Daily field reports (DFRs) are the window into your company’s efficiency and potential for growth. With everything from weather conditions to tasks executed, this summary of a “day on the job site” impacts major operational elements like accurate job costing, compliance, and profit generation.
Because daily field reporting is such an essential element of your business, it’s wise to have a reliable, consistent, and efficient process. However, with so many variables and job sites, asking your project and field managers to use traditional pen-and-paper tactics isn’t just inconvenient—it’s risky.
Disorganized bookkeeping and missing details may not only cause lost deductions at tax time, but a bad audit (especially when dealing with certified payroll), could lead to costly fines and legal consequences. From key information being forgotten (or inaccurate) after an overwhelming day, to paper field reports being lost or damaged due to weather or mishandling; introducing industry-specific construction field report software is the best way to avoid these problems, and help your construction business yield the highest productivity and profit.
The following guide provides the what, why, and how for construction daily field report software, giving you the tools and knowledge to drive productivity and accuracy in your DFR process.
While avoiding “excessive” software costs on your list of expenses seems economical, you’ll likely have a much larger “tab” (both fiscally and productivity-wise) when you forgo construction field report software.
Almost 40% of US companies still use pen and paper when tracking employee time (according to a Finance Online report). And every single stroke of a pen or pencil wastes time that your project and field managers could invest in higher priority tasks. That time-consumption then transfers to your admin staff, who must translate that hard copy into digital data entry. Manual data entry is a time-sink under the best circumstances, but grappling with handwriting deciphering and inaccuracies can cause major processing delays.
Grappling with human error is virtually unavoidable without construction job costing software—and those human errors translate directly into inaccurate job costing, financial forecasting, and potential compliance violations.
Speaking of forecasting—forecasting efficiently and effectively is almost impossible when manual data entry makes it much harder to keep information up-to-date. Without access to real-time data insights, you’re missing a massive portion of your profit and loss picture.
Compliance violations are among the most significant risks of delaying construction field report software integration. Whether you’re dealing with typical contracts, or government contracts with certified payroll, failing to have (and provide) accurate details can incur costly violation fees—and potentially legal action.
Implementing construction field report software isn’t just about avoiding problems. There are numerous advantages and improvements to productivity, profitability, and growth potential.
Did you know: “buddy punching” (annually) costs US companies hundreds of millions in payroll expenses?
The SaaS market is saturated with DFR software, but due to compliance and regulatory challenges, not just any solution is right for a construction company. The most pivotal step in this process is choosing software designed explicitly for construction (ideally by seasoned construction professionals). When shopping for construction reporting software, here are the non-negotiable features to look for.
Construction daily field report software needs to be portable and convenient for your team. Look for software that offers real-time data updates and mobile accessibility. This interconnectivity helps prevent issues like double-booked or idle equipment.
The key to productivity is saving time, so choose construction daily field report software that optimizes approval and data entry processing and increases accuracy. It should make it easy to track equipment, auto-complete information based on data from previous reports, and ensure correct coding by syncing with your current accounting software.
Your software should allow field teams to create and submit field updates on any device—from anywhere. This includes time-saving features such as easily attaching photos and files, hands-free voice-to-text capabilities, and location-based automated weather entry.
Each job site is unique, and construction field report software should be as flexible as your team. Look for solutions that offer comprehensive customization capabilities:
With the what and why illustrated, it’s time for the how. Regardless of which construction field report software you implement, the following guide will help you and your team make the transition as easy, efficient, and cost-effective as possible.
Before you even start researching different types of construction field report software, you need to audit your current processes. Work with your field and back office team to identify challenge areas so you know what problems the software needs to solve.
As mentioned a few times throughout this article, using software that adapts to your needs—at scale—is crucial. Legacy-based software housed in on-site servers that needs manual updates won’t cut it in the modern age. You need a cloud-based solution to optimize workflows, protect your data, and update automatically without scheduling a service request.
No matter how complex or simple the software may be, you should incorporate training seminars for the stakeholders using it. This gives them a solid foundation of understanding, and allows them to ask questions and express concerns before installation. Working with partners like hh2, you’ll have a support team who can help train your staff.
During your initial audit (step one), you should also analyze your current software stack to identify gaps and connectivity issues. This step will help you understand which construction field report software integrates most effectively into your workflow.
Here’s the bottom line: shifting to cloud-based construction daily field report software achieves much more than just digitization. Automation and user-friendly features like voice-to-talk, and automatic weather logging, drastically enhance compliance, productivity, communication, and analytics.
When you provide the intuitive tools they need, your project managers can focus on their most important job: leading, empowering, and supporting their site team.
Ready to position your company for steady growth today and 20 years to come?
CTA: Streamline your field reporting process and take control of your construction data with hh2 Field Reports today!