Introduction

Mobility and field service: The talk has been happening forever. The idea that real-time information improves customer service and boosts technician productivity is changing the entire industry. According to a Field Technologies Online survey, 33 percent of sampled field service organizations said their top strategic initiative was optimizing mobile operations with the latest technologies.

What is the real problem with paper documentation? How are companies using mobile apps? What are the features that strengthen your business? What’s the best way to transition to a mobile app?

Working with thousands of field service companies, we’ve heard these questions a lot. So, we decided to share our answers in this ebook. We hope this information helps you think strategically about mobile apps and make the best decision for your business.

Chapter 1: The One Thing Robbing You of Billable Hours and Slowing Your Sales Cycle

You work hard to provide the best service. But paperwork orders, service reports, estimates, and other documentation rob you of time and money. Here’s how:

Paper forms make you wait hours or days for information

Paper forms take hours or days to return back to your office. Slow information delays sending out invoices and following up with customers.

Worse, your employees spend too much time getting information. They may have to run to and from the office just to get the details of the next job. This struggle means fewer jobs per day and fewer billable hours.

In both cases, sharing information via paper is a struggle. Going mobile removes this issue; all forms filled out on a mobile app are immediately available in the cloud. Receive information from the field in real-time. With dispatch, you can easily send mobile notifications to employees with information about jobs.

For instance, at the beginning of the day, you can send out mobile work orders to technicians with the time of appointment, the customer’s address, and a brief note about the customer’s issue inside the work order. Your employees immediately receive the information on their smartphone or tablet. Less time waiting, more time working.

You’re wasting that information… again

Even after your reports return from the field, employees have to type up that information. If you spend just one hour a day on data entry, that adds up to over 200 hours in a year.

More than time, data entry creates opportunities for errors. You may have heard about the National Health Service error where 20,000 men were pregnant in Britain. It wasn’t a fluke of nature, just bad data entry.

While hilarious, data entry errors are common. In field service, these errors lead to inaccurate invoices, incorrect purchase orders, and unnecessary work.

Going mobile dramatically reduces these issues. All information is immediately available in the cloud and can be emailed to customers or partners.

Furthermore, that information can be integrated into other software programs and databases. A simple CSV export makes it easy to take your information from the cloud into a variety of programs including QuickBooks, Salesforce, and more.

Paper allows for errors

Even before data entry, paper forms allow for a variety of mistakes. First, there are the forms that never come back at all. They get lost somewhere between the work site and your office. This can be a huge issue: one company found that missing work orders were costing it up to $10,000 a month.

Not only do you have missing forms, but also unreadable text, missing fields, and bad information. This makes billing and paying employees harder and slower. Going mobile ensures you get accurate information the first time. No more handwriting, just clear text. Add automatic time and date stamps to know how long your employee was on site working on a problem. Use your own list of materials, pricing, and more inside an app. With calculations, it’s easy to create an accurate quote on-site.

Tired of forms returning incomplete? Make fields required. One click ensures that these fields can’t be skipped.

Human error is a part of life, but going mobile reduces errors and creates more accurate reports.

You wait to get paid for

Even after onsite work is finished, there’s more work to be done just to get paid. You have to bring back the work order, fill out an invoice, and then send it out to a customer. This can add on days or weeks to your sale cycle.

But what if you could get paid on-site as soon as you finish? With GoCanvas, you can. Simply fill out your form, and calculate the price of the work inside the app. Our mobile payments functionality allows you to charge on-site. Accept credit or debit cards, or take cash or check.

Your customer gets a receipt in their inbox as a part of their copy of the work order or invoice. You get paid the same day your work is done. And that sales cycle that took forever? It’s done in one day.

Using paper for your records costs you time and money. Worse, it often causes more errors along the way. Going mobile allows you to get paid the same day you do your work, and share information in real-time inside your business and with your customers.

Mobile apps shorten your sale cycle, increase your billable hours, and save your office hundreds of hours a year.

Chapter 2: Improve Your Internal Visibility with Mobile Apps

Whether you have two or 200 employees, your business’ success depends on their hard work. Passionate, motivated team players are the difference between surviving and thriving. But in field service, your employees are often far from the office.

So how do you know which employees are carrying their weight? Time cards and field reports can be one way of trying to find out. But paper forms take time to get back, and are limited in information. Mobile apps can improve your internal visibility and ability to make strategic decisions faster.

Time and date stamps

Let’s say your paperwork order says the work took three hours, but what if the customer only remembers the work taking two hours? This puts you in an awkward position with your customers and employees.

By going mobile you can create more accurate records of hours worked. Simply open up a work order or service report, and the time is automatically entered. The app can even calculate the time worked based on clocking in and clocking out.

Time and date stamps ensure better accuracy and fewer issues for both invoices and payroll. Mobile time cards help businesses spend less on tracking employees and more on their actual work.

Pictures

Sometimes, the work you need to do is obvious. You need to fix a major water leak or install a heating system. But for some businesses, like pest control, the work can be less obvious. Or if your work is technical, like pool maintenance, text can be confusing to customers. For the office, text isn’t verifiable. 

Adding pictures can be incredibly helpful for your business and customers. With one click, a mobile app gives you a great visual. It’s easier to show termite damage with a photo than with words. Visuals make it easy for both your office and customers to understand. Photos educate clients and build trust in your work and analysis. Your business enjoys visual confirmation that work is either needed or was performed.

Dispatch

Sending out job information to field employees can be a hassle. Either they have to drive to and from the office between jobs, wasting time and gas. Or, they have to constantly check their email or phone for job information. How can you be sure that they get it, and follow through on the work? 

A dispatch system improves communication and provides more oversight. Dispatch with GoCanvas can also track the progress of these appointments. 

The dispatch feature will show when employees opened the dispatch when they started filling out the work order, and when it was completed. Sharing job information becomes easier, and you know when the job is done in real-time. 

Oversight is never perfect. However, mobile apps allow you to have a better understanding of field employees’ work — not only when and where employees work, but also what they do. Being available in real-time also helps you make strategic decisions about your workforce and ensure you have the strongest and most effective team.

