The Problem
The data is there.
The plumbing is broken.
Three problems. Every mid-sized Alberta contractor has at least one of them.
Legacy ERP
You spent six figures on Oracle, SAP, or Viewpoint, and a good majority of your processes and reporting are still in Excel, and not talking to each other.
- ·The ERP is rigid and clunky with few real input options.
- ·Support to get anything changed is costly and slow.
- ·The ERP has rigid processes that don't always work for your business.
The reports that come with the ERP are not customized enough, and often reporting is accomplished in Excel with ERP system exports.
I recognise that ERPs were designed to accommodate most businesses, but rarely designed for your business.
Collecting and Reporting Data
You need information to make the correct decisions, and can't wait for month-end cutoff or quarter ends to know how you're doing. There is little value in spending all the energy collecting the data if it doesn't help the business run.
- ·Getting the detail right - too much detail reduces integrity, and not enough doesn't tell the story.
- ·Double / triple entry - the field writes it out once and hands it to project, project records it in Excel, then head office enters it again into the company software.
- ·Reporting that doesn't tell the story, and the detail that isn't there to drill into when needed.
- ·The data told you what happened previously, hardly tells you what's happening now, and is not good at predicting what will happen.
The Independent Sub Gap
Independent sub-contractors don't have the tech stack of the general contractor. They run the whole business on paper, text messages, and Friday-night spreadsheet scrambles.
Twelve-person welding crew. Three jobs running. One of them with a client payment system like Open Invoice, CDMS, Track, or likewise. The owner is also the project manager on the biggest job. Billing happens on Friday night at the kitchen table, with texts from three crew leads, a stack of receipts, and a battered notebook.
The work is excellent. The margin should be excellent. Somehow it isn't - and neither the owner nor the bookkeeper can say precisely why. Because the data needed to see the why never existed as data. It existed as messages, notes, and memory.
The fix
These aren't tech problems.
They're workflow problems wearing tech masks.
The fix is a field-ready bridge - not a bigger hammer.