Software & Technology
HOW MUCH IS IMPRECISION COSTING YOU ?
Rhonda Ridge of AdminBase talks about the delicate task of costing installation jobs , and how installation businesses could be saving themselves a lot of time , money , and effort , with the right software tools supporting them behind the scenes .
It ’ s not easy for installation businesses to keep the pipeline full while continuing to deliver high quality products and service for existing customers . It ’ s not surprising then that some admin tasks fall by the wayside . When you ’ ve been doing the job for a long time and surviving just fine without it , it might not even feel that important anymore . Take job costings for example , you know roughly how much the installation of an average house of windows costs , so you might think there ’ s no need to track costs in detail through every house of windows you deliver . But are rough costings good enough when margins are being squeezed and the market is so fragile ? What detail are you missing and how much is it costing you ?
Back to basics
Having worked in installation myself and working closely with hundreds of installation businesses since launching AdminBase over 20 years ago , I understand how tempting it is to just do the essentials to get the job done . However , I have also witnessed the benefits of digging a little deeper . Just to go back to basics for a moment , when we think of costing a job , most installers who have been in the profession for a while could probably give a very good estimate of how much a job costs depending on the project , the materials being used , the suppliers involved , and the necessary labour . But how many installation businesses then track the costs throughout a project to see if their estimate was accurate ? Perhaps if your bottom line is relatively healthy you haven ’ t really thought about it . I would argue when it comes to job costing though , attention to detail is always worth it .
To cost for a job properly it ’ s worth tracking projects through to completion and monitoring labour costs , material costs , overheads , commission payments , and supplier back charges . This is where a lot of installation managers will turn off . It sounds like too big a task to keep track of all this information on every job . It ’ s a nice to have but not practical . And I would agree . Unless you have an all-encompassing installer management system . When you do , it ’ s easy .
Integrated information
The key to keeping track of all information in a business , from the point of sale , to signing off an installation , and then being able to easily pull reports from that information , is having one central system that holds all data from across the entire organisation . This is precisely what AdminBase , the management system designed specifically for installation
businesses , does . It allows you to capture the costs of all products from all suppliers with a link to your accounts package , to save doubling up on entering invoices . It keeps track of supplier back charges , commission payments , and fitting ancillary items and allocates all these things to your job costings . This allows for accurate reporting on what jobs cost , which is vital to success because you can alter things that need improving and understand better what your selling price should be .
In addition , AdminBase improves efficiencies by keeping everything in one place and improving communication between all employees , both on-site and office based . For example , employees and managers can track entire projects down to each individual task with our Taskboard feature , while appointment information and all associated data and documents can be stored in one place in the My AdminBase Diary app .
Making change in business is never easy because of the focus on new business and servicing existing customers . However , any time and effort spent implementing the AdminBase system will be repaid in spades when installation businesses start to precisely track tasks and costs and ultimately improve efficiencies , productivity , and communication across the company .
www . abinitiosoftware . co . uk
56 AUGUST 2023 CLEARVIEW-UK . COM