Chapter 3: How a Texas Moving Company Saved $175,000 with GoCanvas

Highlights 

• Savings of $175,000 in processing and labor costs • Improved information collection 
• Stronger management oversight 

Apps Used 

• Bill of Lading 
• Damage Report 

Background 

Founded in 1996 by owner Kenny Baker, AB Moving has a fleet of 72 trucks, serving customers in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. The company is headquartered in Allen, a Dallas suburb, with 15 office employees, and all moving is done by subcontractors. The company and its 72 mover teams complete as many as 700 jobs each week. 

AB Moving has been moving homes and businesses for over 20 years. AB understands they aren’t just moving customer’s possessions, but their lives. 

Yet paper wasn’t serving the company well. In 2009, AB Moving started using a sophisticated software application to record customer, job booking, and move data. But drivers were still using paper bills of lading and damage reports. 

The result? All movers had to come into the office at 5 a.m. to pick up that day’s assignments. Though AB Moving had sophisticated technology, it struggled to get information from the field integrated back into its system. 

Brent Davis, the general manager, knew they could do better. “I was an auto adjuster for 17 years,” Brent says, “and was also the guy who test-piloted all the new technology. I’m just blessed with the ability to see how things can be done in the most efficient way.” 

So Brent began looking for a technology fix that would eliminate as much of the paper as possible. 

Solution & Results 

In January 2014, AB Moving made the switch to GoCanvas, the global leader in mobile apps for business. Thousands of organizations leverage GoCanvas’s cloud-based, software-as-a-service mobile app platform to replace cumbersome paper forms with highly customizable mobile business apps. 

Businesses can search from over 16,000 ready-made apps in the GoCanvas Application Store that can be customized to an individual business user’s needs. In addition, GoCanvas offers a do-it-yourself app builder that enables non-technical users to build their own apps in minutes. 

Over the past year, AB Moving drivers have stopped using paper and started to use Samsung Galaxy tablets and GoCanvas mobile apps. The company has discovered measurable results, including: 

Substantial Financial Savings 

Previously, AB Moving took payment with a manual credit card machine or over the phone. However, this process was slow, cumbersome, and had high fees. By going digital, AB Moving has lower fees, and estimates they’ve saved $125,000 in fees alone.

AB Moving’s previous process was also time-consuming for office employees. They would spend hours matching contracts and credit card receipts, taking credit card information over the phone, and printing bills of lading. By streamlining this process, AB has saved another $50,000 in employee time. 

In total? AB Moving has saved $175,000 by switching to GoCanvas. 

Measurable Time Savings 

AB Moving’s drivers work through many parts of Texas, often far from the office. Previously, all drivers would have to come into the office at 5 a.m. to pick up their jobs for the day. Davis recalls with a cringe, “If it was raining outside, they would come in and get the papers all wet. It was awful.” 

With GoCanvas, the office can set up all moves the day beforehand. The light dispatch feature allows AB Moving to pre-populate bill of lading forms so movers know where they need to go and what to do. The matching and scheduling process that once took hours or days is now available in minutes. 

Dispatch reduces the number of unproductive miles for drivers. AB Moving saves gas and time. 

Improved Data Collection 

AB Moving also receives stronger and more accurate information from GoCanvas. Previously, it would have to compensate customers up to 90 days after the move, since it didn’t have proof that items were already damaged. 

Today, movers can easily take photos of items damaged before moving. With all information in the cloud, the photos are easy to find and always accessible. Photos have reduced the number and costs of post-move damage claims. 

In addition, bills of lading are required by state law to be signed. Davis explains, “There are fines for incomplete forms. With the GoCanvas application, the movers can’t upload the form until everything is complete and it is signed. It’s bulletproof now, and that is saving us a lot of money in fines.” 

GoCanvas does this by easily making fields required. With paper, nothing stopped a form from being returned only half-finished. A driver can skip a field in the GoCanvas mobile app, but if a field is required, he won’t be able to submit the app until the required fields are completed. So AB Moving no longer struggles with missing information in their forms. 

Real-Time Oversight 

With a dispersed workforce, AB Moving struggled to get information about its workforce in an easy manner. Who booked the move? How did the customer hear about AB Moving? Were any packaging supplies sold? 

Today all reports are submitted immediately, so AB Moving can understand information in real time. The company is even taking this data further: data from each job is integrated with a home-grown application that AB Moving developed.

Through that application, Davis says, “Now I can see exactly what every mover did, who booked the move, the referral source, any boxes and other packaging supplies we sold. We can track anything we need to.” 

What once were disparate files are now seamlessly connected and available for understanding not in a week, but the very same day. 

Flexibility to Meet Evolving Business Needs 

As a cloud-based, mobile platform combined with an easy-to-use mobile app builder, GoCanvas provides AB Moving the flexibility to add new features and functionality to any of its mobile apps. As needs evolve and change, GoCanvas makes editing apps a frictionless process. 

For instance, as prices change, it’s easy for AB Moving to upload a new price list into its GoCanvas apps. The company doesn’t need to rely on IT support or have any knowledge of coding. With GoCanvas, it’s a simple drag-and-drop interface that anyone can use. 

Today, AB Moving has ditched paper for mobile apps. Having taken back time in the workday, the company can focus on helping people move easily throughout Texas.

Chapter 4: How The Best Field Service Companies Go Mobile

You know going mobile has benefits for businesses. But any change is an investment of time and money. So how are the best companies in the industry getting started with mobile apps? 

1. Start with a common form 

Choose a form you use every day. Maybe it’s a work order, or perhaps a service form. Choose something that you use frequently and move it to a mobile app. Starting with a form you use daily means you’ll be able to test it often and perfect the process. 

There are multiple ways to build your app with GoCanvas. You can build it from scratch with our mobile app builder. Our simple drag-and-drop platform makes it easy and requires no coding. 

Another option is to choose an app from our mobile application store. We have over 400 mobile apps in field service alone. All of these can be edited for the perfect fit. 

Don’t have time to build your own? Not a problem, send us your form, and we’ll convert it for you. 

No matter which way you go, choosing a frequently used form makes the initial process easier, and more sustainable in the long run. 

