How to Tune Construction Job Costing Software for Improving Project Tracking

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StrategyDriven Project Management Article |Construction Job Costing Software|How to Tune Construction Job Costing Software for Improving Project TrackingManaging a construction job can be challenging with its various aspects. Having a clear view and set guidelines are important for a project. Hence, it’s a given to include job costing software for all construction jobs and having regular flow between projects.

Building a construction business is not child’s play and requires extensive planning and restructuring of projects. In order to get linear and high-class projects, it’s best to have a high standard infrastructure. But the software must also perform at its best and provide custom solutions for your unique needs in the company. All this can be done by a few of the closely explained points down below:

Assess Reports

As a construction manager, it’s important to have regular insights into a project’s different aspects and know how the costs are being distributed. It’s often after a project that managers get to know if the project saved some in profits or gobbled everything up the client offered. For this reason, making good use of the construction job costing software is important to get regular updates and reports on the budget spent to change allocations or assign some more expenses to another part of the project that needs it. Obviously, you will need to perform daily inputs and acquire calculated amounts to know how to allocate costs more constructively.

Breakdown into Groups

Just one construction project can engulf several tasks and provisions. These can make managing the job and providing resourceful allocations a challenging job for the manager. But if you use the job costing software the right way, you can create several small groups of huge tasks and conquer them by dividing. When the functions like labor hiring, costs allocation, materials procurement, overhead handling, and much more can be divided into categories using the software to monitor each with ease. This dividing can also help you get constructive reports of every little task completion to stay ahead.

Track Cashflow

Under an ongoing construction project, cash can go in and out so wildly; it becomes hard to evaluate where the budget went. Rather than crying over spilled milk, you must recognize where every penny is spent and whether it was put to a good cause or not. You can’t do this by calculating the outgoing cash by hand; it will take forever. But you can always input the exact amount spend and get an analysis from the software to review how the cash flow is being allocated, whether if it’s constructive for the project or not.

Input Data Regularly

For a construction job, you need to be able to administer regular inputs to get productive analysis. However, this isn’t possible with an office computer that is used to run the job costing software. You must invest in a system that lets you travel with the data wherever you go to make sure you don’t miss a beat on reports. Having the data to show up on a mobile phone screen can ease things up and make the data accurate and reusable on the automated platform.

Organize Tasks

Constructions tasks assigned to every level of professional in the field can often get messed up as printed schedules are formed with unruly hierarchy structures. These aspects can really slow down the job assignment and completion to create several lags in the job overall. For this reason, it’s important to have a dedicated system of job assignment and task division so that every professional knows what they have to do. By storing the job hierarchy in the software, you can create more flexible schedules for each day so that the tasks remain organized and structural.

How to Become a Better Manager by Exhibiting These 3 Leadership Traits

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |Leadership Traits|How to Become a Better Manager by Exhibiting These 3 Leadership TraitsAs a manager, taking the time to learn and understand how you can become a great leader can aid in improving your team’s success and engagement rate.

To effectively do this as a manager, you need to take a step back and comprehend your strengths, weaknesses, and motivations as far as being a leader is concerned.

Managers often micro-manage their team and monitor their every decision-making process, which can make the workplace less effective and desirable. Employees may even lack adequate motivation to come to work fearing that they will be bashed for their wrongdoings.

If not well monitored, this may result in high turnovers, as employees seek out more fun and enjoyable work environments.
There’s more to it than just being a manager. If you are currently a manager or you are aspiring to become one in your career. You should strive to go beyond just managing a team of employees.

What does this mean? In a nutshell, both managers and aspiring managers should strive to be good leaders at their places of work as it will aid in improving communication, and it will also motivate team growth and development.

It’s worth noting that a team that works under great leadership tends to be more productive and happier as they tend to be easily connected to the organization’s goals and business objectives.

Bearing that in mind, this guide is aimed at providing both aspiring and current managers with tips, they can assimilate to not only become better managers but great leaders at their places of work.

