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Know what to do to be safe, legal, on time and in profit…

You wouldn’t build a property on dodgy foundations, so why build your business with poor operations and admin that’s not up to the job? Running your firm this way you reduce your chances of making a profit – and worse – have a greater chance of actually losing money.

Winning the job is only half the battle. The other half should be squeezing as much profit out of the project with the minimum of management effort. Sound impossible? Well it’s really not! And if you make sure you’re on top of four key areas, it’s massively achievable.

1. watertight contract signed by the customer

The customer has said they’ll go ahead. Great. Now you and your customer need to know exactly where you both stand before any work starts, ensuring payments are on time and are representative of the work done. You should agree what you’re going to do and how much it will cost and have it formally written down in the form of a contract.

The last thing you want is any disagreement when it comes to payment. If there are any ambiguities there’s every likelihood you’ll end up footing the bill.

And that’s the first slice of profit gone from the job…

You really need a simple, professional software programme to write the contract for you in minutes and track variations. Make sure your building contracts are authored by a specialist barrister so they’re water tight. As well, to make sure you get paid for the work you’ve agreed to do, and on time.

2. Your health and safety paperwork nailed

Is your health and safety in order? Are you going to start on site with all the relevant health and safety paperwork prepared? Has the home owner (domestic client) appointed a Principal Designer? (A PD is a legal requirement!) Is it you? Because if there isn’t one – the project can’t start until there is. Has the pre-Construction Information been organised? Is there a construction phase plan drafted and ready to be acted upon correctly, with welfare in place, everyone on site inducted and fully briefed and appropriately trained?

Then are you ready for a surprise visit from the HSE? Putting fines and shutdowns aside, ‘just’ a Fee for Intervention is an unwelcome setback. The hourly fee is now £127 and the average cost of an invoice is in the region of £675 (often for what you may consider fairly minor “offences” such as a fuse gone in the site cabin hot water boiler…muddy/slippery steps to the cabin…or no bin for waste!).

And that’s the second slice of profit gone from the job…

Making sure your workforce is protected and your systems and procedures are all in place is crucial for all sorts of reasons.

Health & Safety doesn’t need to take ages or cost you the earth OR slow down your work…A software programme that takes into account latest legislation, does the initial thinking for you, and gives you peace of mind, will make a huge difference to your business – and quickly.

3. All the requirements for the job itself

Are you all set with your cost breakdowns, cutting lists, material schedules (Bill of Quants), labour schedules, stage payment profiles, cashflow… and so on and so on? Looking at just one area of organisation – will you be able to order all your materials in one go to negotiate the best price for the job and have no need for repeated trips to pick up forgotten items?

Otherwise that could be the third slice of profit gone from the job…

All the organisation and schedules that help ensure the project is carried out efficiently. Also,  producing at the point where you complete the estimate and customer quote – with the right software programme. You’ll be all set before you’ve even started. And the savings will be significant.

4. In control of multiple tasks and resources

If you’re not thinking about your projects collectively then you may not be utilising your labour as well as you could, or how your materials are being distributed, or where your equipment is on any one day, and so on.

And that could be the fourth slice of your profit gone from not just one job but multiple jobs…

Imagine being able to merge all the jobs you have on the go, and as well as managing the areas listed above, being able to see the impact of changes on the program to completion? That is almost guaranteed profit.

Next step…

So you see what we mean? If you are on top of all four of these important processes then you’ve got a solid base from which to make a profit, without a huge amount of effort – so long as you have the right software of course!

Award-winning EstimatorXpress will give you over 80 reports from which to efficiently run your project. ContractsXpert has a set of contracts and other important letters and forms to protect you legally and financially. Health & Safety Xpert will make sure everyone’s in safe hands. And ProjectXpert will enable you to flourish.

To find out more about these important cornerstones, then give a member of the HBXL team a call on 0117 9167898, leave us an email or follow the links to get started with a trial or a live demonstration.