2. Think about the information you need and want 

Look at what does and doesn’t work in your form now. Are you consistently missing certain information? Consider making these fields required. Tired of inaccurate invoices? Calculations are a great asset to ensure accurate charges. 

With mobile apps, you can collect more information. Why not add a before and after image for customers? Perhaps add a coupon for customers in your PDF receipt. Automate labor, material, and tax calculations so your field techs don’t have to manually calculate the math. Or add barcode scanning to help your technicians understand the equipment they’re working with. 

Mobile apps provide endless options to engage customers and improve your understanding of your business. Depending on what you want to know, GoCanvas mobile apps can make that easier to find out. 

3. Test it 

To ensure your mobile app works best, test with a small group of employees to find any issues before full implementation. Often, companies will test with technologically savvy users and those more comfortable with flip phones. Have these employees use the mobile apps as they would in their day-to-day work. 

Test periods also help generate employee interest. Even during a trial, co-workers start seeing that using GoCanvas makes their work faster and easier. Employees begin to ask to go mobile! 

4. Be open to feedback 

To successfully implement your mobile app, you need to listen to the experiences of employees using it. Even after testing, it’s crucial that all your employees using GoCanvas feel like they can bring up issues. 

Sometimes the issue is small. One field service company struggled to implement because technicians had nowhere to put their gloves. With the gloves on, they couldn’t use the touch screen. By giving employees a belt clip, not only was the company able to remove the pain point, but also got more employees to use GoCanvas. 

Testing is crucial to help make the process smooth to start. Listening to feedback and addressing employees’ pain points will ensure wider implementation and long-term success. 

5. Contact us 

Every customer at GoCanvas is assigned a consultant. Available via phone, chat, or email, we are here to answer any of your questions. Something that may seem impossible, could need a simple fix. With years of experience, we’re ready and available to make your mobile app experience and adoption a seamless and easy transition. 

No two businesses, even in field service, are alike. However great field service companies use similar tactics to ramp up with mobile apps effectively. These strategies, from starting with one common form to feedback, will help ensure that your whole team uses GoCanvas and that it helps you do business.

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.

Introduction:

The construction industry experienced an enormous amount of change in 2020 and the disruption will continue in 2021. The industry faced adversity in the form of economic challenges and a public health emergency that continues to put pressure on businesses and the health of workers. This will impact the decisions construction companies need to make to drive growth. 

Research from Deloitte shows the construction industry was better positioned to endure the COVID-19 pandemic due to lessons learned from the 2008 recession. It had better control over its leverage and credit, which provided a buffer against unforeseen economic shocks. However, construction companies continue to face cost pressures for building materials and equipment procurement. Many projects were also delayed and required permits often take longer to make it through the approval process.

However, these challenges present growth opportunities for the construction industry and mid-size companies in particular. Much of this growth will come in the form of new and better technologies, which will help companies work smarter and safer. 

The construction industry added more than $900 billion to the U.S. economy in Q1 2020, which represents the highest level since the 2008 recession. COVID-19 hit hard, however, eliminating two years of GDP gains seemingly overnight. Recovery may be tough, but it’s far from impossible. Below, we explore top industry trends your firm should consider this year, along with solutions to help you utilize them to your advantage.

But all challenges present opportunities for growth. The road forward is starting to become clear, especially for mid-size firms that can’t afford a repeat of this past year’s massive workflow interruptions.

Trend 1: Remote Connectivity

The work your construction business does onsite is inherently hands-on, but that doesn’t mean all your business processes should be hands-on.

Every industry has seen some degree of digital transformation over the last decade, but 2020’s lockdowns really brought one big thing into perspective: it’s going to be the digital-first businesses that survive and thrive going forward.

How does your management team collaborate when they can’t be in the same room? Do you process digital forms remotely or manage project data in one central location when your team isn’t in one place? Inspection forms, work orders, timesheets, and daily reports can all be streamlined with a transition from paper-based forms to digital forms.

Beyond its benefits in a post-COVID world, going digital translates to incredible cost savings for your business. Digital tools can help you:

• Streamline your sales and marketing processes. Take out rote steps in order to bring in more leads and close more contracts.
• Cut out inefficiencies and save money on administrative processes. Shuffling paperwork from person-to-person costs your business both labor hours and lost productivity due to manual errors.
• Hire faster and better. Free up valuable time your hiring team spends on administrative tasks and track applicants with less hassle.
• Spend less time managing legal issues and compliance. And spend more time growing your business.

Digitization isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a legitimate means to improve the day-to-day functions of your business and grow your bottom line.

If your firm still takes the “paper” in paperwork literally, then you’re doing yourselves a huge disservice. Mobile apps and other digital platforms have taken all of the paper — and even a lot of the work — out of managing the contracts, forms, schedules, compliance documents, and other essentials that you need for your business operations.

Here are a few key areas of the construction industry where digital solutions can simplify operations and save you serious money:

Maintenance Schedules

Keep maintenance inspections accurate by editing checklists, service bulletins, and schedules from a central, digital location. Keeping accurate logs is easier too when it’s done digitally. With the right mobile app, you can take a picture, tag it, and log it for future reference from your phone.

Work Orders

Modern solutions can send job information directly to your workers in the field to reduce downtime. They can also auto-populate data like material lists and customer information, eliminating errors. The ability to collect digital signatures is another way to streamline the end-to-end work order process.

Jobsite safety is critical to positive business outcomes for construction companies. Digital solutions can reduce data loss from lost safety incident reports to improve compliance and keep your workers safe. It also enables real-time intelligence from analytics to alert management of trends that require action.

Labor Management and Timesheets

Log and track breaks, work times, and safety protocols and training from anywhere, ensuring that your labor reports are always up-to-date.

Payment Dispute Technology

The right solution can help you document when work was done, so you get more assurance you’ll get paid for every hour worked. If you use an all-in-one solution, you can go paperless with estimates, invoices, and other critical payment-related documents so you can manage the full payment dispute process digitally.

Trend 2: Employee Safety

On-the-job safety issues can be costly, with injuries and illnesses costing businesses $170 billion a year, according to OSHA. But in 2021, we’re likely to see a much broader definition of what safety looks like — encompassing not just prevention of on-the-job injuries, but enhanced cleanliness protocols and a reduction in the number of workers per job shift.

