Introduction: Two Of The Scariest Words In Construction: Cost Overrun

Estimating a job is a tricky business and things can change at any moment. But companies whose project costs consistently exceed their estimates are doomed to fail. There is a reason why barely 50 percent of construction companies survive after their third year in business. 

Why do companies sometimes have trouble meeting their margins? It’s partly because of the current economic climate: Construction costs are at an all-time high, according to Turner Construction’s cost index. Labor costs are through the roof, and while materials costs aren’t increasing as quickly as labor, they are also on the rise (and some can be quite volatile — which we’ll get to later).

Another issue is human error in bidding: One consultant shared a story of a contractor who forgot to add sales tax to his estimate. Another contractor, bidding on a big project for the Army Corps of Engineers, made a mistake in a single cell of an Excel file that changed the final bid amount by $3.7 million.

But another major cause of cost overruns is a lack of ongoing communication. According to Construction Global magazine, update reports from the worksite are often only produced every four to six weeks, which means that any developing cost overruns won’t be spotted until much later when they are often too late to correct. 

Mobile apps can solve this problem by allowing managers to track daily costs in near real-time.

Why mobile?

If you haven’t made the switch from paper forms to mobile apps, you might not know that cost tracking is just one advantage. Mobile apps give every member of your team access to the information they need in real time, from anywhere. Mobile apps also address the key issues with paper forms, including eliminating lost forms and illegible handwriting while expediting traditionally slow routine tasks — like completing time cards and estimates.

Electrical Contractor Magazine puts it plainly: “Contractors that are still putting estimates together using pencil and paper are not only wasting time and money, but they also are losing business. Just as the advent of the internet changed how sales teams interact with customers, smart devices and the cloud are helping contractors become more competitive and able to demonstrate their ability to immediately and effectively respond to customers’ needs.”

Mobile also helps companies respond quickly to changes. In “the old days,” it could take days or weeks to adjust to new specs from the architect, with multiple versions of the same documents being faxed or messengered around. Now those plans can instantly be sent to everyone’s mobile devices so that your entire team is on the same page at the same time.

How mobile helps control costs

As previously mentioned, construction costs are higher than ever before. The good news, according to JLL, is that there’s also a lot more work to go around — the construction industry will continue to grow by double digits in a majority of industry segments — outpacing the rest of the economy. 

And costs are also expected to rise further. So it’s more important than ever to know exactly how much you’re spending. 

Tracking your daily costs via a mobile app takes only a few minutes and can be updated from any mobile device in the field. That data can then be instantly exported into a file back at the office so you can see where you are trending in relation to estimates. You can slice and dice those costs to compare by project type or by cost category, to drill down into exactly where your estimates are spot on — and where they need to be improved.

Plans can instantly be sent to everyone’s mobile devices so that your entire team is on the same page at the same time.

Here are three of the most important areas where shifting to mobile can help you get and stay: Labor, Materials, and Equipment.

Chapter 1: Labor

The shortage of skilled labor in the construction industry has led to increased costs. CBRE reported that after the housing crisis of the last decade, many construction workers left the industry and have not returned.

“When the number of new construction jobs began to grow without a proportional increase in qualified construction workers, tighter labor markets conditions pushed wages upward,” said Andrea Cross, head of research for the Americas at CBRE and co-author of the report. The labor shortage is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, according to Tradesmen International, and labor wages will rise steadily at least through 2020, JLL said.

What does that mean for you? First and foremost, it means you need to have a tight rein on labor costs since they’re already likely higher than expected. Unapproved overtime could throw an entire project budget into disarray.

Mobile timekeeping apps are one way to effectively monitor your labor costs. Crews can submit daily or weekly timesheets, by project, and their hours worked are instantly uploaded into accounting software systems, where supervisors can see the cumulative totals. Instead of waiting a few days for workers to drive to the office to hand in paper timecards — or send a fax — and then for your back office staff to process those paper forms, you can know immediately how many hours were worked by each member of the crew that week. Mobile apps can also track the GPS location of where those timecards are completed, ensuring workers were “at the job site.”

Some mobile apps, like those at GoCanvas, are able to automatically notify a supervisor if there’s an anomaly or approval needed. That supervisor can then immediately sign off on overtime or, if there’s an error, send the card back to the worker for corrections – right from their mobile device.

Unapproved Overtime Could Throw An Entire Project Budget Into Disarray.

Chapter 2: Materials

Materials costs aren’t rising as quickly as labor costs, on average, but there are some standouts. CBRE points out that the price of asphalt, diesel, iron, and steel may be down, but the decline in those prices has been offset by increased prices for glass, cement, construction sand, gravel, and stone. In general, cement, steel, and lumber price growth may flatten off this year or next, according to JLL. 

