Delays are a nightmare for project managers. One delay and your whole project will experience a domino effect for various schedules.
According to a construction survey by Software Advice, many construction businesses face a decrease in revenues due to delays in procurement. This applies to the roofing industry too – a crucial component for commercial and residential construction activities.
If you’re a roofing contractor, you can avoid such revenue losses due to delays and beyond by including roofing software in your project management workflows.
What causes a decrease in profitability for a roofing business?
Markets are increasingly becoming unpredictable. With rising costs, unemployment or unforeseen pandemics, construction businesses face new challenges in the coming decade.
Knowing this, one should prepare for below common scenarios that can decrease the overall profitability of your roofing business:
- Unexpected weather conditions: the job of a roof is indeed to protect from harsh sunrays or rainy days. Any extreme weather conditions cause more maintenance rounds. If you are not accounting for these while invoicing the client, you may face an increase in maintenance costs.
- Inefficient processes: if you haven’t digitized your workflows, then you are exposing your profits to inefficiencies caused due to manual labor. Lack of SOPs and software increase your delivery time, resource usage and ability to serve new customers.
- Fluctuation in markets: due to volatile market forces, your material costs will fluctuate. You may find it difficult to communicate this with your clients. Not preparing for markets would mean losing clients or a decrease in profits.
How to use roofing software to optimize roofing business workflows
A roofing software is a dedicated project management tool for managing roofing operations. It is aligned with the needs of the roofing industry across procurement, scheduling, estimation, finishing, etc. You can also search for field service management software as they align with roofing industry requirements.
Here’s how you can use roofing software to optimize your project management and business workflows:
Automate quotation and invoicing
Sending quotations and invoices is the most repeated activity for any business – and it’s the same story for the roofing industry as well.
With roofing software, you can create various quotation templates for different use cases. You can automate sending invoices when the project is completed or a milestone is reached. A roofing software reduces multiple checks and clicks into one single ‘send’ option.
Make real-time decisions with data
Roofing software provides you visibility for the on-ground work. You can track your field service technicians and know the jobs left to be done. You will know if the key performance indicators are met by your team across budget, scheduling and labor availability via timesheets.
Using this, you can update your estimates. You can catch discrepancies on time and make necessary changes to your execution plan.
Optimize inventory management
You cannot control the price of materials, cement, membranes, etc for your roofing work. But what you can control is how much you purchase and store these materials in your inventory. Using past data, roofing software lets you know how much to buy, and when not to buy. This helps you optimize your expenses on inventory management.
Be confident about the project estimates
The more accurate your estimations are, the lesser deviation you face in execution. Good project managers know this, and hence the roofing industry should pay emphasis on project estimates.
Using roofing software, you can update your project progress on-ground and beyond. Zuper, a field service management software, has location intelligence features that help you get real-time updates on the jobs. This data is used to update your estimates automatically. You are alerted for any cause of concern and action.
Roofing software is your competitive advantage
Construction businesses are heavily dependent on accurate estimations due to high-ticket projects. Due to being a physical service, many times a mistake on the field becomes irreversible or causes property damage.
Having roofing software in place makes you optimally run your business. Every benefit mentioned adds up to your brand, and eventually, your profitability.
You should also search for dedicated field service management (FSM) software for your roofing project management. Book a demo for Zuper – an FSM software that would equip you with field service scheduling, contract, estimate and customer management in one platform.
