Using Paper is Costing Your Business Money

Why is it important to stop using paper to document your projects?  

Did you know?

• It costs an average of $20 per document to file it.

• The average search time for a document is 18 minutes.

• It costs $125 to for each document that is misfiled.

 • Each lost document costs $350 to $700.

• More than 70% of today’s businesses would fail within 3 weeks if they suffered a catastrophic loss of paper-based records due to fire or flood.

• 67% of data loss is directly related to user blunders, making them 30 times more menacing than viruses and the leading cause of data loss.

• At any given time, between 3 and 5 percent of an organization’s files are lost or misplaced.

• U.S. managers spend an average of 4 weeks a year searching for or waiting on misfiled, mislabeled, un-tracked, or ‘lost’ papers”

• Large organizations lose a document every 12 seconds.

Mobile Resource Management Software along with your smart phones, tablets or laptops can eliminate the need for paper and more accurately document every aspect of your project. 

Facts about Paper - The Paperless Project - Join the ... (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.thepaperlessproject.com/what-are-the-facts-about-paper/

A Picture is Worth a Thousand ...

Four out of five construction companies in legal disputes found they had insufficient or unavailable documentation of projects according to a survey done by Robert Kreuzer, VP of Travelers Insurance Co.  According to Kreuzer 80% of the time critical documents, photos, change orders, inspections and approvals of onsite work “are either not there or inaccurate.”    Now take into account that the average defect claim can take more than 7 years to go through litigation when proper documentation isn't available.   Suddenly the phrase a picture is worth a thousand words becomes a picture is worth a thousand dollars. 

It’s AboutTime to invest in a Mobile Resource Management Solution that can help you track and keep accurate documentation of all aspects of every project. 

Join an AboutTime Webcast to Learn More. 

Time is Gold

An Albanian proverb says, “Time is Gold” which roughly translated means “Time is Money.”   This has never been truer than it is in todays hurried world.  Your customers set schedules, and you are expected to meet them.  When you don’t, your customers are unhappy, and fines may even be imposed.   Monitoring projects to make sure you can meet the time schedule you committed to can be a huge undertaking, especially if you have multiple projects running at the same time.  Using a mobile resource management solution can help to make sure projects are completed on time ensuring that the “Gold” stays in your business. 

A mobile resource management solution begins by managing your largest asset, your employees.   Time and attendance systems let you know when an employee clocks in or out but a mobile resource management solution should do more.  Not only knowing when employees clock in/out but also knowing where, what task they worked on, and how much of the task was completed can give you the information you need to make sure your project is running on time.

A mobile resource management system should integrate with your accounting or job costing system.  Sending and receiving data in real time and comparing actual time spent against budgeted time gives you and your employees a clear picture of where a project stands.  This information can show your foreman how much of a project is completed and how much still needs to be done, allowing them to make critical decisions.  For example, if a job is only 40% done but you have used up 80% of your budgeted time, a foreman can add an employee to the job to make sure it is completed on schedule.  Inversely, if a job is 80% done and you have only used up  50% of your budgeted hours, the foreman can decide to reassign an employee to a different task, reducing your payroll associated to that project ensuring that more “gold” stays in your business. 

Document Everything

Technology today makes documenting EVERYTHING about a project simple.  Not documenting EVERYTHING is a mistake most businesses can’t afford to make.

In this post, I want to tell you a story about how documenting time spent on tasks can resolve billing questions and how it helped one of our AboutTime customers.

In Utah, snow happens.  A couple of years ago a huge storm dumped a few feet of snow bringing a lot of construction projects to a halt.  Being behind schedule, a customer needed to clear the snow and continue framing in order to meet the established deadlines.  When the foreman called and told the contractor that they couldn’t frame, the contractor said just shovel the snow.  The framer and contractor worked out a deal of $25.00 a man-hour to shovel snow.  The framers shoveled the snow and then framed the house.  Later, on the same job, when the trusses arrived they were the wrong size.  Still running behind on the project, the contractor asked the framer to modify the trusses instead of waiting for more to be made and shipped.  The framer and the contractor worked out a deal of $25.00 a man hour to modify the trusses.  They modified the trusses and completed the framing project.  When the contractor was presented with the bill, he yelled “No Way!”  This is a lot of money!  How do we know you really spent this much time on shoveling snow and modifying the trusses?”  That is when accurate documentation saved the framers.

The framer was using the AboutTime solution.  Each time his employees clocked IN they clocked IN to a specific task, like shoveling snow.  When they were done shoveling snow, they clocked IN to framing and continued working.   The same process was followed with the truss modifications.  When the contractor said “Prove it”  the framer did!  He pulled a report that showed the exact time his workers started shoveling and the exact time they finished.  The detail was so precise there was no room for argument, and the contractor simply paid the bill.

Documenting everything from employee activities to weather conditions can reduce billing time, eliminate frivolous lawsuits, and even help with future project planning.

Risk Management an Infographic

Companies who understand the need to manage risk, and learn how to manage risk effectively, thrive, while others join a growing list of companies that have come and gone.  Take a look at this infographic from AboutTime explaining Risk and how Mobile Resource Management can help your business manage it.