Construction Management for Subcontractors

While it’s been around for quite some time, cloud-based software is beginning to really take off and gain recognition as a business catalyst. Google CIO, Ben Fried, recently acknowledged that cloud-based software and tools are starting to look less like a trend and more like an industry standard. This new wave of technology is empowering its users by enabling them to run their businesses at a much lower cost than ever before.

What does this mean for construction? As cloud-based software becomes the industry standard, more and more construction software will be available in the cloud with seamless integration. This means all of your software from different providers will integrate in the cloud. For example your estimating and bidding tools will link with your cloud based project management and accounting without any extra effort on your part. "Gone will be the days of double entry into multiple systems. Also by the wayside will be various departments working in silos, without the left hand knowing what the right hand is doing. There will be a seamless "passing of the baton" from one department to the next, and one software system to the other," says Wendy Rogers, President of eSUB.

According to Fried, the evolution of cloud technology is forcing companies to “reassess what their core business truly is, and where they want to invest their [saved] capital”. At eSUB, many of our customers choose our cloud-based project management software to save time and money. The future looks promising in the cloud and eSUB is looking forward to expanding its integration with more and more providers. Find out more about eSUB's Cloud based Project Management Software or Read the full Wall Street Journal Article here

The men and women involved in the construction of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum deserve big thanks. Its completion date remains tentative as June or July 2013, with constant rescheduling forcing subcontractors to pause and resume their efforts. Their work is predicted to break architectural records in the United States as well as the world. Upon completion, the memorial itself will be officially recognized as the tallest building in the country and the third tallest in the world. It isn’t often an accomplishment of this caliber is achieved, so congratulations to every subcontractor involved.

However, the construction efforts surrounding the Memorial and the Museum have raised questions about the structures surrounding subcontractor payments. Until recently, the subcontractors involved at the site were owed over 50 million dollars. A pending negotiation with the Port Authority of New York and the Subcontractors Trade Association will begin to reimburse subcontractors for their work. Executive director of the Subcontractors Trade Association said “the majority of that [50 million dollars owed] stems from work that was changed from the original tasks, making billing a longer process” (Crain’s).

Not getting paid for your work is unfortunate, and in the construction industry we know one thing is certain: we get paid for the work we document. Change Orders happen all the time, its effectively documenting them with project management software that can help prevent the bill from accruing to a crazy amount, like 50 million dollars. Read more here

eSUB is proud to announce its enhanced Timecard integration with QuickBooks  for a faster link between Project Management and Accounting, with no data entry on the accounting side. Our enhanced integration creates a flexible environment so no matter how you're tracking time in QuickBooks it will automatically populate the proper data from eSUB's timecards. Project Managers and Foreman don't always track the same information that accounting does. For example time associated with 3 different tasks logged on a timecard may be consolidated into one cost bucket in QuickBooks. With the enhanced QuickBooks integration, eSUB can pass all 3 different tasks to QuickBooks with the same Service Item or multiple Service Items.

eSUB's smart logic knows how to partition the data from your eSUB timecards entered from the field on a tablet, iPad, smartphone or any other device, to match your personal Quickbooks flow in your back office.  For more information on eSUB's Cloud Based Project Management and Smart Logic integration with Quickbooks click here.

California mandates have instigated a rise of renewable energy throughout the state, solar energy is dominating this latest trend. This year's ENR California Top Starts list includes solar projects among the top five spots, totaling over $7.9 billion dollars. Solar projects have jumped over 52% since last year and will continue to do so with funding which has been appropriated by the American Recover and Reinvestment Act. There are a couple reasons why California is experiencing a surplus, even more so than other states. To learn more about how solar projects are dominating 2012 read the full article here

As you may know, Earth Day is a holiday reserved for recognizing and addressing the fragility of the Earth’s environmental resources. Sounds pretty lofty right? Let’s look at how Earth Day translates in the construction industry.

