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Construction is facing the same challenge that they were 20 plus years ago. Jobs are getting harder, accounting systems are getting older, labor shortages aren’t going anywhere, and the supply chain is challenging — so what’s the solution to this 20-plus-year problem? Digital transformation of the financial workflows. This is the only way to catch up to and then stay ahead of the game.
The complexity of construction finance
As buildings, sites, and projects become more complex, so do the financial processes that keep everything moving. Forecasting and managing the money workflow has many moving parts and the admin side alone takes people days — if not weeks — to complete. This impedes your ability to analyze a project’s performance because the financial data is always behind your actuals.
Not only that, every construction company is unique from the others. They will have different ways of performing the same work, which means a one size fits all solution does not work for construction in the way it would for many other industries. It’s why construction still relies so heavily on Excel, despite the fact it is an outdated, easily broken solution — because Excel starts empty and allows finance departments to build the solution they need. But construction has outgrown Excel, and it needs something new.
Currently, a CFO may log into their systems once a month and download hundreds of files, add the data to spreadsheets, and then send these spreadsheets to individual PMs to gather more information. By the time they receive this data from their PMs and piece the data back together, all the information is months out of date.
It’s a mess.
How automation can help the industry
No jobs will be lost to automation, they’ll be enhanced. Essentially, people's jobs become more useful because automation bots can do the repetitive tasks that take up people’s time and brain power. Because they can run these tasks 24/7 your construction business will become more efficient and profitable by removing manual tasks and eliminating human error. Briq automates the tasks that use massive amounts of resources and in doing so streamlines the processes found in forecasting, spending, and billing.
Automation can help your company:
- Enhance your profit margin
- Improve your planning
- Optimize resources
- Scale your business
- Save on overhead
How does it do this? To automate your business effectively, you need to take your big complex workflows (like project forecasting to revenue recognition) and break them down into their components. Where does your information come from? What tasks can be taken care of by automations? Who needs the information and when? With those questions answered, you’ll rebuild your workflow, simplify it, and improve the overall speed of the process.
Evolution of the construction industry
Technology is all over construction, we see it in the drones and machines the field teams use. But, where it's needed now is in the back office, helping the finance department get faster, more accurate numbers. Your employees are wasting time and energy on data entry and migration. Using up valuable hours compiling data when they could be analyzing it. Give your employees the breathing room to do more for your business by using technology to perform repetitive tasks. Financial automation is the next step for construction technology, and the companies that don’t start using it will be left behind.
Briq is financial automation software creating a new category in construction technology with no current competitors. Much like predecessors who revolutionized the design and document workflows, Briq is changing the game for the money workflow. Our software digitizes the money workflow in construction in order to streamline and simplify any process that touches a dollar sign. Budgeting, forecasting, re-forecasting, spending, receiving, or paying needs to be automated, and Briq has you covered.
Learn more about it in our recent webinar, or if you’re ready to learn what automation could do for your business, get in touch.