Managers Should Advocate for Both Professional and Personal Growth

Being a manager in charge of your team, part of your obligation is to ensure your team’s growth and success by being the cheerleader of your team.

As the manager of the department, you can set aside some departmental capital to ensure that your team is constantly learning and growing their skills by encouraging them to take up courses on platforms such as Blurt Digital.

This can help your team to become empowered and inculcate whatever knowledge or skill they may have acquired into the daily business operations, boosting productivity.

Not only should managers provide their employees with professional opportunities, but they should also adhere to their team’s personal growth. Managers can invest emotionally in their team by granting them the opportunity to engage in more challenging tasks, which will enable them to expand their creativity.

Interact and Engage in Open and Honest Communication

Having and nurturing open communication with your team members as a manager can be considered to be one of if not the most important aspects when it comes to effective leadership principles. Managers should strive to tailor their modes of communication and interactions in a manner that is suitable for each person in their teams.

Managers who actively portray transparency and open communication skills tend to nurture and build the level of trust among their teams which results in increased morale on the part of the team players.

Improved morale means that team members will go above and beyond to ensure that business and customer objectives are achieved with ease.

As Opposed to Giving Out Orders, Managers Should Teach and Enlighten Their Employees

The old school level of management involved delegating and telling your team what they need to do, without taking a leadership stand and showing your team members how to accomplish the delegated responsibilities.

Instead of persuading your team members to accomplish assigned tasks in a certain way, you as a manager should strive to mentor your team members on the importance of brainstorming and creating a collaborative work environment.

As it is only through coaching that managers can realize improved team engagement and growth in the office environment.

How to Start a Property Portfolio the Right Way

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Property Portfolio|How to Start a Property Portfolio the Right WayLearning how to properly build a portfolio is the first step in becoming a successful property investor. Many factors have to be considered when you’re an investor that the average property buyer doesn’t have to worry about.

Good investors will usually invest in a large number of properties that could have different purposes. Also, you will be faced with several challenges as your portfolio grows, so you will need to look at ways that you can streamline and monitor both your processes and assets. Let’s take a look at how to start a property portfolio the right way.

Find a Good Mortgage Broker

A good broker will play an essential role for any serious investor. Finding the right mortgage broker now will allow you to get better deals faster. Also, you’ll be able to build a relationship with them and the lenders you work with over the years. This will accelerate the process even more for future deals and could give you an edge when comes time to close.

If you were thinking of investing in high-value property, we suggest you book a consult on this website. This broker is a leader in the million-pound mortgage space and has closed deals for thousands of clients around the world. They have a pool of over 500 lenders you can choose from, so you’ll have the chance to get the best offer that you can find. Brokers often have exclusive deals with leaders that allow you to save even more.

Create a Business Plan

Since your ultimate goal should be to make money, you have to treat this as a business. Good investors plan a few moves ahead, and you should be thinking about your third, fourth, and fifth properties when buying your first one.

You have to identify investment goals. Do you want to be an active investor or earn passive income? What model will you be using? Will you be buying properties and trying to flip them, or will you go for the long term and rent? These are all questions you have to answer so you can focus your efforts on the right type of property.

Buy Your First Property

Your first property is the most important, as it will be the one that will give you the leverage to build the rest of your portfolio. Some people decide to go for a rental property first, while others will prefer looking at single-family lots. These could be easier to manage and will be easier to finance. Rental properties, on the other hand, will also give you cash flow. This is something you’ll have to consider and see which ones would be the best for you.

The most important thing is making sure that you buy in an area that is on the up and up. You want to go somewhere where the trends are heading in the right direction. Talks of revitalisation are also good.

This is how you should be starting your portfolio. If you follow these few pieces of advice, you’ll have the basic tools needed to build and manage your assets and add new ones.

Closing the Year | How to Successfully Manage Your Finance Team

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Finances Article |Closing the Fiscal Year|Closing the Year | How to Successfully Manage Your Finance TeamIf the month-end close is like game day for the finance and accounting department, closing out the fiscal year is the World Series. There’s so much to do in a limited time and, in most companies, this is done with a smaller team than you’d like. There’s a lot of pressure and that can lead to a lot of stress.