As Earth Day approaches, companies begin to examine how we can reduce their negative impact of the planet through less carbon footprints. We take an internal examination of certain operations which may involve unnecessary wastefulness or production. According to the Association of Information and Image Management (AIIM), businesses use millions of tons of paper each year. The same study concluded that the average worker prints 10,000 pages per year, including 1,410 wasted pages. Of course, with the advent of cloud based construction software there is less of a need for this waste (of time and money). The Environmental Paper Network (2007) estimates that cutting operational paper use by just 10% would be the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road, and would reduce greenhouse gases by 1.6 million tons. That’s pretty incredible.

Documentation associated with construction project management is complex and frequent. There are all types of changes and updates that our construction team has to deal with throughout the course of a project. So why would we use paper as a means of communicating? It's the perfect opportunity for us to adopt construction project management software that uses paperless documentation including: Daily Reports, Submittals, Requests for Information (RFIs), construction Change Orders, and workflow automation that reduces our company's impact on the planet while boosting efficiency, and saving time/money. It's a win-win situation for our company and our planet.

eSUB has released its Corporate Management Module to all of it current users for free. The Corporate Management module allows Users with a global overview and dashboard of all their assigned construction projects. For example it allows a Project Manager to quickly see what Change Orders are outstanding across all his or her open projects. From the Corporate Management Change Order Log you can easily email, edit, revise, approve, add reminders or attach to the Change Order with one click. The Corporate Management module tracks the status of all your construction documents such as RFI (Request for Information), Daily Reports, Transmittals, Submittals, Purchase Orders, Pay Applications and Drawling Sets.

Sample RFI (Request for Information) Log:

Large and Small companies alike are seeing the benefit from eSUB’s Corporate Management Module because it allows you to do more with less. It allows Users to properly document and track their construction projects faster than ever. Another great feature of the Corporate Management module is being able to see global user defined Milestones from your construction project in a color coded GANNT chart format.

Corporate Milestones

The Corporate Management Module also tracks Calendar intems, Project Notes and important financial information on your construction project.  Click here to request more information

San Diego, California (October 20, 2011) – eSUB, a leading provider of cloud-based project management software for electrical contractors has completed their application programming interface (API) and now integrates directly with ConEst’s Intelibid 7 estimating software. This partnership offers a seamless software solution to provide electrical and data contractors with full-spectrum construction management from estimating through project completion.

eSUB has over 30 years consulting experience working with NECA contractors. The ability to dovetail desktop estimating with cloud-based project management provides a strategic framework for electrical contractors to optimize margins and productivity. For over a decade web-based technology has been a cornerstone to eSUB’s product, providing commercial subcontractors with the resources necessary to gain competitive edge.

Having spent a decade in the cloud, eSUB has refined its software with hundreds of enhancement suggestions provided by eSUB Users and rolls out improvements to the software on a monthly basis. eSUB has also developed a flexible back-end that allows for customization of the software on a per company and per User basis.

At a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $424.7 billion, new construction starts in August advanced 8%, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies. The gain followed a 10% decline in July, and continued the fluctuating pattern that’s been present in recent months.  The pickup for total construction in August was the result of greater activity for each of construction’s three main sectors – nonresidential building, residential building, and nonbuilding construction.  For the first eight months of 2011, total construction on an unadjusted basis was reported at $274.8 billion, down 6% from the same period a year ago.

eSUB is proud to be working with the construction crews who are building the new World Trade Center Towers. Hundreds of construction workers stopped what they were doing Friday morning at Ground Zero to bow their heads at 9:08 a.m. Several air horns sounded off in unison at that time and the normally frantic pace of construction became quiet.

eSUB is proud to announce the a new Material Cost tracking feature that allows for Job Costing. eSUB allows subcontractors to track estimated material costs and labor costs on a project, down to a specific task or activity. Find out more on eSUB’s Project Management Software
Here are some of the highlights:

• Enter estimated material costs and labor by System/Phase and/or Activity
• Track material purchased for detailed cost and efficiency reports
• Purchase Order tie in to materials ordered and received
• Ability to batch enter purchase order line items

