How Briq does data differently

In today’s software landscape, you’ll undoubtedly be flooded with words like data, cloud-connected, analytics, and more tech-related terms. It’s for a good reason. These subjects represent the key to advancing business in this digital era. They draw the line between companies that get left behind in sweeping times, and those that can continually adapt their business model, values, and tradition to any era. 

All of that is important. But you might be left wondering what all these words even mean. How can consumers differentiate between the right “data” and the correct “cloud” when everyone’s using the same terminology. Trying to make an informed decision as a buyer when faced with a wall of vaguely similar labels and options can create decision paralysis and make it hard to really know what’s good. 

At Briq, we like to keep things as plain as can be. As much as our clients believe that our platform is magic, it isn’t. It’s a robust financial automation platform built on clear, easy-to-understand principles. It’s practical, efficient, and makes sense for the construction industry. That’s why it was created.

Let’s cut through the tech confusion and get down to the brass tacks. This article will go over exactly what we mean when we talk about using your data to run a better business and how we differentiate ourselves in the construction software sphere. By the end, we’re hoping you’ll come away as an informed software buyer. Here’s how Briq does data differently through automation, transformation, and distribution.

How Briq handles data automation 

The automation aspect of our financial automation platform is a key component to the success of Briq. Some would even call it our bread and butter, as it’s allowed companies to process thousands upon thousands of invoices. We take pride in how smoothly it works since automating AP processes is a notoriously frustrating process. We’re confident when we say that our AP allocation is the best on the market for construction companies right now. You can even take a picture of an invoice on your phone and our system will pull out that information just fine. That leaves the consumer with one big question. How do we make it work differently? 

The key is in the technology we use. Other invoice readers rely on broad optical character recognition software. What this means is that a computer scans for letters and numbers on a page, gathers them up, and spits them out as a giant text wall back to you. The most this can do for you is increase accuracy since you can copy-paste numbers from the machine. However, it won’t cut down on your time, and sorting through the number wall may even take more time. Optical character recognition is a powerful, widely used software when it comes to pulling numbers from an image into a system. At Briq, we realized that the phrase “widely used” was exactly the problem. 

Briq’s automation engine uses a different software altogether for processing invoices. Instead of scanning for numbers and letters in a pdf, our invoice reader scans and analyzes the entire image in order to understand it. It takes the whole image into account, similar to how your phone can identify faces, pets, and locations in your photo without your input. 

Our reader isn’t looking for the numbers, it’s looking for the format that the numbers are in so that it can understand what those numbers mean and replicate the format. We achieve this by showing the computer exactly what a given invoice looks like, what information it needs to seek out, and what that information represents depending on what format it’s in. That way, it can extract the information and duplicate it without any human input required. It can also save that information in set categories to use later. When our financial automation platform scans an invoice, we don’t want it to just tear through the document for numbers. We make it so that the platform understands what it’s looking at. As a result, our automation works like magic.

Transform your data with our financial automation platform

Now that we’ve discussed the robust system that allows Briq to pull in huge amounts of data, it’s important to understand what we do with that data. Though we focused on AP allocation above, Briq pulls in data from all of your software using bots that replicate the keystrokes accountants use to collect information from systems. That means there are more than just invoices living on our platform. In fact, Briq is built so that companies can store all of their data safely on our platform. So, what is it that we do to transform that data into something useful?

All of it ties back into that core principle we mentioned above. We’ve made it so that our financial automation platform doesn’t just store your information, it understands it as well. Whereas other cloud alternatives require a great deal of human input to sort out the information, input it into spreadsheets, and pull it out of the system, our platform takes care of it. The Briq platform understands what your information means, and can extrapolate accordingly. Instead of having to repeatedly enter the same numbers for a different financial forecast format, the Briq platform can do it for you. The time and effort required to switch a forecast from frontloaded, backloaded, even spread, and bell curve is now just a few quick clicks on a screen. The Briq platform understands the numbers and takes care of the calculations for you. 

In short, Briq doesn’t just store your data. It gives you control over the shape it will take. What once required multiple hours of data entry and labor, or a suite of costly software that doesn’t communicate with each other can now all be taken care of on a single platform. Once you enter your data into the Briq platform, you won’t need to re-enter it, move it anywhere else, or create new spreadsheets to see it. Give it the templates you want, the documents you need to create, and the information it needs to do it, and Briq will get it done

Gain more control over your data distribution and privacy with Briq

In construction, communication is key. The flow of information is directly linked to the issue of cash flow. Every delay on a project costs money, every missed invoice is a lost billing opportunity, every delayed report can cause a business opportunity to pass by completely. A major component of great financial planning is making sure everyone can get their information in a timely manner. 

Before Briq, there weren’t many technological solutions to this problem. Cloud solutions existed on the market, but they were for businesses in general as opposed to construction specifically. Different members of the team need access at different times. Changing project managers and getting all the right documentation into their hands, or looping in just about anyone to a project takes time. Gathering the folders, sharing them on a google drive or a microsoft cloud, sifting through them for the relevant data and so on is a time consuming process that isn’t accurate or efficient. 

Once again, this is where Briq can leverage its advantage of targeting construction in particular. Briq is designed with digital workflows in mind. On the Briq platform, you can control what access certain employees have to information at will. Rather than going through the arduous process of a constant back and forth email, managers can now add or remove people from certain documents and related tasks at will. Seeing the whole information stream in one place makes getting the right information into the right hands easier than ever before. 

That said, we don’t just speed up communication by giving you better control over access. The aforementioned workflows make a huge difference in the construction data workflow. Instead of hunting through your inbox for a document or searching across a department to find out who is doing what, and when, Briq takes care of that for you. You’ll be able to see exactly who has been assigned to complete which document or report, and whether or not it’s uploaded. What used to take a tiresome back and forth of tracking and messaging is now simply a part of the process. It creates a clear trail of who is doing what, and which tasks are being blocked out by another issue higher up the stream. This gives construction companies a clearer picture of the pace of work and cuts through the confusion of figuring out who is doing what and when. 

Automate, transform, and control your data distribution with Briq

The advent of technology has often been called another industrial revolution. The jump we made to using computers to manage our data is comparable to changing from horses to cars. A lot of construction is still riding on horseback, because the right vehicle to take the industry hasn’t arrived. Briq is the machine built to take you where you need to go. 

Hopefully, our article has helped clear up what we mean when we talk about getting the most out of your data. If you’d like to dive in even deeper on all things construction fintech check out our eBooks or other blogs for more deep dives on the subjects listed above. 

If you want to know how Briq can improve your business, contact us here to schedule a demo. Our team will sit down with you to find out how Briq can best serve your business, and take your company to the next level.