Some of these measures are easy to account for. For example, expanded cleanliness regulations will require businesses to increase access to hand sanitizer on-site and forbid workers to share protective equipment. However, some increased safety measures will require more comprehensive coordination, and that’s where digital tools and automation can help. Digital tools can help you stay compliant with safety regulations, but they can also help you spot trends or red flags that might lead to costly accidents. For instance, some technology solutions can provide project leaders with instant snapshots of need-to-know information like which pieces of equipment shouldn’t be used because they’re due for maintenance. They can also give you confidence your safety reports are accurate and updated on a consistent timeline.

Automated trackers, forms, and lists help eliminate the guesswork and reduce errors in construction safety programs. Mobile technology and automation can improve safety measures that require a direct response to the pandemic. Use mobile apps to quickly and easily manage crew size and oversee orders of protective equipment. If your firm does temperature checks, you can track and log results digitally instead of manually so you always have access to the data.

45% of the behind-the-scenes work that your business does can be automated

Trend 3: Supply Chain Disruptions

The COVID-19 pandemic caused delays in resources and materials for 75% of U.S. manufacturers. Stable relationships with single suppliers — once seen as a mainstay of good business — will for many be replaced by a larger pool of alliances. This will ensure there is always a supplier ready to step in if a favored supplier falls short on supply.

Supply chain diversification could mean a big change in how your firm typically does business. However, this is a critical step to consider and can make or break your business in the event of future disruptions.

It’s no secret: adaptable firms persist during tough times. An adaptable supply chain will keep your business running through unforeseen disruptions. To start, make a deliberate effort to form new relationships with additional suppliers. This process can take a long time because it requires research, networking, and trust. However, your company will be able to pivot to additional suppliers if disruptions occur. Technology is here to help streamline this process, too. Consider a solution that can automatically populate forms with data you’re collecting about supplies, worksite inventories, logs, and schedules. That data can then be crunched into daily, weekly, or monthly reports that can help you see when a supply problem is coming. 

75% US manufacturers reported delays in resources and materials caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trend 4: Data Science for All

There are two key benefits of data capture and a strong data management program. The first is the ability to look back and understand how you can improve your business, and the other is the ability to apply predictive models to inform critical business decisions. Construction companies that undertake these efforts will realize a large competitive advantage over those who are resistant to change.

The good news is you don’t need a degree in data science to utilize data in a way that improves your business. In fact, you may only need to make a couple of small changes to leverage data in a meaningful way.

Here are the top ways construction companies and other firms are “upping” their data game:

Moving Data to a Centralized, Cloud-based Location

About 13% of a construction team’s working hours are spent seeking out project data and information. That’s a lot of time dedicated to hunting down information. It would be a better use of time if workers focused on quality work, job safety, and innovation. Instead of paper-based data capture or static spreadsheets across multiple computers, successful companies will shift to a cloud-based solution to ensure everyone has the same updated information in real time.

Auditing and Pooling the Data You Already Have

Odds are you collect data from apps or forms already, such as supplier or customer contact information. But does it get stored in one place? Does it get duplicated? Who is in charge of updating it and analyzing it?

An internal audit of your data capture procedures and an assessment of what data is captured will help you understand the scope of the opportunity to transition from paper-based processes to digital ones.

Automation for Easier Data Collection and Handling

We get it: Manual data entry isn’t fun. The good news is about 45% of the behind-the-scenes work your business does can be automated, according to McKinsey. This includes data collection and reporting. 

Once a data audit and capture assessment is complete, you can move your data to a centralized cloud-based platform. From there, you can use more advanced analytics tools to visualize historical trends and use predictive tools to anticipate changes in trends. For example, you may be able to predict when equipment will break down based on historical trends on equipment age, brand, and make. You may also be able to anticipate when you need to implement additional safety measures based on past incident reports. Data loss prevention is another advantage of digital-based solutions as opposed to paper-based forms. Workers may capture the data they need on inspections, work orders, timesheets, or daily reports, but paper forms are prone to be lost. This can cause headaches when it comes to proof of work completed and can result in lost revenue.

13% of a construction team’s working hours are spent seeking out project data and information

Final takeaways:

Digital technology had an outsized impact on the construction industry in 2020 and we expect the pace of change to continue to accelerate. Companies will need to focus efforts on technology-based solutions to cut costs and improve efficiency. It will be critical for them to accept constant change and adjust accordingly. 

Construction companies will need to:

1. Adopt digital solutions to replace manual and paper-based processes 
2. Ensure safety and health compliance through improved record-keeping 
3. Diversify their supply chain 
4. Take a data-driven approach to decision-making

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.

Introduction

There are lots of factors to consider as you research new software. After all, your projects require a data model and workflows that other software providers don’t always understand.

• “Am I selecting tech made for MY needs?” Look for easy-to-use tools, such as a drag-and-drop interface and flexible design. The freedom to create and distribute documents quickly – based on your unique business needs– will keep everyone up-to-date on important changes.
• “Does this software reduce manual work?” A key benefit of investing in a mobile data platform is the ability to sync data in the cloud. Look for easy integrations to share field data with the office to improve the data you’re collecting. That way, you’re instantly sharing improved insights with everyone who needs the information.
• “Does this partner support my long-term goals?” The vendor you pick should feel like a partner on every level. After kicking off the project, it means they’ll still be on your side with a dedicated customer success team and ongoing recommendations to support your growth. 

We hope this guide makes your search a little easier. If you have any questions while comparing mobile data platforms, please contact us here.

The Challenge

A key challenge is removing the “busy work” that slows down operations for growing companies. Things like paper forms, data entry, manual workflows between people, and inefficient processes are examples of the types of hidden costs that stack up over time.

These types of issues directly impact your company’s bottom line in several ways:

• Higher operational costs due to inefficient processes that result in tasks that take longer to complete.
• Lost productivity when staff are busy with redundant tasks, rather than focusing their efforts on meaningful work.
• Duplicate work and wasted time occur when information is missing from paperwork or contains simple errors.

