Clean up your construction accounting

Construction finance is anything but simple. Nobody knows this better than the accountants closing the books every month. Whether it’s missing spreadsheets or barely legible receipts from field spending, the accounting process can get messy fast in this industry. It often feels like teams are forced to choose between getting work done fast or getting it done accurately. 

In other industries, accountants don’t face the same challenges, at least not to the same degree. The difference doesn’t have to do with the industry itself or the type of accounting done. Instead, they’re able to get more done thanks to the tools they’re using. Financial automation helps teams from all industries clean up their accounting processes, and construction is no exception. Construction companies are starting to catch on to this and are utilizing these tools to improve financial reporting.

Whether you’re trying to escape Excel Hell or achieve a continuous close, financial automation can empower your teams and build a better way to work. Let’s go over how construction companies can leverage technology to clean up their accounting processes.

Workflows keep documents moving

At times, accounting can feel like detective work. It’s not uncommon for teams to spend hours trying to find out who is the culprit behind a missing invoice, report, or spreadsheet. At best, it’s inconvenient to ask around. At worst, it can lead to repeated emails and hours of time left with no response from key personnel in other departments. It’s a financial maze that gives the accounting team a reputation for chasing down documents and employees. 

Automated workflows take the responsibility off of your accounting team and integrate the process seamlessly into your organization. With automated workflows, digital reminders will notify personnel across departments when it’s time to send in any report, invoice, or receipt. Once they upload it, that information is automatically sent right to your accounting team. If the data isn’t sent on time, your team will be able to check the workflows to see exactly who hasn’t submitted documentation yet, and why. It’s a clear audit trail for every accounting process. This cuts through the back-and-forth email chains and allows everyone to understand their role in closing the books. It keeps your financial information flowing, your teams accountable, and best of all, it doesn’t require any additional labor from your employees.

Automate all of your invoices

Invoices are the basics of finance. Every company has to use them, and in construction, they’re likely spending hours of manpower to process them. This way of working isn’t just slow, it’s also inefficient and inaccurate. Whether you’re creating an invoice from your ERP or copying info from a G702, it’s all being copied to and from a spreadsheet. That means an employee is doing double data entry and reviewing the same cells over and over again to make sure there’s no error. However, an error will inevitably occur, it’s just a matter of time and scale.

This is where financial automation delivers one of its greatest benefits to accountants. Financial automation tools can completely automate your accounts receivable and payable processes. It can extract data from invoices, load that data into a spreadsheet accurately, and upload it for approval within seconds. On the billing side, you can generate change orders, and invoices in just a few quick clicks. The automation tools can get everything they need to create these documents by connecting to your existing systems, so you don’t have to enter that data again. With financial automation, one time is all it will ever take.

While this technology might sound like an uncharted frontier, it isn’t. In fact, construction companies are already using these tools to automate thousands of their invoices. It’s allowed many businesses to scale up and take on more projects without increasing workload or staff. All in all, this automation isn’t just a game changer for accountants, it’s a win for the whole business.

Automation is essential to accounting

In the end, automation can never replace accountants. However, accountants that use automation will replace those that don’t. The efficiency that automated accounts payable, accounts receivable, and workflows offer outclasses manual data entry by leagues. It’s the solution that the industry didn’t even know it needed.

While the benefits of automation are undeniable, not all technology is built equal. Many financial automation solutions don’t fit the bill for construction’s unique financial needs. That’s why we created one custom tailored for the industry. Briq is a financial automation platform that can automate data entry, create intelligent workflows, and help construction companies build a better business. Set up a demo with one of our experts to learn how Briq can help you improve your accounting processes.