A successful close isn’t just about managing the process but about managing your team and your time to make the best use of resources. Anything you can do to become more efficient will reduce the workload on your finance team, and make the close less stressful.

The Benefits of a Great Close

The perfect year-end close is a win/win for your organization. By wrapping up quickly and accurately, you’re able to move on to reporting and generate high-quality financial statements. This helps management plan and strategize and benefit stakeholders.

Closing efficiently also benefits your finance and accounting team, because they’ll avoid long, stressful days and get back to their day-to-day process sooner. A well-documented close also makes both internal and external audits easier and less disruptive.

Here are some steps you can take to successfully manage your team for a great close with less stress:

Automate As Much as Possible

Technology really is a beautiful thing. When it comes to closing the books, there are some powerful tech tools to help automate the process. The more manual entry work you’re doing, the longer the close will take and the higher the risk of mistakes.

Of course, not everything can be automated, but you can leverage technology to give you more time for key tasks. Automate as much of the close as possible so your team is fresh and focused on the strategic pieces that require them to be at their best. This can also greatly reduce the emotional toll of the close by allowing people to go home on time and shortening the total length of the close.

Front Load Your Workload

Reconciliations are an important part of the close, and they can also be a very time-consuming part. In keeping with our last tip, leverage technology to automate your reconciliations if possible.

Try to locate steps in the close that can be done early. You don’t have to be in full “close mode” ahead of time, but if one or two people on the team can get some steps out of the way, you’ll be able to cut time off the big project once you ramp up for the close.

Stop, Collaborate, and Listen

Teamwork is crucial during a challenge like the year-end close. And this year brings extra challenges to many teams who are working remotely due to the pandemic. This makes collaboration and communication more important than ever before.

Hopefully, you’re reading this while you still have a little time before the close. Take that time to stop, look at your current communications and collaboration tools and methods, and make sure they’re working for you. The middle of the year-end close is no time to find out that your team is out of sync.

Get feedback from your team and make sure everyone knows his or her role, who to reach out to for the inputs they need, and who is waiting and depending on their outputs to move forward. Smooth out any wrinkled now, before it’s too late.

While it’s very possible to spend too much time in meetings, make sure everyone on the team feels heard and has the chance to voice concerns or ask questions. You may want to take a few minutes for a virtual “stand up” each morning just to check in and ensure everyone on the team has a direction for the day and has the information they need to move the close forward.

Check the Checklist Off Your List

If you aren’t already working with a close checklist, now is the time to start. Put together a list that shows every step of the close process, which steps are dependent on others, and the order of the workflow.

Ideally, your team can view and edit the checklist in real-time so they’ll always know the progress of the close. Cloud-based close software can be a huge help here.

The close checklist isn’t just a way to track what’s been done, it’s also a powerful accountability tool. By signing off on the list, team members take ownership of each step in the close.

At first, accountability may not sound like a stress-reduction strategy, but it is. When each step in the close is owned by a specific person, you always know who to clarify with if there’s any confusion. This helps your team avoid wasted time and duplicated efforts, which can seriously reduce anxiety.

Practice Makes Perfect

Going back to our Superbowl analogy, the year-end close has a lot in common with the monthly close. That makes the month-end a great time to dial in your process, identify any bottlenecks, and prepare for a successful year-end close. By improving your monthly close, you’re also going into the end of the year with fewer surprises and fewer loose ends.

Conclusion

By following a plan, documenting your efforts, and improving your close process each and every period, you can help your finance team close successfully without unnecessary stress.

5 Tactics For Maximizing Business Productivity

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Business Productivity|5 Tactics For Maximizing Business ProductivityDisaster! That is what happens when a business is unproductive. This is because whatever product or service your business outputs takes money to create. Therefore, if you are doing this in an inefficiently, it will be costing you money, the very lifeblood of your company. With that in mind, it’s crucial that you maximize the productivity of your company. A topic you can find out more about in the post below.