How Mobile Data Platforms Help

Leveraging a mobile data platform can help you avoid these common challenges. Companies use technology to streamline operations and automate how work gets done. Take Lumen as an example. Prior to having a mobile data platform, Lumen’s field operations staff relied on manual processes and time-consuming paper forms to complete service requests and reports. 

Their process involved sending a technician to a job site, completing an inspection form, returning the forms to a central office, scanning the form, and then attaching the scanned reports to their database entries. 

Seeing how much time was being spent by technicians to complete basic administrative work, Lumen implemented a mobile data platform to reduce the headaches from traditional paper and to give time back to their crew members in the field. Ultimately they reduced admin work by 35%, with savings up to $1 million in the first year. 

When manual processes and stacks of paperwork become too much of a drain on company resources, investing in technology can be an opportunity to reduce operational costs and enable growth.

Ultimately they reduced admin work by 35%, with savings up to $1 million in the first year.

Continue reading this guide to dive deeper into each of the recommendations and to understand how these factors can impact the success of your technology initiative. 

Buyer’s Guide Summary 

This guide is intended to be a resource for you to better understand mobile data platforms. As you research and evaluate software, consider these three recommendations: 

• Recommendation #1 – Select technology that’s easy to use and scalable. 
• Recommendation #2 – Opt for solutions that improve data processes and analytics. 
• Recommendation #3 – Find a partner to support your organizational goals.

Recommendation 1: Technology that’s easy to use and scalable

Naturally, comparing the features and functionality of products is often included as part of the software selection process. This helps discern what product features are needed to satisfy your business requirements. However, it’s equally important to understand how the technology will position your organization for success. After all the time and effort you put into the initiative, you want to be sure that the solutions fit your needs — both in the short and long term. 

What makes a mobile data platform easy to use? 

Overly complex solutions can be daunting to learn and difficult to gain buy-in from staff. Ease of use, both in the field and in the office, can be an indicator of how successful the solution will be once implemented. 

No-coding required 

Solutions with a drag-and-drop interface make it easy to design mobile forms without technical resources or coding. A modern user experience (UX) makes it easy to build, customize, and deploy mobile forms with a few clicks. While you may want to involve your IT department in the decision-making process, the actual tools should empower business users to make customizations without heavy development or technical knowledge. An easy-to-use software tool gives you the ability to quickly roll out and scale mobile form solutions in the field and customize them based on unique business needs. 

Smart form fields 

It’s helpful to reference all of the information needed in a single platform. Forms that can reference other databases can help to simplify data entry by pre-populating known information. This saves time in the field and ensures data accuracy.

Dispatch and workflow 

Eliminating manual work for staff should be a top priority, and solutions should prioritize automation to streamline inefficient processes. Capabilities like dispatch can simplify project assignments and workflow can enable multiple people to collaborate on a mobile form. 

Real-time data sync between the field and office 

Field workers should be able to easily complete all forms from a mobile device, both online and offline. This enables workers in remote locations to capture information and have it synced to the cloud whenever an internet connection becomes available. At the same time, employees in the office will need visibility into submission data in real time. Best-in-class mobile data platforms will enable sharing of information via notifications, emails, PDF reports, and pre-built dashboards to monitor and view the information in real time. Real-time data sync ensures that your organization always has access to the latest information, accessible from any device. 

Why does scalability matter? 

It’s important to consider where your business is going in the next few years and ensure that the technology implemented today will have the capacity to scale with your company’s growth. Some of the more basic mobile form solutions may only solve one business case for a team, but what happens when there becomes a need to expand? 

Implementing a pilot program in one focus area is a great place to start to prove the business case, but consider the other potential opportunities across all of your different business units. This can help you ensure the mobile data platform selected can scale to meet company demands, both now and in the future. 

Consider working cross-functionally within your organization to ensure different stakeholders’ needs are understood and the technology can support multiple processes. Scalability will matter when you need to roll out the technology for new or emerging needs in the business. 

The Takeaway:

Solutions that can balance ease of use, customization, and scalability will position your business to best capitalize on the mobile operations opportunity. These factors can lead to better adoption, faster time to value, and a greater return on investment. 

Recommendation 2: Solutions that improve data processes and analytics

It’s important to consider the technology and processes your company already has in place today. A mobile data platform should fit with the systems you currently use and it should help to improve your current workflows. 

A key benefit of investing in a mobile data platform is the ability to leverage field data and share it back in real-time with the office. Make sure that the solution you select will empower your organization to rapidly collect data from the field and instantly share the insights with everyone that needs the information. 

What type of data integration is required? 

Mobile data platforms should support data integrations to connect data from the field with the other cloud applications your business uses. Syncing data between systems can improve data quality, reduce manual work, and enable data insights. 

For example, you may need integrations with: 

• Cloud storage and databases 
• Accounting systems to process payroll 
• Finance systems to process billing 
• CRM systems to access customer data 
• Other similar types of cloud-based systems

As you evaluate technology, make sure to inquire about the types of integrations available. Some will be simple data connectors, while others may require a web services API to connect your data. While there may be some upfront work involved to get your data integrated, there can be significant time savings in the future achieved through a connected data ecosystem. 

How will data be used for analytics? 

Data analytics provide a way for your company to look for business trends and patterns. Identifying trends allows your business to take the appropriate next step and address any concerns or opportunities. A mobile data platform should enable and promote data analytics. This allows business leaders to dig into the data to better understand project performance, financials, and opportunities to drive business growth. 

You may want analytics to be built into the mobile data platform itself for better reporting capabilities of field information. In addition to native analytics capabilities in a mobile data platform, you may also need to share field data with other systems you use for analytics. 

For example, your organization may have a business intelligence (BI) solution that’s used for advanced analytics. Mobile data is one source of information that can be brought into your larger BI systems and you may benefit from having a platform that enables you to share data via an integration or API. 

Make sure to understand how data captured can be used for analytics, so you can take advantage of the opportunity to leverage data to inform business decisions. 

How is data processed and stored? 

It goes without saying that a mobile data platform should have the highest level of security and data privacy. The technology should be secure and enable compliance with any applicable regulations. 