That said, according to Ken Simonson, chief economist for Associated General Contractors of America, other materials have experienced wide cost swings. The price of gypsum products, for example, increased by 3.9 percent from January 2017 to August 2017 — and more than doubled in 2018. Further, many materials are purchased locally and local markets can have huge variability in their costs; that makes predicting price changes even more difficult since you can’t always rely on national data. 

With prices changing dramatically like this, you need to have a handle on your materials use and costs in real-time. You need to know how much you paid for a product, how much you used on a given project, and whether your markup was correct. Mobile apps can track all data relevant to a job — location, materials used, and costs — and even present an itemized bill to a customer for a signature, with no pen or paper required. Then, in the back office, you can pull all that information into an Excel spreadsheet to compare how you’re actually tracking with your estimates.

You can also use mobile apps to track orders, keeping an eye on shipments and inventory so you don’t run out of any crucial materials — or buy too much. Overbuying can waste money and also creates potential safety issues if materials are stacked too high or if they create crowded conditions. (To say nothing of the potential OSHA fines!) By tracking where materials are and when they’re likely to arrive, you can better plan ahead.

Be Ready for OSHA 

Want to learn more about staying on top of OSHA construction regulations and preparing for safety inspections? 

Download these resources: 

Your Guide to OSHA’s Construction Safety Regulations 

Chapter 3: Equipment

Is owning that dozer a savvy business decision? If you don’t know, you need to start tracking usage. 

Most major equipment comes with motor meters, or you could have the operator note start and end times in an app. This will give you an idea in real time of how often a piece of equipment actually gets used (as opposed to sitting idle on a lot). 

You’ll also want to calculate your “internal rental rate,” or what it costs you per hour to run. This calculation includes not just the cost of fuel and an operator, but mechanic hours, financing, insurance, and taxes, notes consulting firm K-Coe Isom.

Divide one-time costs (like the purchase price) by the expected number of hours you plan to get out of it over the equipment’s lifetime. Add up yearly costs (like insurance, taxes, and licensing) and divide by the number of hours you expect to use in a year. Then add up maintenance costs and divide by the number of hours you can go between servicing, and add in hourly costs like fuel and the operator’s rate. There are more detailed examples of how to do this at For Construction Pros, or a mobile app could do the math for you to ensure accuracy.

Once you know your “internal rental rate” you can determine whether renting makes sense. Your “rate” calculation for the equipment you bought might look like this:

Many construction companies are moving this way: The demand for rented heavy equipment is soaring, with recent data predicting that the market for heavy equipment rentals will grow by 4 percent between 2018 and 2024. 

Usage data can help you determine whether it’s more cost-effective to rent or own. Are you using the equipment enough — and is maintenance costing you little enough — that ownership makes more sense than renting? If you do decide to go the renting route, remember that even then, a usage log can help you reconcile rental charges with actual use. With the ability to add a GPS tag and photos, you can also keep track of the last location equipment was used.

Finally, detailed usage and maintenance logs help you in the event of an audit: According to K-Coe Isom, the IRS has been looking more closely at deductions for repair costs on equipment since new regulations went into effect in 2014.

Putting It All Together

Mobile’s true savings really become apparent when you think about all the projects your business is juggling at once: It’s not just one job or one piece of equipment, but many dozens or hundreds of moving parts all at the same time. Using digital and mobile tools lets you pull everything together into one area so you can assess whether you’re on target at any time. 

With GoCanvas, it’s easy to upload cost data into a backend system — you can do it with just a few clicks. This saves time in the back office and gives your employees out-in-the-field actionable information just when they need it. Rather than spending their time filling out or reviewing paperwork, they can quickly and easily note the most crucial information on their mobile device and get back to work. 

With costs either through the roof or swinging wildly, you need the best information available to you to make accurate estimates and meet your margins. Using mobile tools is a smart decision that will help you minimize cost overruns on labor, materials, equipment, and more — and help your business meet its margins on every project.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.

Intro

Practicing law is a demanding, time-consuming, and often high-stress job. You have hours to bill, deadlines to meet, and clients to serve. And if you run a solo practice or are a partner in a small- to mid-size firm, you probably have other responsibilities on your plate: like running your business.

If changing how you operate is the last thing you want to think about, you’re not alone. The legal profession is notorious for doing things the way they’ve always been done and sticking with the same systems that have worked for years. After all, what attorney has time for new, complicated technologies?

But here are the facts: modernizing your law practice by strategically integrating the right technologies can benefit you in big ways — and save you time and money that can make a real difference in both your bank account and your personal life. The Internet and online tools have revolutionized the way business is conducted in all industries, including law.