Improve employee wellbeing

Now, you may expect an article all about boosting productivity to take about rationalization and process flows, and that is to come, but your employee’s wellbeing and happiness is essential here too. The reason being that morale is crucial to maintain a high level of productivity, as well as to avoid slow down when valued staff leave.

To that end, it’s essential that you care, not only about the work your employees do but their wellbeing as well. Luckily there are some relatively small changes you can make in your business to improve wellbeing that will allow you to reap the associated reward in productivity.

The first is to offer flexible working hours and locations, something that can help your staff achieve a better work-life balance, and so be more productive and motivated when they are working.

Additionally, instituting a wellbeing program in work can have a significant effect. Of course, the exact form of these will differ from one workspace to another, but many companies find that providing exercise classes, meditation sessions, and even healthy snacks to be very useful in upping morale.

Deal with issues before they become problems

Next, if you want to boost productivity in your business, you need to change the way that your entire company operates. In fact, you need to move from being reactive when problems occur to being proactive instead.

This means that you need to put systems in place that monitor what is happening in your business, and will pick up any issues that have the potential to become something more damaging. The idea being that you can then deal with and resolve them before they ever blow up to be a significant obstacle. Then you can avoid downtime and the bottlenecking of tasks that are associated with a major crisis.

In fact, this is a philosophy that you can use across many different aspects of your business to improve productivity. One example of this being managed IT services.

Of course, you may be asking what is managed IT services, and how can they help my business be more productive? Well, don’t panic because it’s actually a straightforward question to answer. Managed IT services are where you outsource your IT provision to an organization that takes over the proactive monitoring side of things for you. Something that can help your business because it means a vast reduction in network downtime and the associated hold-ups in working, communications, and even hits on your website. Thus ensuring maximum productivity.

Automate

Another way that you can maximize your business’s productive it to take a long hard look at the type of tasks that your employees do day in day out. In fact, when you do, so it’s likely that you will find many repetitive jobs that are done over and over again, and it is with these that you can begum automating things.

Yes, that right, you can easily free up your workers to focus on more important things, by automating some of the most basic tasks that need to be done in your business. Something that should help to improve productivity because you have more person-power to give to the jobs that genuinely need it.

In fact, automation can be done in a range of situation from the factory floor, to the stockroom, and even in the office with specialized software. Something that makes it a fanatics way of maximizing your company’s productivity.

Minimize distractions / maximize focus

Of course, we humans don’t do as well as physical robots or AI at being 100% focused all the time. In fact, focus and being distracted from it can be a major issue in many businesses that contributes to time wasted and reduced productivity. That is why it’s crucial that you change the way your organization deals with these opposing forces.

Now, to do this, it is essential to acknowledge that as humans, we need distraction as well as focus to work efficiently and retain the quality of the work we are producing. With that in mind, encouraging a time-batching system like the Pomodoro Method can be incredibly helpful, as they allow for small restorative distraction breaks, but also keep most people on task for the majority of the time.

However, that doesn’t mean that unnecessary distraction cannot be abolished, and in particular constant email access and use can be a real time and focus drain in the office. Something that may mean scheduling emails time into the am and pm is a much better way of managing such a task and so boosting productivity.

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Business Productivity|5 Tactics For Maximizing Business ProductivityReview Processes

Finally, when it comes to maximizing productivity, reviewing and improving the processes that you use in your business is always helpful. The idea here being to remove any redundant actions and so streamline what you are doing.

Of course, this is often easiest to do when it comes to things like a production line of the factory floor, but that doesn’t mean that you can take a rationalized perspective to other business related tasks as well. In fact, it is entirely possible to make things more efficient in places like the office or even a store by realizing what time is being wasted and changing things to rectify this.

In particular, an example of this that nearly every type of business can benefit from is to reduce the volume and frequency of meetings that they have. In fact, instead of spending days rushing from one meeting to another, it can work well to hold a short stand up briefing at the beginning of the day. This being something that will save time, and prevent distraction from the critical tasks in hand and so maximize productivity in your business.