Trade Life: Contractor Software
As a contractor, it’s safe to say that you’re handy with tools. While you might know your way around all power tools and know-how to use a carpenter’s square with ease, most contractors don’t use technology to its fullest potential.
In the past, no matter what business you’re in, most people managed their projects using a foreman, a supervisor, or a management team. You relied on other individuals to oversee jobs and relay critical information to you in a timely fashion. The only problem here is that being human comes with the element of error.
Today, we have many digital tools for managing projects, and contractors can take advantage of these tools to make their jobs (and lives) much easier.
Everything from project management to customer relations management can be handled in one location, and contractor software reduces the need for costly management staff, in most cases.
Here, we’ll discuss the best contractor software that you can use to help manage your contracting business.
1. CRM
Customer Relationship Management software, or CRM, regards marketing efforts and strategies you need to use to keep up with your current clients and to bring in new clientele.
With all of our latest technological advancements, CRM software brings the tools of marketing to you and allows you to see customer relations data displayed in real-time, usually via a smartphone app. Customer Relationship Management software is the best Contractor Software.
With the nature of the contracting business, it’s hard to schedule in time to sit down and crunch numbers. Let’s face it, you have a business to run and projects to work on. This being said, it’s hard to find the time to sit down and give your customers the attention they deserve.
CRM software allows you to check data on the go, whether you’re on the Jobsite or traveling.
2. Project Management, contractor software
As previously mentioned, managing projects used to take several highly trained staff members. This not only could cause confusion with multiple people along a chain of communication, but it was also a costly endeavor.
Project managers are highly skilled workers, and they usually have many years of experience under their belts. As such, these individuals want to be compensated for their skills and experience, and this type of salary could be quite high in some parts of the country.
Instead of paying a management team and watching your bank account be sucked dry every time you do payroll, you should be using project management software. Project Management software is much needed for Contractor Software.
Project management software takes the guesswork out of the equation. No longer will you have to send out or receive daily emails about progress and the like. Instead, you can have all the data you need right on your smartphone, laptop, or tablet.
3. Enterprise Resource Planning
Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP software refers to an all-inclusive suite that usually includes CRM and project management tools as well.
If you want to streamline your technology, using an ERP suite is the best way to locate all of your pertinent information in one central location.
For example, let’s say you’re working on a big job a few miles out of town, and it’s your first big job that allows you to expand your operation. Well, meanwhile, your ongoing projects are incurring problems and you also have a couple of unhappy customers to contend with. ERP is important Contractor Software.
With an ERP suite, you can assess any situation using available real-time data and devise solutions all while still working on your big project outside of town. This makes an ERP suite one of the better all-inclusive technologies to have at your disposal, as it has the potential to contain all of your vital business data.
These are some contractor software much needed for business.
No matter what type of contracting work you do, whether this is general handyman work or if you build houses from the ground up, having tools to make your life easier will go a long way.
We all need a bit of rest from time to time, and digital management tools offer us the ability to access data when we need it, instead of guessing or relying on managers to do so.