For example, your business may need to be HIPPA compliant if you are processing medical information. Or maybe you may need to be GDPR compliant if you are processing and storing customer data. Best-in-class solutions will have the highest level of security and compliance, helping to ensure that your organization is following best practices for data security. 

The Takeaway:

Data is an asset that can be used to your advantage to gain greater visibility into your operations and used to discern trends. Consider your business data ecosystem today and ensure that a mobile data platform can enhance and support your existing business processes and data requirements.

Recommendation 3: Partner To Support Your Organizational Goals

Implementing a mobile data platform is both a technology and change management initiative. Make sure that you select a partner that is committed to helping you achieve your desired outcomes. You should gain a clear understanding of the support resources available and the roadmap for successful product adoption. 

What resources are available to help you succeed? 

There should be a proven framework for you to follow when it comes time to implement a mobile data platform. Vendors should provide you with a detailed plan for implementation, giving examples of how other companies in your industry have seen success using this framework. Typically you will get started by working with the vendor’s implementation and support teams to kick off the project and build custom forms and processes for your business. 

Once implemented, your business may also benefit from dedicated customer success resources to work with you to advance your usage of the platform. Ongoing consultation with the vendor can benefit your organization to take advantage of new capabilities, expand into other use cases, and provide recommendations to support your business goals.  

What support channels are made available? 

It’s helpful to understand what support looks like with a mobile data platform. Your organization will need to access resources like documentation, support agents and live chat, training opportunities, online communities, and other forms of self-service support resources. Proper support resources will ensure your teams’ successful adoption of the technology. 

How do you measure the return on investment (ROI)? 

With any technology initiative, it should be a partnership where your success is the top priority. Tools for demonstrating the return on investment can be built-in to the product, allowing you to visualize time savings and other forms of ROI. Calculating this can help you to showcase the value proposition internally at your company. The vendor should be able to assist you in making that business case for your company stakeholders and demonstrating how key business impact metrics are improving. 

The Takeaway:

Finding a vendor that understands your business, identifies challenges and opportunities, and works with you on a custom plan for success is crucial. Don’t overlook the people component when selecting technology, because, without the right people and resources, any technology initiative will fail. This includes training your staff, ensuring resources are available, and communicating how the technology project has brought value to your mission.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

Don’t let paper forms and outdated processes slow down your business growth. Scale your business with the GoCanvas mobile data platform that is trusted by over 5,000 organizations worldwide. 

• A mobile data platform that’s easy to use and customize
• Supports data integration and offers built-in analytics
• A trusted partner with resources to help you succeed 

What are your peers saying about GoCanvas? 

• 55% reduction in time to complete and receive forms
• 30% decrease in time spent manually entering data
• 39% decrease in back-and-forth communication
• 18% reduction in risk and liability 
• 25% increase in work completed 
• 8% increase in customer satisfaction 

Contact our team to learn more about the GoCanvas product and we can answer any additional questions you may have about implementing a mobile data platform.

Introduction

In 2016, many U.S. employers were scrambling to prepare for a Department of Labor ruling that would change which employees were eligible for overtime. When a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule from going into effect, many companies breathed a sigh of relief. The pressure was off. Or is it?

What that impending law showed was that small businesses have a problem to solve.

Though paper processes are still prevalent in many small businesses, studies show that employees don’t like or trust those paper-based time-tracking systems. In fact, 37 percent of employees are worried that inaccurate record-keeping will mean they won’t get their full pay. Inaccurate processes also cost employers time and money — time because dealing with paper time cards is less efficient than digital processes, and money because mistakes in logging and rekeying can result in overpaying employees for hours worked.

37% of employees are worried that inaccurate record keeping will mean they won’t get their full pay.

Whether or not a looming federal law is forcing you to do it, take this opportunity to update your time-tracking processes to digital to not only improve your bottom line but to grow employee trust as well.

Here are four tips to help you make the switch.

Chapter 1: If you’re still using paper, you’re not alone (but you will be soon)

In a recent survey of American workers conducted by YouGov and commissioned by Canvas, almost half (49 percent) of workers said their employers still used paper to track time. But hundreds of companies every week are making the switch away from paper-based processes, recognizing that paper is slower, less efficient, and less accurate than digital and mobile apps. You don’t want to be the laggard here!

Switching away from paper reduces pressure on the back office to make sure employees are paid on time, which also makes for happier employees. One company that switched to Canvas for payroll saved two hours a day in processing time compared to using paper. But there’s another reason to switch from paper-based processes, and that’s trust.

Chapter 2: Employees don’t trust paper time cards/time sheets.

Of those workers who said their employers were still using paper-based time cards, half weren’t convinced their employer was capable of tracking their time accurately. Eight percent even said that their employers were “not at all” capable of managing this.

However, most workers said they do trust a digital system to keep track of hours: 59 percent said they trusted such systems, jumping to 68 percent among millennials.

Almost half (48 percent) said the ability to use their smartphone to input and access payroll and timecard data would make them feel more confident in the system.

50% of employees aren’t convinced that employers are tracking time accurately using paper-based time cards.

Chapter 3: Take this opportunity to further grow employee trust.

The biggest change employers can make is to do a better job tracking employees’ hours. If you are already making progress toward modernizing your time-tracking system, with the assumption you would be forced to track time accurately by federal law, don’t stop now.

This is still a great opportunity to modernize your old time tracking system. Digital and mobile timecards offer speed and flexibility (no need to drive time cards from the job site to the office for processing), accuracy, and protection in case of an audit.

59% of employees said they trusted a digital system to keep track of their hours.

Mobile timecards put workers in control; they can fill out and submit their hours worked from anywhere, and they can instantly be approved by their manager, the back office, etc., and sent to payroll without having to re-type anything. Mobile time cards also make it easy to differentiate between projects, what percentage of an employee’s time is billable, and more.

Because employees often fill in paper time cards after a shift or at the end of the week, you’re relying on their memory for how many hours they worked, which projects they worked on, when they took breaks, etc.

Mobile timecards eliminate the memory problem and improve accuracy — so you only pay for the actual overtime worked.

