Review of Construction Accounting Software — 2006

The level of detail involved in construction and related businesses far surpasses
many other industries. Just one job requires a tremendous amount of paperwork,
from bid to contract to budget to expenses to completion. A budget needs to
be set up in order to properly track expenses, and labor needs to be properly
expensed to each particular job. Licensing, workers compensation and insurance
certificates need to be tracked. In the meantime, bills are due and your employees
have to be paid.

What if you’re an HVAC sales and repair business? You’ll need
to enter and track every piece of equipment you have in stock. You’ll
need to have an accurate maintenance history attached to every cooling system
you have sold or worked on. And you’ll need to have a service dispatching
system, where you can enter work orders, establish priorities and assign jobs
to your service people.

If you’re a small contractor, you’ll need a system that can be
up and running without a lot of training or a lot of down time. If you’re
a large company, you’ll need a whole lot more, including personnel who
can be trained to use the system to your best advantage.

The products in this review are all excellent products. They have all scored
relatively high, which doesn’t mean that there aren’t some major
differences between them. Some of these products would provide an excellent
solution to small construction companies. Others would be terrific in a service-related
environment, such as HVAC, plumbing and equipment repair. Some are excellent
solutions for large companies such as builders/developers or large construction
companies with millions of dollars in annual billings. Some of the products
would be entirely at home in any of those environments. Others are more specialized.

The bottom line is that it depends on you — your likes and dislikes,
your needs and your budget. It depends on what you’re comfortable with.
Or more importantly, what you’re uncomfortable with. I’d advise
you to also spend some time on the vendor web sites. Many offer instant demos
of their products, or they will provide you with one at no cost. And remember
that these reviews reflect one reviewer’s opinion — my likes and
dislikes. Hopefully, they’ll also help you determine yours as well. 

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