real time, automating data collection across your many disparate systems, and tracking and categorizing expenses across the organization.
Made from the ground up for construction, Briq is designed with the nuances of construction businesses in mind.
It’s a connected solution that integrates with and automates the collection of data across legacy systems (Procore, CRM, ERP, and so on) — so organizations have a complete big picture.
Niche integration
Construction businesses have a huge number of legacy solutions in place, some of which work perfectly for their needs. For example, Illinois-based contractor Shamrock Electric had an ideal accounting solution for electrical, plumbing, and mechanical contractors, it was not designed with interconnectivity in mind. The company was still able to use Briq to automate the collection and collation of data from it and other systems, allowing its CEO/CFO to save hours creating WIPs, job cost reports, and revenue forecasts, and giving him an accurate view of the company’s financial health.
Get off Excel
Accel Air Systems, a Santa Clara-based HVAC specialist was able to use Briq to kick the Excel habit. As the company grew, streamlining its accounts payable (AP) processes without increasing its workforce proved a challenge. Unlike Briq, most solutions focused on approvals automation not actually automating processes. It implemented Briq so it could move past Excel and rapidly analyze invoices, automate data entry, and seamlessly integrate with Foundation, its construction accounting system. The results have been remarkable: The AP process, once consuming more than 30 hours a week, now takes only two and a half hours.
Improved collaboration
Collaboration is vital to construction businesses. By connecting to systems across the organization, Briq enhances company collaboration. Teams that need to see data, and are given quick, real-time access to the information they need. It provides a single source of truth, but at the same time can be customized to deliver only the relevant information, cutting through the clutter.
Collaboration isn’t limited to within the company either. SphereNY, a New York-based construction technology consulting company, is using Briq in its job of helping protect its clients against risk. The company had been having difficulties transferring data between systems, and its teams were spending too much time manually entering data — introducing the potential for errors and inaccuracies — and had issues tracking client business data from external sources. Their ability to give clients good advice and keep accurate records of projects was being impacted. Briq and SphereNY recognized where automation could help, and created bi-directional connections between their and client systems, eliminating duplication by having bots collect and share data between them.
Generative automation for the win
Briq uses generative automation, a combination of generative AI and automation technology, to automate processes but in a way that is dynamically responsive and improves through machine learning. It ensures access to real-time data, enhancing accuracy, and the ability to perform predictive analytics through AI. This novel use of AI technology leads to improved decision-making, better risk mitigation, and optimized resource allocation for construction businesses.
Learn more about how Briq can help you with managing cash flow for construction projects. Talk to the team at briq.com/demo
1 https://www.levelset.com/tools/2021-national-construction-payments-report/