Advances in digital tools give lawyers the flexibility and efficiency they need to fulfill the many duties and deadlines of practicing law in the 21st century.

What are the benefits of a modern firm?

Modernizing your law practice will not only streamline your processes but also give you more time to do what clients hire you to do: practice law. In many ways, you really can’t afford not to come up to speed. Continuing to operate the way lawyers have for decades can give clients — especially prospective clients — the wrong impression, and even lead to costly mistakes. Lost or misfiled documents add up to thousands of lost dollars and hours of productivity per year. And who knows how many clients you may be losing because of an outdated website that no one can find online?

We know that you only have so many hours in the day. We know that as a solo or small firm, your budget is limited. We know that the sheer number of programs and technologies can be overwhelming. That’s why, in this eBook, we walk you through three steps you can take to begin modernizing your law practice today.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to strengthen your online presence via your website, blog, and social media
• How to go paperless (or mostly paperless)
• How to set up remote work capabilities with practice management software, mobile apps, and the cloud

GET STARTED NOW WITH THESE 3 STEPS…

Step 1: Strengthen Your Online Presence

Legal practice management software company MyCase polled 800 solo and small-firm lawyers to ask what steps they would take to modernize their firms in 2015. Survey respondents said their law firm’s website was their biggest focus, with 49 percent indicating that revamping their website was a top priority.

A professional website is a must for law firms. In today’s digital,hyper-connected culture, your website is the first impression most people have of your law firm. It only takes a second for prospective clients to form an impression and decide whether or not to give your firm a call or to click away to the next site.

Good design is essential to a successful website that will turn visitors into clients. This doesn’t just mean the colors, font, images, and layout, though those elements are important. It starts with clearly communicating your firm’s value proposition.

Your value proposition should be more than a tagline on your website. Are you a family lawyer who is a compassionate advocate for your clients? Are you a plaintiff’s lawyer who doesn’t back down from big corporations? Your website needs to communicate this message through the copy and images you use. Clients should be able to understand at a glance what you do and whether you can help them.

Search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play here. You don’t need to spend a lot of time or money on SEO, but you should be aware of it and educate yourself on the basics. Essentially, SEO is the practice of increasing the visibility or ranking of your website in a search engine’s organic (or unpaid) results. There are multiple ways to do this, including everything from making sure title tags and meta descriptions on your site content are both informative and the right length, to pointing internal links to your own relevant content.

Start by Googling the name of your firm and your lawyers, and see what comes up at the top of your search results. Then search for keywords or phrases that potential clients would use to find you. When someone Googles “racketeering lawyers, Jersey City,” for example, does your site come up at the top of the search results page? Set up Google Analytics or another analytics program to track your traffic and see how people are finding your site. Are they finding you through certain keywords? Through referrals from other sites? Maybe they’re coming from a social media channel like LinkedIn. Finding out will help you determine what works, what doesn’t — and where to devote your dollars.

There are countless strategies for improving your SEO and traffic.

These include:

• Using strategic keywords. For example, in the description of your firm, include words that relate to your practice, such as wills, estate planning, business law, and divorce. Also mention the geographic area you serve (Madison, NJ).
• Posting fresh content on your website on a regular basis(like a weekly blog post, which we talk more about below), and linking to your own relevant content on each page of your website.
• Taking the time to fill in the text descriptions of photos of your lawyers.
• Adding video content to your website — a good (but simple) strategy for keeping people on your site longer and boosting SEO.

Another crucial update websites need is responsive design. This means that your website adjusts to look good to visitors on all types of screens — including smartphones and tablets, not just desktops and laptops. In fact, according to a 2014 report from comScore, 80 percent of Internet users own a smartphone, and 80 percent of them use it to search the Internet (compared to 91 percent who use a laptop or PC to search online). If your website isn’t optimized for mobile users, you’re likely to lose those potential clients. In fact, in the spring of 2015, Google changed how it ranks mobile-friendly sites so that non-mobile-enabled sites are now penalized in search rankings. Responsive design is Google’s recommended design pattern. Google offers a Mobile-Friendly Test to find out if your website is responsive. If not, ask your web designer how to go about redesigning your site.

Launch a blog

Once your website is in good shape, consider launching a blog and social media channels, if you don’t already have them. Regularly posting to a blog and other social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ is a widely used strategy to enhance SEO and expand your audience online. Blogging also enables you to build credibility and position yourself as an expert in your field. In addition to blogging on your own website, you can also become a guest blogger on other websites geared toward to your target market. By linking back to your website, these guest posts can generate traffic and improve SEO for your website.

