Small business owners spend an average of eight hours monthly performing payroll functions. That's 12 business days a year that could be spent generating sales, prospecting new business opportunities, improving products or services, or servicing customers.
Upgrading or changing your payroll system comes with a ton of attractive benefits. Saving time and money, making everyone's account more manageable, and better integration are all excellent reasons to consider a change.
But if the switch is mishandled, the results can be catastrophic and lead to long-lasting problems. Read on for tips on avoiding a disastrous payroll system migration.
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Topics:
QuickBooks For Contractors,
Construction Bookkeeping,
Business Process Management For Contractors,
Construction Project Managers,
Construction Project Managment,
Project Management,
Project Management For Construction
In the past, Construction Project Managers were laborers or served an apprenticeship in one of the skilled construction trades and were promoted to foreman. This meant many people were more comfortable in manual labor without management skills. And when "things" were put in charge of "people," the results were not usually favorable.
Because of this, many construction companies failed and went out of business due to the Cost of Chaos in their businesses. And it is still happening today.
In the late 20th century, construction and construction management were separated into individual disciplines, each with its methodologies, terms, and definitions.
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Topics:
QuickBooks For Contractors,
Construction Bookkeeping,
Business Process Management For Contractors,
Construction Project Managers,
Construction Project Managment,
Project Management,
Project Management For Construction
Traditionally, employers have relied on giving employees raises to retain their staff and reward them for being hard-working and loyal. Raises can get expensive, and there is often an upper limit for what you can offer regarding increasing salaries and wages.
Keeping your employees happy makes business sense. You want to keep your good employees, and it costs money to find, hire and train new staff. Beyond that, satisfied employees who feel valued are more motivated and productive.
Here are some ways to keep your employees happy that don't rely on higher salaries.
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Topics:
Give Your Customers And Clients What They Want,
High Profit Repeat Construction Clients,
Business Process Management For Contractors,
Winning Teams
Construction business owners know that to find a loyal client base, they must stand out from their competitors. One of the best and easiest ways to do that is to have outstanding customer service. How you treat your customers reflects your entire business. People think positively about companies that treat their customers and clients well.
Unfortunately, many small construction business owners focus much on their products and services, with customer service remaining an afterthought.
Take time to learn more about your customers.
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Topics:
Give Your Customers And Clients What They Want,
High Profit Repeat Construction Clients,
Business Process Management For Contractors,
Winning Teams
When you're a construction business owner, your to-do list is often long and constantly growing longer. You need to do many things, and it can feel like they're all urgent. In such cases, it's easy to push essential tasks to the side and focus on less-vital activities, but that often means you miss deadlines, make mistakes or always feel as though you're trying to catch up.
Construction Companies have two basic leadership styles; wait until an urgent situation occurs and react like a firefighter or develop business processes that allow the company to respond calmly and natural resources and solutions to the issues like a traffic police officer on a sunny afternoon.
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Topics:
Business Process Management For Contractors,
Winning Teams,
Construction Productivity,
Contractor Guidance,
contractor delegation
One of the biggest challenges construction company owners like you have with an in-house bookkeeper is training them to work for your best interest, not theirs, and deliver consistent results and the reports you can trust daily, year after year.
Having been involved with construction and construction accounting and bookkeeping for over thirty years, we have seen a consistent pattern repeated over and over that will turn ordinary, decent, pleasant bookkeepers into a disheveled, broken, mean, nasty, arrogant trolls, and that's a good day when the sun is shining, and the birds are singing!
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Topics:
Business Process Management For Contractors,
Winning Teams,
Construction Productivity,
Contractor Guidance,
contractor delegation
Some construction business owners believe in maximizing production by driving everyone from the laborers to the project managers to work harder, longer, faster, hustle, and run. And if they are giving less than 110% to the company, they are not doing enough.
One thing to consider: Don't let construction workers think too much; they may injure themselves.
Apprentices and most Journeymen working on a construction job site are better off not thinking but simply following routines and patterns established by management based upon best practices. At first read, this sounds harsh, and yet it comes from our own experiences as a contractor operating multiple job sites with small crews on each from two to ten people; this one concept generated a lot of bottom-line profits and kept injuries very low.
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Topics:
Business Process Management For Contractors,
Winning Teams,
Construction Productivity,
Contractor Guidance,
contractor delegation
Making Decisions Never Ends For Construction Contractors Like You
One of the basics of good decision making is being adaptable
Think of decision making is being in a bumper car. You are constantly driving and trying to avoid the other bumper cars. If you hit one you back up and go again (reminder this is the only safe place to hit other cars). Rest of the time life as a contractor feels more like the Indy 500. You are driving as fast as you can, passing other cars, making pit stops, and scrambling to make it to the finish line.
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Topics:
Business Process Management For Contractors
Every time the phone rings you need to be willing to question what do they need are how far are you willing to drive to bid the job and do the work. Some types of work accepted or rejected may be based on the location of the job or by the state license.
When starting out one of the first decisions to be made is “What Type Of Contractor Am I?” This decided during the process of the contractor talking to the Bonding Company, Insurance Company and The State Licensing Board who approves the company’s Contractors License.
The Primary Questions to be answered are:
- What level of exposure, risk and your skills?
- How do you want to do these projects?
- Are you most comfortable being a Handyman?
- Are you most comfortable being a Trade or Specialty Contractor?
- Are you most comfortable being a General Contractor?
- Are you most comfortable being a Remodel Contractor?
- Are you most comfortable being a Home Builder?
The Four Types Of Contractors...
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Topics:
Business Coaching,
Construction Business Consulting,
Business Process Management For Contractors
Contractors Are Torn Between Over Or Under Managing Their Bookkeeping
Contractors want to maintain control without making any changes. “Keep doing the same thing but expecting a different result.”
Throwing the receipts in a shoebox (behind or under the seat in the truck) is the favorite way to deal with paperwork.
This is “Under Managing” and frustrates everyone around them who is playing “Where’s Waldo.” Job costing is nonexistent; bills are usually paid late, customers are unbilled, lost and forgotten.
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Topics:
Business Process Management For Contractors
