https://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2023/06/construction-management-for-todays-companies/

https://www.erpsoftwareblog.com/2023/05/how-the-construction-industry-can-make-better-use-of-construction-management-software/

When IPM is connected to your accounting software, all the contacts and accounts stored there are copied into the Microsoft Dynamics contact management utility in IPM and accessible to your construction management team. Depending on which ERP (Accounting) software you use, this can include records of previous jobs/projects, so that the original budgets and actual costs are available for reference in planning for similar work.  Therefore, if your Business Development and Tendering Team have access to this information in IPM, they are on the same page, rather than operating in parallel.

IPM includes “tender functionality” which allows your Business Development teams to create “tender jobs” and include documents/drawings from the IPM Document Library when they send RFQs to your sub-contractors/suppliers. When you win the tender, you simply turn the “tender job” into an active one and you are ready to go.  All that correspondence that was submitted during the preliminary phase is now available to the Project Team.

So, your BDMs can be connected to the IPM Construction Management HUB, with access to details of existing clients, sub-contractors, resources and jobs … and, of course, they also enjoy IPMs native integration with Excel, Outlook, Sharepoint and Word, so email/RFI/RFQ activity related to any tender is automatically stored in the Sharepoint folder in the relevant “tender job”.

IPM Construction Management is devloped on the Microsoft Dynamics Power Platform, is a fully cloud based platform and deeply embedded in the Microsoft 365 suite.

Construction Management Software such as IPM Global, can integrate with SME accounting software products such as Attache, MYOB, Quickbooks or XERO, to provide a central HUB to manage and store everything you need to run a construction/contracting business.

The fascinating thing is that you could use IPM Global to manage the following:

• Contract, Billing and Variation Control
• Subcontract and Subcontract Variation and Claim Control
• Purchase Order Management
• Forecasting and Monitoring
• Site Diaries
• Document Control including RFI’s Drawing Management
• General Document management on a company wide basis
• OH & S Document control to track such documents as: SWMS, Incident Reports,
• Non-conformance Reports, Material Safety Data Sheets, Chemical Registers
• Project Documents such as Environmental Plans

… and manage your accounts in Excel or a cost-effective SME accounting system.

IPM – construction management software is written on the Microsoft Dynamics, cloud based platform and is deeply embedded in the Microsoft 365 suite.

As a provider of construction management software, IPM has first-hand experience with the slow uptake of online construction management systems that integrate with accounting systems; which is surprising when you remember that fully integrated systems reduce admin overhead, improve efficiency of project teams in the field and provide real-time reporting.

Time sheeting is probably one of the worst examples of these inefficiencies. In an era when companies like Qantas and Woolworths have acknowledged publicly that they have underpaid staff by millions, we encounter large companies who manage timesheets by SMSing photos of timesheets to HR, or have major issues with earned value management, tracking profitability and timelines.

From IPMs’ perspective, our site diaries, which record attendance and assign labour resources to jobs, in addition to recording equipment hours, sub-contractor attendance, material consumption and completion benchmarks, are as important as electronic management of purchase orders, RFIs, RFQs, sub-contracts and variations.

If more sophisticated time sheeting /award management is required, IPM offers integrations for a variety of time capture systems and includes TSheets (by Intuit) and TimeControl.

IPM Construction Management Software is powered by the Microsoft Dynamics Power Platform, is cloud based and deeply embedded in the Microsoft 365 suite.

No doubt this refers to the rapid embracing of online teleconferencing platforms, such as ZOOM, by business, educators and at a social level, in response to efforts by government to reduce physical interaction and contain the virus.  However, it has also stimulated interest in online tools generally to improve work processes and access to information.

Over the past few months, given improved levels of inquiry regarding our online Construction Management Software, we have found ourselves needing to deploy sites interstate and overseas, including examples in California, Oregon and Sydney, from our Brisbane office.

Prior to introduction of border closures and the ban on international travel, our process was to conduct deployments onsite on a consulting basis, so deployment costs included travel, accommodation and the secondment of a project team to the deployment.

The high degree configurability of IPM has always been a key point of difference with the other major players. However, this also meant that every deployment was different, and that the standardised online training package approach of used by our competition was not suitable for IPM, once again contributing to deployment costs.

In response to restrictions on travel, IPM has changed its deployment model, whereby we now conduct two to three hour online deployment sessions with project teams, every second day, which are recorded and forwarded to the project team for future reference and training. This approach combined with the consistent approach, continuity and intuitive nature of the Microsoft Power Apps platform utilised throughout IPM, has led to a reduction of up to 50% in deployment costs.

It is clear that COVID will leave a lasting impact on business with increased levels of working from home and telecommuting. Likewise, in the construction space, companies will adopt more online tools to decentralise their activities and improve efficiency and productivity. And for those companies in search of a highly configurable construction management platform built on the Microsoft Power Apps platform, the deployment cost has been significantly reduced.

In fact, the latest Construction Management Software provides a secure Internet Portal to facilitate an intimate level of communication with your Sub-Contractors, whereby you can authorise them to securely access your Construction Management Platform via a web browser and:

• View their sub-contracts, progress bills, drawings and other project information
• View or create RFI’s, Extensions of Time, Notices of Delay
• View and update the status of Defects

This means access to project information is provided to your partners and key project information is updated in your system, all without the need for contact with Internal Admin.  Of course all the information is available for checking before updating the system but the best part is that all this information is reportable in real-time without any internal data entry.

Last month we illustrated how a modern Construction Management Platform could capture all Project Data and provide real time reporting across the business, addressing a longstanding issue in most Construction companies. The IPM Portal means that clients and sub-contractors can access and update project information 24/7, optimising collaboration and communication with your partners.

IPM Construction Management Software is deeply embedded in the Microsoft 365 Platform. It has a large footprint, including Cost and Document Control, Equipment and Resource Management, HSEQ, Site Diaries and a Portal for Collaboration with third parties.  Read only Portal Users are free and Portal Users with editing rights are $100 per 100 users per month.

• More than two-thirds of companies still rely on paper or spreadsheet based records, even though they recognise the potential to reduce costs significantly with better data capture.
• Rework and project overruns still represent the major impediments to productivity, taking up 20% of productive time.
•  Improving communication both internally and with sub-contractors also presents a significant opportunity to improve efficiency.

These issues persist despite the proliferation and ongoing improvement of construction management platforms, such as the example in the diagram above.  As you can see, this addresses all of these issues and provides a familiar Microsoft environment for the construction team to operate and store all project information. Importantly, these products are so scalable that they can meet the requirements of the majority of construction and specialty contractors regardless of the size of the business.

IPM Construction Management software is highly configurable, so able to accommodate the process requirements of construction and speciality companies, and once deployed the average monthly cost per user is less than $100 per month.