What kinds of things can you write about? Ask yourself what your clients would benefit from knowing about — tax credits, divorce proceedings, matters relating to wills and estates? Also, consider any unique approaches or specialty areas in your firm that you’d like people to know about. All of this can make good fodder for your blog.

Need more ideas for your blog? Try these eight tools and tips from LawFuel.

To get the most out of a blog, you need to write regular posts. Here’s where most small businesses falter: a study from the Content Marketing Institute reports that 70 percent of them struggle to find time to produce high-quality content. If that’s what is holding your firm back from blogging, consider joining the 61 percent of small business owners who outsource blog writing to a marketing firm or freelance writer.

Get Social

Writing and publishing posts to a blog is only the first step, however. Digital media is shared on social networks, so you’ll need to be at least moderately active there as well.

After all, most of your clients, prospective clients, and their influencers are on social media. According to Pew Research, 71 percent of online adults use Facebook, 28 percent use LinkedIn, and 23 percent use Twitter, as of September 2014.

Likewise, results from a 2014 American Bar Association LegalTechnology Report indicate that lawyers are using social media more than ever before. LinkedIn is by far the most popular social network, used by 99 percent of respondents from firms of more than 100 attorneys; 97 percent from firms of 10 to 49 attorneys; and 94 percent from firms of 2-9 attorneys. Facebook comes in second, with solo respondents being the most likely to have a presence there (45 percent), followed by respondents from firms of 2-9 attorneys, 38 percent of which are on Facebook. In contrast, larger law firms are more likely to be on Twitter.

According to the ABA report, 36 percent of respondents from firms of 100 or more attorneys report that their firms have a Twitter presence, compared to just 12 percent of firms with 2 to 9 attorneys.

What can you do on these platforms? You can share your blog posts, for one, each time you publish a new story. You can also share articles from outside sources you find interesting, congratulate coworkers for their achievements, post any available positions, and announce news and events related to your firm.

Like it or not, opting out of blogging and social media gives your competitors who are online (locally and beyond) the advantage. Rather than looking at it as just one more to-do on your list, think of it as a faster, easier way to build relationships and market your law firm.

Best Sites for Lawyers to Be Listed On

The blog and online lawyer community Lawyerist notes that it is worth the time to become listed or active on sites that usually rank well for attorneys’ name searches, such as:

• Avvo.com
• Facebook.com Business Pages
• Twitter (make sure the username is the lawyer or firm name if possible)
• Youtube Channel if you have any videos (be sure to name the channel your name or the law firm’s name)
• Award sites such as Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, and Martindale Hubbell

Source: “Basic SEO for Law Firms“

Step 2: Cut Down On Paper, Go Digital

If yours is not one of the many law firms that have already gone paperless, what are you waiting for? It’s time to catch up or risk falling behind, says Lawyerist.com founder Sam Glover, who went paperless shortly after starting his solo practice in

If yours is not one of the many law firms that have already gone paperless, what are you waiting for? It’s time to catch up or risk falling behind, says Lawyerist.com founder Sam Glover, who went paperless shortly after starting his solo practice in 2005. The federal courts have been paperless for years, he points out, and even state courts are converting to electronic filing and paperless case files.

While it may not be possible to leave all paper behind in your law practice, there are many compelling reasons to move in the paperless direction. For one thing, the paper could be killing your productivity. A survey by MyCase found that the typical office worker makes 61 trips per week to the copier and printer. And every misfiled document costs firms $125 in lost productivity. That’s an average of four weeks lost each year waiting on misfiled, mislabeled, untracked, or lost documents.

In contrast, digital files streamline your files, are quicker and easier to search, offer greater flexibility in terms of who can access files and from where, and if backed up regularly, are more secure than paper files. Consider what would happen to your files in the event of a natural disaster like a hurricane or fire. Would your files be safe?

Make the switch to digital

There are some essentials your firm will need in order to go paperless. Chances are, you already own a smartphone and use apps regularly to check your email, the weather, sports scores, or what’s happening in your area this weekend. Did you know, though, that your firm can also use apps created especially to help you practice law and boost your productivity? How, exactly, can apps help?

You can use them for operational purposes like tracking time and billable hours, or you can use them to record information or jog your memory as you work. Some apps take the form of checklists that remind you of what to cover as you walk your client through, say, a divorce agreement. Others let you do things like collect signatures or create binding legal contracts signed by all parties on the spot.

