Latest News

12 Tips on Managing your Building Projects to Make more Money

EstimatorXpress and BuildProjex: Your Project Management Tools >>

OK, so you won the job. Great! But are you on top of the job? Not so great. Winning the contract is just the beginning. The real success lies in how you manage the building project once you’ve won it. Does your project management process hit the mark?

Success means ensuring the actual cost of the job is no more than the estimated cost, keeping the profit margin intact. Does your project planning always give you a healthy profit at the end?

Whether you’ve got one project or five, you risk losing thousands of pounds from your profit margin by wasting valuable labour hours or making last-minute purchases. Worse still, you might even end up making a loss.

What if your team isn’t clear on their tasks? What if materials aren’t ordered on time? Suppose you can’t get plant equipment when needed? What if you take your eye off the ball? It can only end badly.

How Managing a Building Project better helps you Makes more Money

Taking time to think about how to make your construction projects (whether they’re loft conversions or new builds) happen on time and on budget is never a waste. At HBXL, we believe that you need to build solid ‘Building Firm Foundations.’ Your success is all in the planning. Here are 12 tips on how you can literally profit from efficient project management:

1. Produce an accurate quote – Don’t skimp on researching the project. Visit the site. Check for pitfalls. Don’t guesstimate. Be clear on provisional sums. Don’t risk eating into your profit margin.
2. Be on top of your outgoings – Make sure you cost for everything, not just materials and labour. First, cover your overheads, from van leasing to insurance. Then put money back into the business for expansion, bumps in the road, and new kit. Profit isn’t a nice-to-have.
3. Produce a Cash Flow Analysis – Know when you need funds for the next phase of the project.
4. Agree Payment Terms – Be upfront with the customer and show them the build stages and phases requiring an interim payment.
5. Draw up a contract – Put the scope of the job down in black and white. Don’t get caught out if and when the customer moves the goalposts.
6. Think Health & Safety – Bring together all the documentation and follow through with the requirements. A fine could blow a year’s profit or worse.
7. Book your plant and sub-contractors in good time – Use a Gantt chart to plot when you need them. Time is money. You don’t want someone or something in the wrong place at the wrong time. A Gantt chart makes changing timings and the cascading effect so much easier.
8. Order your materials in one go – You’ll be able to negotiate the best prices and cause the least disruption to the project.
9. Monitor day-to-day progress – Catch issues before they become costly problems.
10. Document everything – Every time you have to make a change, make a note of it. Keep tabs on how these changes impact the timeline and budget.
11. Keep everyone informed – Communicate with the team. Brief them on what needs to be sorted that day, that week, next week. Talk to the customer and keep them posted too.
12. Follow up on snagging promptly – Finish on good terms and get that final invoice emailed to the customer. Then you can ask for a testimonial!

If any of this sounds too much like hard work, consider software that does most of the work for you. Software can make a huge difference whether you consider yourself massively organised or not.

EstimatorXpress: The Perfect Partner

EstimatorXpress is more than an estimating software programme. It automatically produces 80+ management reports from your estimate data. Along with a full breakdown of costs, cutting lists, material schedules, and labour schedules, it also provides a cash flow analysis and tells you how much profit you will make. What’s not to like?

Then there’s ContractsXpert for contracts and Health & Safety Xpert for all your legal documents.

Introducing BuildProjex: Nail your job management

BuildProjex gives you everything you need to make the project run smoothly and profit go directly into your bank account:

• Project Tracking: Real-time tracking of project progress, ensuring you’re always on top of your schedules and deadlines.
• Task Management: Assign tasks to team members, set deadlines, and monitor completion status, keeping everyone accountable.
• Document Storage: Securely store all project-related documents in one place for easy access and management.
• Client Portal: Keep clients updated with a dedicated portal where they can view progress reports, timelines, and key documents.
• Integration with EstimatorXpress: Seamlessly integrate with EstimatorXpress for a comprehensive project management and estimation solution.

With these tools, managing your building projects efficiently and profitably becomes much more attainable.

What Next?

Hopefully, the pointers above will give you food for thought when it comes to setting your profit and protecting it at all costs. To really nail it, why not have an try EstimatorXpress and BuildProjex for free? Download it here. Or give one of the team a call on 0117 916 7898.

Watch Our Video Chat on Builders and Profit…

Watch the Power Hour between Jo from HBXL and building firm mentor, Simon of the Better Business Group.