In a post-pandemic world, construction companies that want to grow need to step up their game to meet customer demand and protect their cash flow.
This will be difficult for companies that continue to use phone calls, text messages, outdated software, and paper-based admin.
If you are wanting to effectively manage a field team, you need to make sure that you have excellent communication and streamlined processes that support your workflow and business. Plus, you’ll need complete visibility over your workers, assets, and finances.
This seems like a lot for admin teams to do, but field management software exists to easily connect office teams, field-based workers, and customers, making sure that everyone stays in the loop and making the entire job well organised and running smoothly.
Wondering how Field Management Software can solve these problems? We’ve got you covered below.
Five Challenges That Field Management Software Can Solve
1. Communication
Did you know that there are more mobile phones in the UK than there are people? Uswitch data shows that at the start of 2022, there were 71.8 million mobile connections in the UK. It’s fair to say that there is no longer the need to be hunting for lost paperwork, or to be waiting for days for an email reply from a co-worker, or to be sat on the end of a phone for what feels like forever waiting for someone to pick up.
Field Management Software offers in-app communication that works in the same way as WhatsApp or other messaging services. You can send a message to certain people or whole teams at once with all the information that your teams may need. Messages come with read receipts so you can see who’s looked at the message and who hasn’t.
Field Management Systems can also have workflow automation to trigger notifications based on actions such as form completion, job progress updates, asset servicing updates and more. Communicate through the messaging system or send out e-mails to key staff members allowing you to ensure that everyone’s in the loop as soon as changes happen, without lifting a finger.
2. Productivity
Field Management Software is the perfect way to keep your workforce focused and organised with jobs that leave no room for mistakes. You can attach important forms like dynamic risk assessments and vehicle safety checks. Force strict compliance and gain confidence that your team is safe and on task with photo attachments, digital signatures, and time and location stamping. You can also make sure that you’re getting powerful live data that keeps you in the know and your clients happy.
Once your jobs are assigned, your teams don’t need to waste time waiting for instructions. The latest information is automatically sent to the Re-flow app. Your staff can access all the job information and forms they need, even offline. You can also get to see job progress across a geographical area with live maps or use lists to get a clear overview of all your jobs. You can filter by progress, user, job type, contract, date and more. Go a step further and use automation to trigger notifications and e-mails or create workflows to direct the next step of the project.
3. Data Collection
Field Management Software removes the need for phone calls and paper-based data. This keeps you up to date on how a job is progressing. Anyone working on a job can see the progress of the job whenever they want.
The most up-to-date data can be collected quickly, whether you need photos of a task, or to check the details of certain paperwork for a client. This allows your office teams to react to issues as they happen. It also allows your operatives to make data-driven decisions while they’re on the job.
You can also update jobs in an instant, so if a client needs some extra work, or needs to change part of the job, the office team can do this through the app and field teams will be alerted to the change before it’s too late.
4. Budgeting
Field management software isn’t strictly a financial tool. However, some tools can help businesses stay on track. More complex software will allow you to create a bill of quantities and quote jobs.
When creating quotes, you can include plant, materials, and labour along with their related costs and margins, all set by you. Speed up the process by saving pre-sets for common and recurring jobs. All of these can then be used to work out quotes, automatically accounting for quantities and VAT.
You can connect field management software to services like Sage, QuickBooks, or Xero to power up your invoicing too. Invoices can be quickly altered based on your client’s responses so that when a job is ready to be invoiced, you’re all set. The easier invoicing is, the quicker you’ll get paid.
5. Safety
In 2022 more than 120 employers were fined for health and safety breaches. The first large fine of 2023 has come in with a company being fined £4.4 million. In the current cost of living crisis, it would be smart to do everything possible to avoid having to pay fines.
This highlights why it’s important for any field service business to prioritise health and safety. Field management software allows users to create a paper trail with digital forms that leave no room for cutting corners, and quickly communicate with the right people to record and resolve incidents efficiently.
The right job management software can change the way your business works and take steps to reduce the effect on revenue and the bottom line.
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