What other tools can help you save time and stay organized? Here’s what Glover recommends:

• A dedicated document scanner (such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500), and/or a scanning app for your smartphone (such as Scanbot or iOS and CamScanner for Android), makes scanning much faster and easier.
• With a bigger computer monitor (ideally 21” to 24” screen), you can view two pages side-by-side and save time by clicking and opening documents.
• A tablet (such as an iPad) lets you replicate the feeling of holding a document in your hands and allows you to easily hand it to someone else to review.
• A shredder that creates confetti, not ribbons, lets you dispose of paper that has been scanned.
• Cloud storage (such as Dropbox or Box) provides a way to access your files from all your devices and share them with any other members of your firm.
• Backup is critical when going paperless. At a minimum, use an external hard drive for daily backups, and consider backing up your files remotely (such as with CrashPlan).

Practice management software

In addition to digital solutions for managing documents, practice management software is another tool that many attorneys are embracing in their law practices. Currently, 49 percent of law firms already use it, the survey from MyCase reveals, and 25 percent of law firms plan to invest in law practice management software in 2015.

What does the software do? It streamlines attorneys’ workflow and business processes by offering a convenient way to manage client and case information, including contacts, calendars, and documents. It allows information to be shared with others in the firm (and in some cases, even clients) and eliminates having to enter duplicate data. Practice management software “is no panacea,” says Glover, however, it does provide the benefit of improving efficiency

The American Bar Association offers a comparison chart of features and functions of many of the leading practice and case management software programs for solo and small law firms.

By taking the time to put these systems in place and bring your entire firm on board to use them, you can avoid being the disorganized lawyer who loses papers and runs late to appointments. That approach might have worked in the past, but it doesn’t fly today.

Step 3: Set Up Remote Work Capabilities

Today’s lawyers no longer need to be tied to the office. Whether a case requires that you work remotely or a sick child means you need to work from home, attorneys have more flexibility than ever thanks to advances in mobile and cloud technology.

Studies indicate that lawyers are becoming increasingly reliant on mobile and see connections between mobility, efficiency, and productivity. The American Bar Association’s 2014 Legal Technology Survey found that 91 percent of responding lawyers use smartphones in their law practices, and 49 percent of lawyers use tablets. Increasing efficiency is the main goal, with lawyers reporting that they use their mobile devices for a variety of law office functions. More than half use their smartphones to access the Internet, email, telephone, calendars, contacts, and to send texts.

And as we explored earlier, many apps are custom-made for attorneys, and allow you to do things particular to your industry, like enter ABA codes as you track hours or create notarized documents like power of attorney forms and non-disclosure agreements.

The cloud

The cloud is key for busy lawyers in the 21st century. If you haven’t already made the transition, do it now. The cloud has been popularly represented as the great “server in the sky,” as this article from the American Bar Association website explains, but really “it’s just your data residing in a physical server hosted by a third party in a secure location.”

What’s the real benefit? As the ABA article puts it, “the advantage of the cloud is that you’re saving setup and maintenance costs for that server; and, in theory, that third-party corporation will be able to provide a more secure environment for your data with its resources than you could with yours.”

The convenience and flexibility of being able to access your law firm’s data from any Internet-enabled device is unprecedented, and cloud-based programs are more secure and affordable than ever. As a number of lawyers who use them have noted, being able to send emails and retrieve documents away from the office allows you to squeeze more work into the “cracks” of your day.

Many of the law practice management software programs we discussed in the previous section are now cloud-based.

Conclusion

Don’t settle for endless juggling

Practicing law in the modern world isn’t easy. You’re juggling never-ending deadlines, client appointments, court dockets, and more. In many ways, technology speeds up the pace of your workflow, making it possible to send documents across town (or even around the world) in seconds, with just a few clicks. If you’re operating as you have for decades, essential information can slip through the cracks and create all kinds of problems, from overlooked billable hours to a child custody case gone wrong. Your clients also won’t like the long wait times that come with snail-mailed documents and communication.

Outdated operations can hurt your firm in other ways, including your ability to attract talent. Attorneys from the millennial generation are digital natives — they’ve grown up with information at their fingertips and don’t know life without technology.

“Millennials are seeking flexibility and efficiency through technology, with balanced hours, including options such as remote work and job sharing,” an article from The Docket explains. “When other generations do not understand millennial goals and fail to communicate, it impacts turnover rates, tangible and intangible costs, fairness and equality and firm succession.”

These costs add up — and aren’t worth the risk. Even if you’re overloaded with cases and clients, make time to modernize. Don’t try to do it all at once. Start small but set deadlines and hold yourself accountable, just as you do with your legal work.

At Canvas, we offer close to 200 mobile apps for attorneys designed specifically to help solo practitioners and lawyers in small- to mid-sized law firms simplify and streamline their processes.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.