When you don’t have strong business visibility it can be hard to know for certain if there is something wrong with business and what the right fix is. But, there are a few signs that you can keep an eye out for that might be warning signs that your job costing methods need to be looked into.
Losing money, not getting clear insights into your business, and spending too long on admin are all signs that your systems or tools may be failing you. Here are the top signs that it might be time for a job management upgrade.
There is nothing worse than working hard just to move backward. Without proper, real-time visibility, the profitability of your projects can quickly go downhill, even if they are planned out perfectly.
That’s because things rarely go to plan, and if you aren’t keeping up with your real costs that it can quickly snowball. Things like overtime, stock shortages that blow out the projects or changes to the project’s scope could be cutting into your profit. We cover this more in “WorkGuru Kiosk Helps You Uncover Hidden Data In Your Business”.
A project management software that helps you track what your team are doing and how long you’ve spent on the project can help you stay within your quoted time. Keeping good track of the costs of your stock can also help you make money, even when you work with materials that fluctuate in price. FIFO, perpetual inventory management can help with keeping track of your cost.
If your workshop is getting busy, it’s normal for some things to move to the back burner until they are due. But if you or your team consistently miss jobs or wait until clients call to see how a project is going, it might be a sign that your mental load is too high.
A project management system can help you keep track of your projects and help you feel in control. Scheduling and capacity planning tools can help you know what you’ve got on, not overbook your team, and give your customers a realistic expectation of when work will be done. It helps you feel more in control and gives you more visibility over your projects.
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It’s not possible to know your costs every time. But, even if every project is unique, you should be able to pull from past experience to understand your future costs. If your project management system or tools is not helping you to understand your costs and quotes, then it might be time for a change.
Easier, more accurate quoting can mean a lot for your business, from consistently making a profit to reducing the admin time on creating new quotes. WorkGuru can help you template your quotes to create new quotes faster. Because WorkGuru also simplifies record keeping, it’s also much easier to find previous, similar jobs to help guide you when quoting so you and the team don’t have to start from scratch every time.
Your businesses history is important. The more history you have easy access to, the more data you have to work with to make informed decisions. If you don’t have easy access to data about your business from three months ago, you could miss out on opportunities.
Knowing the projects your business worked on previously can help you schedule new jobs and follow up with old clients who are due a service. Understanding previous quotes can help you build new templates for projects that come up repeatedly. You can also uncover common issues, but without easily accessing historical data, getting useful insights will be much more work.
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This final point might feel like a curveball; after all, nobody likes paperwork. But there is a difference between initial resistance and grumbling that work has not been done and actually hating the process.
If your team feels that the admin they are doing is just busy work, they will likely be unmotivated to spend extra time on it, and being reprimanded for not doing it can make employees feel that their actual work is undervalued.
So, a project management system that requires data from your team should make it as easy as possible for them. Fast and easy tools that make it quick to input correct information are key. The data should also help your team do their job easier so that they can see the impact and are motivated to input accurate information. Dashboards, up-to-date stock information, and project history that help your whole team can help you overcome project management apathy.
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Are you looking for a project management system that can handle stock, timesheets, projects and CRM in one place? WorkGuru.io has your back. Book in a free, personalised demo to get started.