Four ways Center helps construction companies manage spend
Running a construction company is complicated. There are a lot of moving parts, and it takes a Herculean effort to get everything to come together the right way.
Keeping track of expenses and managing corporate cards are just a slice of the overall picture, but it’s often the most challenging. With the volume of materials, purchases, and mileage, construction firm finance teams are buried in reconciliation each month. At the recent CFMA Annual Conference, we heard firsthand from many companies how they need to find a better solution to get more efficient and accurate with their expense management.
Serving a sizable roster of construction customers, Center helps companies experience greater visibility and more productive workforces, achieve robust controls, and gain timely financial insights — while accelerating month-end close by days or weeks. Here are four ways a modern spend management solution can make construction companies run more smoothly:
1. Streamline accounting
Construction management involves tracking materials, man-hours, billing, and more. There are a lot of variables, in an environment where workers are focused on getting the contract done; manual accounting processes can make a hard job even tougher and more intensive than it needs to be.
With Center’s expense management software, construction companies have a powerful tool to digitize and streamline their financial processes. The mobile app enables employees to easily capture and track expenses on the go, eliminating manual paperwork and reducing administrative burdens. Real-time spend visibility and seamless integration with accounting systems facilitate a smooth transition.
Expense management software also negates the mundane part of managing your team. Successful construction firms embrace industry changes, including using automation to eliminate mistakes and improve accuracy so employees can spend time on more important tasks. Center’s intelligent automation streamlines processes and saves teams significant time. Moving away from manual accounting tasks, speeding up your month-end process, and increasing cash flow are quick wins.
“Center has helped us so much. Our guys in the field tell us how much easier it is and how much time it saves them…if only they knew how much time it saves us as Admins!!” – Accounting & Systems Manager at Robert High Development
2. Make informed, timely decisions
With your accounting processes streamlined, there’s more time for big-picture thinking. Construction managers will have data and trends at their fingertips, while workers in the field have a usable, high-tech reporting app in their hands.
Center’s robust reporting and analytics capabilities provide construction companies with insights into their spending patterns and project-specific expenses. Finance teams can identify cost-saving opportunities, optimize resource allocation, and more accurately bid on future projects with the use of real-time, transaction-level data. Center empowers construction companies to monitor key performance indicators, track budget variances, and proactively address potential risks, ultimately driving improved project profitability.
Some of your data will come from the field, mobile apps eliminate the need for workers to hang onto paper receipts and turn them in at the end of the month—everything can be done on the go.
Finance teams and workers in the field both love Center’s user-friendly mobile app and web portal:
“Sometimes I wouldn’t get credit card slips for two or three months. Reconciling bank statements and credit cards was a nightmare. With Center, it’s instant.” – Erica Sweet, Accountant, Clearwater Construction
3. Ensure Controls and Compliance
On top of all the complexities that come with construction management, the rules of the game are often changing. With a smart data solution, compliance and controls aren’t a problem.
With Center’s configurable expense rules and automated approval workflows, companies effortlessly enforce expense policies, reducing noncompliance and fraud. Digital receipt capture helps construction companies maintain accurate and auditable expense records, reducing errors in reporting.
And our tech makes it easy. Construction employees need to hold a lot of specialized and highly technical knowledge in their heads, so they particularly benefit from intuitive tools that don’t require a lot of training. And tools that give them the info they need when they need it, allowing them to take immediate action, are particularly valuable.
Center customers love being able to pull accurate, up-to-date reports any time they need them to help them analyze data and make decisions. And Center’s built-in policy rules and cost codes are easy to customize so construction firms can easily track expenses the way they need.
4. Empower teams to perform
A good expense management tool unites your team and streamlines processes, making your construction business more efficient than ever.
Center’s mobile app and intuitive platform enables employees to have more time to focus on their projects while giving finance and leadership teams the systems and information they need to improve performance. Field crews can easily submit expense reports on the go, eliminating errors and capturing expense data accurately with built-in business logic, receipt matching, and automated expense categorization. Budget approvers see spend as it happens, and custom approval workflows route to the right approvers, so they only review what’s necessary. This streamlined reconciliation process reduces manual paperwork, minimizes billing delays, increases cash flow and fosters greater productivity and transparency between field staff and financial teams.
Construction firms must constantly strive to deliver the fast, efficient service modern businesses demand. Not meeting these expectations can lead to loss of productivity, client churn, and loss of revenue. Center gets teams up to speed quickly for quick time to value, and integrated workflows keep teams on the same page while improving key business metrics like cash flow.
“Center has really been a time saver. It frees the team to do our other important work.” – Colleen Seely, CFO, SDV Construction
Center’s connected corporate card and expense management solution allows construction companies to embrace digital transformation, gain actionable insights from their expense data, streamline accounting processes, improve cash flow and track job costs more accurately for better profit margins. Managing a team doesn’t have to be hard, if you work smarter.
Want to learn how modern spend management tools can empower your construction team to do more? Schedule a personalized demo today.