Click here for a 20 minute demo of eSUB’s Project Management Software

Daytner Construction with her husband in 2003 as a commercial construction consulting outfit, she was not planning to pursue government work. But by the end of 2010, she made 90 percent of her $18 million revenue from federal contracts, up from 10 percent (of $1.5 million revenue) just two years earlier. She expects sales to continue to rise because she’s poised to pursue contracts through the government’s new Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contract Program. To find out more read the full article at Inc Magazine

How One Female Entrepreneur Goes After Federal Contracts

Best Practice Project Management # 1 -   Principles of the Construction Contracts
Scott Lowe, P.E. discusses the basic principles of construction contracts.
About the Instructor
Scott Lowe, P.E. is a nationally recognized speaker on the topic of construction best practices. He is an expert in the area of construction disputes, contracts and scheduling, and is currently Senior Vice President at Trauner Consulting Services Inc., in Philadelphia. Scott regularly conducts seminars throughout the country on a wide variety of topics to include Construction Project Management, Construction Scheduling, and Claims Avoidance and Resolution. He also has published several articles on construction-related topics and is the co-author of the text Construction on Contaminated Sites.

Over the next few months we will be going over best practice project management, construction contracts, documentation and claims avoidance on a constructions projects. The content has been provided by our friends at Trauner Consulting.

Congratulations! After all the time you invested in estimating, planning, and bidding the project you just got word that you’ve been awarded the job.  You’re now officially in the “honeymoon phase” of the construction project.  But what happens next? Now is the time to lay the groundwork and give a “heads up” about what costs you will incur daily on the construction project, just in case there are delays later on down the road. While no subcontractor wants to be in a position where you have to seek additional compensation, things like unforeseen conditions, extra work, delays and/or disruptions—-these are all issues that may force you to incur additional construction costs that weren’t reflected in your bid. When these situations occur, it’s critical for you to document and communicate as frequently and thoroughly as possible…lining the documentation trail, not for today, but for 6-18 months from now when payment is being negotiated.  Two issues must be proven in cases like these:  entitlement to additional compensation; and the amount of additional compensation you are entitled to.

April’s construction stats are out and it looks like we have little change from last month. Here are some of highlights for the commercial subcontractor from the May McGraw-Hill Construction Forecast.

Nonresidential building in April dropped 2% to $160.2 billion (annual rate), down slightly after the 26% gain reported for March.  Much of April’s decreased contracting came from the commercial and industrial structure types, which had been boosted in March by the start of several very large projects.  Office construction in April dropped 55%, after being lifted in March by the start of a $1.1 billion data center for the National Security Agency in Utah.  While down substantially, the office category in April did include the start of a $126 million corporate headquarters in Akron OH as well as the $125 million office portion of the $420 million City Center mixed use project in Washington DC.  The manufacturing plant category in April was also down substantially, falling 59% from March which included the start of a $900 million semiconductor plant in Oregon.  Both stores and warehouses posted large April declines, sliding 22% and 30%, respectively.  Running counter to the generally downward trend for commercial building in April was hotel construction, which jumped 91%.  Large hotel projects that reached groundbreaking in April included a $127 million hotel in New York NY and a $108 million hotel in Bloomington MN.

In today’s market, it’s more important than ever to use documentation as a tool to protect your profits. eSUB provides educational articles and webinars to assist you in spending more time on your work and less time on your paperwork.  Today we’re addressing Construction Change Directives, otherwise known as CCDs.  The best way to protect yourself from these Owner Friendly stipulations to your contract is to proactively issue correspondence to outline the terms and protect your rights to fair payment BEFORE you perform the work.

—     (Kevin R. Carlin, Carlin Law Group, APC) www.carlinlawgroup.com

eSUB’s cloud based project management and time card management makes it easy for subcontractors to manage projects and get the most money out of every job. eSUB works with electrical, mechanical (HVAC), data, low voltage, drywall, plumbing, glazing, woodworking, painting, landscape, masonry, concrete, and other specialty contractors. Sign up for a live online demo of eSUB’s Project Management software

Watch a 3 minute video on how to get the most of your construction projects with eSUB