Get software to help you deliver on time and on budget, and maintain profitability

The construction industry is booming, but the pressures on construction firms have never been greater. General and specialty contractors need the right financial and operational tools to succeed in the face of rising costs, demanding customers, and a shortage of qualified labor.

Microsoft Dynamics GP is a time-tested business management solution that offers important financial and project management tools to small to mid-sized construction firms. With Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Certified Partner applications, contractors can succeed in three critical areas:
 

• Develop positive owner relationships through consistent delivery and accurate estimates.

 

• Use accurate and up-to-date job costing tools and key performance indicators to identify and manage risk.

 

• Coordinate workflow between customers, partners, and suppliers with centralized project, materials, and service management tools.

 

Develop positive owner relationships
 

Microsoft Dynamics GP empowers your salespeople and estimators with the information they need to identify and win the right jobs and build the customer loyalty that will bring follow-on work in the future.
 

• Consistent and accurate communication with customers: Microsoft Dynamics GP provides the information sales and estimating teams need to pursue and obtain new contracts, as well as deepen existing relationships with building owners. With up-to-date information and easy access to relevant project, service, and materials management data, salespeople and estimators can convey consistent and accurate messages to customers. Management can set permission levels so that salespeople can only access the data they need for their job.

 

• Single point of contact with each customer: Integration with the customer relationship management (CRM) tools of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and a single database allows sales and estimating personnel to collaborate on a single project without confusing communications, or interact with multiple project owners through a single point of contact for each owner. Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM can become one single, integrated solution that lets you manage such critical aspects of your business as creating and tracking proposals and contracts, handling customer relationships and communications, and administrating billing and finances efficiently.

 

• Adjust business strategy quickly for maximum performance: With easy access to market conditions and key performance indicators (KPIs)—such as backlog, work-in-progress, and scheduling—sales organizations can rapidly adjust ongoing initiatives. Targeted sales strategies that reflect the company's financial requirements will result in realistic projects and high customer satisfaction.

 

• Provide project owners with access to key data: Establish close communications with owners by granting them real-time access to relevant data, such as project progress and change order impact metrics. This reduces the burden of communication, builds trust, and minimizes potential liability.

Maintain profitability with business insight

With the right information, your managers and executives can make informed decisions that direct your company toward greater growth and profits and avoid mistakes that could harm the business.

 

• Apply best practices and align resources: KPIs such as liquidity, schedule variance, work-in-progress, backlog, and qualitative measures allow contractors and other construction-industry organizations to apply best practices and align their resources.

 

• Identify and manage risk: Microsoft Dynamics GP wraps up real-time information from throughout the business so that you can quickly spot potential difficulties and react quickly.

 

• Smooth communications between management and job site: Both job-site managers and executive management can use Microsoft Dynamics GP to complete their daily tasks and can take advantage of the single solution to automate reporting, communications, and document-management processes.

 

• Create models and run forecasts: In order to plan for the future, you and your managers can create project, materials, and service management models that help forecast trends and inform decision-making.

 

• Customized, all-in-one view makes management easier: Microsoft Dynamics GP offers easy-to-use portal functions where you can customize an executive dashboard. The interface looks and feels similar to familiar Microsoft Office system applications, and you can access it remotely, at any time and from any location, through Microsoft Internet Explorer.

 

• Attract and retain top employees with sophisticated technology: Attracting and keeping top employees is a high priority for subcontractors and specialty contractors especially. By using modern business management solutions such as Microsoft Dynamics GP, you can demonstrate that you are committed to realizing your employees' full potential by empowering them.

Manage projects and resources

Construction firms are project-oriented, and companies succeed based on whether projects are delivered on time and on budget. Microsoft Dynamics GP integrates project management with financials to provide holistic project management capabilities. Partner solutions such as Job Cost and Service Management modules from Microsoft Gold Certified Partner WennSoft also provide the specific functionality construction firms need to manage their projects and resources.

 

• Enhance financial tracking with analytical capabilities: With the ability to forecast outcomes, monitor trends, and easily determine the impact of change orders, you gain ability to track revenue and expenses from the initial budget through project closure without waiting for the accounting period to close.

 

• Make your office more efficient: Process automation helps streamline routine office tasks—which not only frees up resources, but also means the business moves faster in many cases. By automatically applying mark-up costs to labor and material invoices, you can send documents to the customer faster, which means your company receives payment sooner. In general, integrated information systems eliminate the need for manual data entry, making processes more efficient and data more consistent.

Build a foundation for future growth

Microsoft Dynamics GP offers construction organizations a flexible, scalable foundation on which to build their business. And because the solution integrates with other Microsoft products, including the Microsoft Office system and Microsoft SQL Server database technologies, companies can achieve greater return on investment, realize lower training costs, and reduce implementation risk.
 

• Extend the reach of your system: Microsoft Dynamics GP is built on the Microsoft Windows Server platform, allowing firms to easily implement Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services for internal and external communication. Windows Terminal Services facilitate connections with far-flung locations and job sites, while Web services technologies offer a way to integrate with customers and business partners' systems.

 

• Delve deep into data: Tight integration with Microsoft SQL Server provides your company with powerful data collection, analysis, and reporting tools that enhance the value of Microsoft Dynamics GP data.

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