Chapter 4: Accurate time tracking helps you, too.

In addition to cutting down on timecard processing time and eliminating errors, accurate timecards can ensure you’re not overpaying any employees either, by helping to reduce unplanned overtime.

According to The Aberdeen Group, companies that used an automated leave management system — where employees can request days off without having to check in with a central gatekeeper — saw a 32% reduction in unplanned overtime.

Moving to digital also allows you to use business intelligence to analyze the data you collect with your digital time tracking, giving you crucial insights on employee productivity, overtime costs per job, and more. You will now be able to answer questions such as which employees work the most overtime. Which seasons or time periods are most likely to require overtime? With some careful planning, you can reduce overtime to only what’s needed, saving resources for when you need them most and better managing your payroll expenses.

Get More Out of Your Data

Once you start capturing your employees’ timesheets via a mobile app, put that data to good use. Analyzing your data over time offer insights you can use for decision-making and to gain a better understanding of how to improve the way you schedule, hire, and promote staff.

For more on getting the most out of your data, download: 

• See the Moving Parts in Your Business: Canvas Business Insights

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.

Introduction: Your data is talking to you – or trying to.

Every day, small and medium-sized businesses generate large amounts of data. Data on customers, inventory, sales, equipment status, and more. Data that could — if it were properly organized and analyzed — yield all sorts of information to assist in decision-making. But because that data is often locked away on paper, the insights from that data too often go untapped.

Fortunately, getting a full picture from your data doesn’t require a large IT staff or advanced technological skills. With GoCanvas Business Insights, you can gain new understanding from your data without a huge team of computer programmers, and put the same power of “business intelligence”— previously reserved for “the big guys”— to work for you.

Businesses small and large are tapping into the power of mobile forms and data analysis to dramatically improve day-to-day operations and strategic planning.

If you start listening to your data, you could be surprised at what it can tell you. 

Are You Having These Issues?

Are you running into these common problems faced by many small and medium-sized businesses? Either you’re constantly struggling to find data you need, because it’s stuffed in an overflowing filing cabinet, or your business lacks that data at all: The information is too cumbersome to collect and process, so staff aren’t even gathering data beyond a  bare minimum.

Or, you may have multiple versions of the same documents, leading to uncertainty about what’s really accurate. All this leads to a lack of understanding of where your business units are at any given time: Is the sales department over- or underperforming compared to this time last year? Is marketing failing to reach a major sector of your business audience?

If this sounds familiar, don’t despair. You are probably among the many small- and medium-sized businesses that struggle with the same issues. These problems stem from not using the power of everyday mobile technology and not coordinating how data is collected and shared.

Gartner, a leading technology research and advisory company, says that the average employee at a small- or medium-sized business still prints 400 pages a month. Many SMBs still collect data using paper forms. And even among those that have transitioned to a mobile app to capture information on the field, many aren’t mining this data to its full advantage.

To take full advantage of the data, you need to do something with it.

Case Study 1: Inventory Management

Like many companies of its size, Environmental Lighting Services, a 100-person lighting and electrical contractor based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, has an exceedingly complex inventory. In addition to all its warehouses, the company has 40 trucks, each of which is a “rolling warehouse” filled with a handful of each type of bulb it supplies. Since the trucks don’t carry full cases, employees performing the company’s semi-annual inventory couldn’t scan barcodes; instead, they were forced to count items manually, one by one.

Now, using the GoCanvas App it automatically populates with ELS’s master item list, employees can easily call up any item and enter in the count and location, reducing a time-consuming, three-week process to under one week.

ELS is preparing to unlock business insights through GoCanvas Business Insights, especially around inventory and forecasting sales.

Having an app-based inventory solution also makes external audits a breeze, and ELS has big plans to do even more. In addition to adding a timecard app and an app that assists technicians with energy-efficient lighting surveys, ELS is preparing to unlock business insights through GoCanvas Business Insights, especially around inventory and forecasting sales.

Company vice president Fred Wolsleger explains, “We’ve done two inventories, one at the end of 2015 and one mid-year 2016. As we approach this year-end, we will have one fiscal accounting year cycle that we’ll have gone through. Now, we’ll be able to do more analytical work. But if we didn’t have all that data in GoCanvas, it would have been impossible.”

Switching to mobile offers some immediate benefits — providing a high level of data integrity, for example, and saving time that would be spent rekeying paper forms into the computer. But to take full advantage of the data, you need to do something with it.

GoCanvas Business Insights makes it easy to import data into Excel to quickly generate charts, graphs, and summaries of your most important information.

We selected Excel because most businesses use the program and people are familiar with how it works. Also, no need to pay exorbitant costs for custom software at $1,000 per screen (something we hear a lot).

After importing your data, it’s easy to see, at a glance, the crucial data that helps you make business decisions. Which employees are charging the most overtime? Who are the most productive? Which equipment has been safety checked? What equipment fails most often, and why? The possibilities are endless and that’s the power of business intelligence (BI).

It’s easy to see, at a glance, the crucial data that helps you make business decisions.

What is Business Intelligence?

Simply, “business intelligence” refers to summarizing the data you capture in the course of doing business, then taking that information and transforming it into easy-to-read charts and graphs to gain insights into your company’s performance.

Originally — in fact even just five years ago — only Fortune 500 enterprises could afford the pricey and complicated tools used to perform this mining and analysis. Today, these tools are within the reach of many small- and medium-sized businesses, and they are much easier to use than ever before.

According to industry expert Dresner Advisory Services, a third of small businesses and more than 20 percent of mid-sized businesses have used BI products in the past three to five years. For good reason: A study by IBM and MIT Sloan found that analytics-and business-intelligence-driven companies outperform their peers by 2.2 times.

Business intelligence software — including GoCanvas Business Insights — can help with:

• Understanding which pieces of equipment are involved in most breakdowns or incidents.
• Targeting the top safety issues by location.
• Aligning daily operations with strategic, long-term objectives.
• Establishing and monitoring performance metrics.
• Identifying customers who are cutting back on their purchasing and offering them incentives.
• Comparing year-to-date expenses for this year with last year, and forecasting sales for the entire year.
• Learning which category yields the most “immediate action” ratings, by the supervisor.

