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Project reporting often feels like a necessary evil, snatching time and focus away from the work at hand.
Take work-in-progress (WIP) reports, there’s no question they are a necessity — they are the only way to stay on top of project progress and performance — but traditional approaches suffer from delays, human error, and rob everyone from project managers to controllers of more time than they need.
Automating the WIP reporting process through financial automation has emerged as a solution to overcoming the challenges that accompany traditional, spreadsheet-based WIPs, affording construction businesses with several great advantages. In this blog, we're going to look at five key benefits of using a financial automation platform like Briq for your WIP reports.
1. Higher accuracy = better decisions
One of the natural issues with manual WIP reports, like any spreadsheet-based report, is human error. Studies have found nearly 9 in 10 spreadsheets harbor errors, and most of them are the results of mistakes. Automation eliminates these, so decision-makers can be confident they are working with accurate information when predicting project outcomes, forecasting trends, or if necessary, taking the steps needed to put a project back on track.
2. Time is money and more
Automating WIP reports streamlines and accelerates the process of creating them while at the same time taking up less time for the teams and project executives involved. The speed gains by automating WIP workflow shave off hours of work but more importantly allows project executives, accounting teams, and controllers to focus their attention on higher-value activities and moving projects forward.
3. Customized and effective
Every organization produces WIP reports a little differently, in keeping with the way their organizations operate. Briq is unique as a financial automation platform in that while it simplifies the work related to WIP reporting — speeding it up and improving accuracy — it also does so while maintaining your company’s processes. It also opens the door for new processes or approaches, for example, more compellingly displayed information or more frequent WIP creation.
4. Come together, right now!
Automation of WIP reports with Briq brings together input in real-time from all the parties involved in generating and approving the WIP, as well as providing access to everyone who needs to see the information contained in it. Armed with the right information at the right time, everyone has better knowledge of the state project and how it’s doing financially. Because Briq is workflow-based, everyone also understands their roles in the WIP report, and why they are so valuable.
5. Connecting to succeed
In addition to connecting people (mentioned above), Briq also pulls together disparate systems across the organization. So, your organization can use the technology it has in place — whether its legacy solution you can’t lose or the latest best-in-class software — and know that whatever data is entered into it will be updated in real-time to the WIP. This improves accuracy, allows for faster and more data-driven decisions, and eliminated duplication and redundancy.
With better, more accurate, and more effective WIP reports, you can make stronger predictions around not only the health of projects but the health of the business. After all, isn’t your construction business a collection of successful projects, any one of which going amuck could spoil the bunch? Similarly, improving the ability to track and monitor all of them strengthens the health of the entire company.
Want to learn how Briq and automated WIP reporting can help do just that? Check out our recent eBook Take Your WIPs to the Next Level.
To find out more about how Briq can revolutionize your WIP reporting process and a lot more, visit br.iq/demo for a demo from our experts.
