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

Software Selection: How do I start the software selection process?


The selection steps for a successful job cost accounting ERP software search ideally include:

1. Select Team: Identify staff in the company who will champion various groups. These groups might include accounts payable, project managers, executives, payroll, etc. The size and composure of this team will depend on the size and complexity of your company. A small company may have only one person on the team.

2. Create a selection schedule: Put your goals on a calendar and make every effort to hit these goals. "Whenever" usually means never.

3. Create a Rough Scope: It is best to first make your needs known to viable vendors with a small document first, before putting yourself and vendors through a lot of unnecessary work. This document is intended to convey the basics about your needs to vendors. Most vendors will tell you up front if they are a bad fit rather than proving it to you later.

4. Discovery and Interviews: This is a time when team members can research exactly how business processes are actually being done. Often, a company staff has simply created a solution (for example, an estimating spreadsheet) in order to solve a problem and it's been in use ever since.

5. Finalize Scope: With new answers, the rough scope can be edited and become the final scope suitable to use for contacting vendors.

7. Create and Send RFP: The creation of an RFP (Request for Proposal) should be a continuous process of modifying the document over the course of the rest of the search. This is because you will learn about functions and features you will want to include as you interact with each vendor. Use this search process to extract fresh ideas from vendors and incorporate them into the RFP to see if the other vendor(s) do them, too. An RFP need only go to the finalists.  RFP's are a lot of work to answer and even more work to evaluate if you send them to a lot of vendors. This approach reduces the workload to evaluating a few good choices.

8. Small, Subject Matter Specific Demonstrations: A complete demonstration of every feature of every software system is impractical. A good technique is to script a few small, focused, one to two hour demonstrations that the vendor can provide via the internet. You can absorb about three of these in a day, and they provide a good "feel" for the software in a specific area from beginning to end. We sometimes refer to these as "core samples."

9. Choose Winner: Use the results of the RFPs and vendor demonstrations/discussions to pick a winner. 

10. Buy and Implement Software, and implement enhanced business processes!

Good results are the result of good planning.  Take the time to do it right and your company will benefit from this system for a long time.


Next: Choosing the system