The Power of GoCanvas Business Insights

Let’s say you’re inspecting your store, work site, or piece of equipment regularly. One inspection by itself doesn’t tell you anything other than “This happened and this is what we did about it.” But the power of data is that information accrues over time. Once you have data from 10, 30, or 100 inspections, patterns begin to emerge, and you can start to be more proactive and less reactive.

For example, a dashboard allows you to analyze employees’ time cards. How many jobs is each employee completing per day or per week? How much time is each employee spending between jobs? Which employees are the most/least productive?

The power of data is that information accrues over time.

Inspections

In any industry, safety is priority number one. Inspection checklists can yield insights on whether any machine is in need of upcoming service and even predict failures before they happen — which can prevent injury, reduce downtime, and help you better plan for future repairs.

Think data can’t predict the future? A team at Carnegie Mellon University — the same group that helped IBM build the Watson supercomputer — built a predictive safety model that is 80 to 97 percent accurate. The model uses a company’s preceding three months of safety inspection data to predict where injuries will occur over the next 30 days.

Software like this is making its way out of the lab now and into the palm of your hand — in your employees’ mobile phones.

Simply tracking your inspections (what happened, when, and what was done to address it) over time gives you access to a wealth of information you wouldn’t have if each inspection existed in a vacuum. You can look for patterns. If a pattern emerges, you know it’s not a matter of if an incident will occur but when. Then you can take steps to fix the problem before someone gets hurt.

Whether it’s an issue with set-up or on-the-job work, you can identify patterns through your inspection data and improve your safety culture.

Case Study 2: Connecting the team

Bernhard Energy is all about saving its clients money and energy.

The Little Rock, Ark.-based firm assesses and designs energy-saving mechanical and HVAC equipment for institutional clients like hospitals and universities. That’s good news for clients and good news for the planet.

These big, complex projects always start with a survey of existing equipment. Bernhard uses the GoCanvas App and checklist to survey all the equipment already at the site, noting size, age, and state of repair, and supplementing the textual data with photographs. The company’s technicians are able to easily note areas where clients can save money by looking for and documenting where mechanical equipment uses outdated methods of operation, and where that equipment could be upgraded to use more efficient parts and systems.

Bernhard uses the GoCanvas App and checklist to survey all the equipment already at the site, noting size, age, and state of repair, and supplementing the data with photographs.

Back in the home office, staff members use GoCanvas Business Insights to import all that data into Excel. “GoCanvas helps quite a bit” to get the information into a usable format, says energy analyst Michael Wenneker.

That data then goes to multiple departments: The engineering team uses the data to model the viability of a project; the financial team models future maintenance costs, and so on. It’s truly a team effort, with GoCanvas uniting everyone at Bernhard.

Timecards, overtime, productivity, and more: Your people may be your best asset but they’re also one of the most complex.

Construction, manufacturing, and field service businesses — as well as businesses in many other industries — may have employees distributed over multiple locations, some who never even visit a home office but instead work from the road. These businesses often have a combination of full-time, part-time, and contract employees, all of whom fill in different time cards each week.

GoCanvas allows you to take that mishmash of paper time cards and invoices and streamline the data into one app, where it can be processed by your back office.

And even better: Once timecard data is in GoCanvas, it can easily be imported to Excel using GoCanvas Business Insights, where you can perform complex analysis. Find your most productive employees, or identify the ones taking the most sick days. Learn which employees are working the most overtime and why. Combine timecard data with GPS data to determine which jobs take the most time and if you are billing accordingly.

Once timecard data is in GoCanvas, it can easily be exported to Excel.

Finance departments can use GoCanvas Business Insights to help fine-tune budgets, forecast sales, and more, but they can’t do it without good data.

One manufacturer said that prior to implementing business intelligence solutions, its finance department spent 80 percent of its time collecting data and 20 percent analyzing it; after the switch, those percentages were reversed.

With more data being more accessible, businesses are able to react more nimbly. “Ten years ago, we made assumptions on samples of data and based decisions on gut feel or someone’s ability to argue an opinion,” one financial director said in a report by research firm TDWI. Now, that’s changed because you have access to real-time actual data with the click of a button.

Case Study 3: Saving time

Another company making the most of its data is MOM Brands (formerly Malt-O-Meal). MOM has been a GoCanvas user since 2010. It outfits its in-store auditors with iPads to collect data at all the stores in which MOM Brands products are sold. These auditors track how each item’s brand standards are being upheld and whether products are placed where they are supposed to be. The auditors also ensure there is full compliance with distribution and retail standards.

MOM Brands now can pull all that data into monthly pivot table views at the click of a button, allowing its team to receive visual documents in real time. Users can reference historical data, segregate data, and even pre-populate form fields on their iPads before going out to a site visit at a retail partner location. MOM’s more than 100 users are saving countless hours, now that data that previously took days to analyze is accessible immediately; and the fact that data is transmitted directly from the field to Excel means fewer errors, and hours saved not doing data entry.

You may be thinking: This all sounds great, but won’t it take a long time and cost a fortune?

Not at all. Most GoCanvas customers using GoCanvas Business Insights get up and running by themselves. But if you want a bit of extra help, our Professional Services Team is on hand to guide you through the process and get GoCanvas Business Insights up and running. 

Our team can:

• Customize the GoCanvas App for your needs 
• Integrate your GoCanvas App(s) with GoCanvas Business Insights
• Identify insights you can get from your data and help you with a custom dashboard

What’s more, you’ll find that the modest cost of GoCanvas is more than offset by the time and money you’ll save.

Imagine: No more hours spent on manual data entry or manually converting data from one format to another. No more errors due to typos or mis-keys. You can stop spending time chasing down faulty data or painstakingly creating dashboards and visualizations, and start focusing on what’s really important — running a successful business.

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.

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:

Cost Item	$ / motor-hour
Cost of Purchase	$12.80
Cost of Annual Ownership	$3.00
Cost of Running ($24+$1+$0.50)	$25.50
Cost of Maintaining ($1.00+$4.00)	$5.00
Internal Rental Rate	$46.30

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.