CONSTRUCTION JOB COST ACCOUNTING BUYERS GUIDE


CONTENTS

I. Intro to Job Cost Accounting Software 
II. Software Advantages
III. Software Selection
  a. When to buy
  b. What to look for
  c. Starting the process
  d. Choosing the system

Introduction to job cost accounting software


Job cost accounting (JCA) software has helped Empire Roofing to expand operations beyond their expectations. "We struggled to do $14 million in 2002 and thought we might have hit a wall. But this year we will do approximately $24 million and are continuing to grow," said Jay Wallis, controller and IT manager for the nationwide roofing contractor, based in Fort Worth, Texas. "Accuracy is what really has helped us. We used to spend a lot of time verifying that our costs were attributed to the correct jobs and tracking orders and delivery dates."

The company deployed ComputerEase and the efficiencies it brought in have enabled successful expansion. "We have been able to eliminate some of the steps we had developed to follow orders and verify job costs. We now can process a lot more orders with less effort; we can rely more on the system to provide information, and we print much less paper than we used to."

Empire's story is common where companies have successfully implemented job cost accounting automation. Job cost accounting can be a challenging chore without a solid software system behind it.

"We pretty much live and die by that job cost -- knowing what our estimates were going in, seeing it along the way, and then reviewing it when it is finished," said Wallis. In his opinion, job cost accounting software has become a big competitive advantage for Empire, since their competition doesn't "have the same grasp of technology" as Empire does today.

Deployed effectively, job cost accounting ERP software becomes the foundation for managing your construction business, according to JCA/ERP expert and consultant Paul Nobbs, with the San Diego-based consulting firm Paul Nobbs Group. This type of software, he said, has slowly grown in functionality, managing more and more of a construction firm's business operations. And as the software's capabilities have expanded, so has its name: job cost accounting software is now termed "job cost accounting ERP software" by many vendors.

The most effective job cost accounting ERP software integrates smoothly with the other software tools in a construction office, such as project management, scheduling, and cost estimating software. A JCA/ERP system can help centralize vital data and ensure it is correctly delivered. Depending on its configuration (a browser- or thin-client based implementation, for example), it can also provide information to offsite employees, suppliers, and subcontractors.

To learn more about what a construction job cost accounting/ERP system can do for your company look to the next segment of this buyers guide article.


Next: Software Advantages