AN INDUSTRY READY FOR CHANGE
The building industry is central to our economy, contributing over 13% of our GDP and employing over 1.15 million Australians*. However the industry has been plagued by rising costs, stagnant productivity, high waste and low margins for decades.
The all too familiar image above of mountains of paperwork and hours spent processing it is just one example of how the industry continues to maintain outdated habits.
Whilst the last ten or so years has seen improvements: predominantly through the digitisation of documentation and project management functions and the use of mobile technology. The reality is the building industry has not kept pace with the rapid technological and organisational change of other sectors.
The core challenge remains the modernisation of a fragmented and adversarial industry.
LATE PAYMENT AND POOR COMPLIANCE EFFECT EVERYONE
The founders of Payapps were all too aware of this fragmented approach when it came to progress claims, payment disputes and supply chain inefficiencies. Even after a decade in business, we still find there can be reluctance to adopt more efficient technological solutions in favour of what’s familiar. Here are some of the key issues we still find customers trying to solve:
FOR GENERAL CONTRACTORS
- Chasing documentation
- Receiving inconsistent documentation
- SOPA compliance
Ultimately this results in opportunity costs as contract administrator’s (CA) and project managers spend hours chasing up subcontractors to submit their claims on time or chasing the correct documentation. CA’s and Project managers are still regularly receiving claims in different formats and with inaccuracies when it comes to things like retention and claiming against the agreed scope of works.
FOR SUBCONTRACTORS:
- Chasing documentation
- Receiving inconsistent documentation
- SOPA compliance
For Subcontractors late payments impact them where it hurts most – cashflow. Using paper based or email systems to manage cashflow and forecast effectively is limited due to inconsistent processes and lack of collaboration with their builder. Again, Subcontractors are then having to spend numerous hours reconciling previous and current claims manually.
To put it simply, these are the business problems we solve for our customers.
BETTER FOR BUILDERS AND SUBCONTRACTORS
We’re conscious of adding value for both the builder and the subcontractor – again we believe it’s time to move away from the old ways of working and foster more collaboration. Keeping it simple and transparent is at the core of what makes Payapps such a significant improvement on previous ways of doing things.
Watch this short video for a quick tour of the app:
We help builders remain SOPA Compliant, vastly improve the time it takes to process payment claims and ensure compliance documentation is readily accessible. Over the last two years we have spent time with a large number of our customers to benchmark their efficiency gains since implementing Payapps. On average those customers realised an increase in efficiency of over 50% over their previously inefficient processes. Don’t take our word for it, watch this short interview with Vlad Baltovski of Parkview Constructions:
“WHAT USED TO TAKE US AN HOUR NOW TAKES FIVE OR TEN MINUTES. WE’VE SEEN AN AMAZING RETURN ON OUR INVESTMENT AND THE GUYS IN THE FIELD LOVE IT”
Vlad Baltovski – Commercial Manager, Parkview Constructions
The benefits for subcontractors are also clear: Increased transparency and the removal of manual calculations make it easier to manage retention and have a clearer picture of their financial position from month to month.
They also benefit from the time and efficiency gains, especially when they use Payapps’ self-assessment features to manage all of their suppliers’ claims as well.
Jesse Campbell discusses how from City Circle group went from being ‘required’ to use the system by one of their builders to a true advocate of the platform:
“THE PRODUCT ALLOWS US TO ELIMINATE ANY DOUBT AND POTENTIAL HUMAN ERROR WHEN ENTERING CLAIMS AND YOU CAN’T PUT A PRICE ON THAT.” Jesse Campbell – Commercial Manager, City Circle Group
The fact that we’ve retained 99% of our customers since the company began and our growth over the last year alone indicates that real change is starting to take place in our patch of the construction industry.
Of course, we’d like to attribute our growth to solving real problems for our builders and subcontractors. But as the case studies above demonstrate, there are many in the construction sector that not only realise it is time to embrace technology, they’re championing that change and transforming the industry.
WE’RE AN ECO-SYSTEM PLAYER
If solutions like Payapps are becoming more of a necessity than a nice to have it’s also imperative that they integrate with your other ERP and construction management systems.
We’re proud to say that Payapps is the most integration-capable application for payment claims processing system on the market. With out of the box integration with finance systems MYOB and XERO along with Jobpac, Cheops, Sage 300, Vista, JD Edwards and eProcurement. In 2021 we’ll also be releasing public APIs to further enhance our interoperability.
SUPPORTING YOUR COLLABORATORS
Implementing new enterprise software internally can be a challenge in itself, but in our industry, there’s added complexity in getting collaborators on board as well.
Subcontractors in particular tend to be smaller businesses that don’t have the training resources of larger organisations and may only be engaged on an irregular basis. It can be difficult to motivate them and understandably they can be resistant to change and more sensitive to pricing.
This is where we also play a pivotal role in a successful rollout. We work in collaboration with you as the builder and with the subcontractor to ensure the change in process is as smooth as possible.
As the software vendor we take an active role, post-sale and this is key for digital adoption and process change to be successful. It’s one of the ways we demonstrate that Payapps enables a true relationship between builder, subcontractor and solution provider working together.
AT THE END OF THE DAY…
- Margins are getting tighter
- Every advantage counts
- We’ve seen real efficiency gains
- The digital transformation benefits are real
Simply put, tools like Payapps are all about getting the paperwork out of the way so that your teams can focus on higher value tasks. And for both builders and subcontractors less administration and paperwork mean everyone can spend more time doing what they’re really passionate about.
We’d love the opportunity to work with you and help realise more value for your business. If you’d like a more in depth demo of Payapps and see how quickly you’ll see a return on your investment get in touch today.
