If you’re a contractor, it can be challenging to manage a hectic schedule and complex projects, all while ensuring your paperwork, documents, and contracts are in order. It’s important to keep a paper trail of your work and practice due diligence. Keeping all your working documents in order shows that you treat your business, customers, and subcontractors responsibly. This is not only a mark of professionalism but can also help you if you have an insurance or legal claim to deal with.

Contractor paperwork documentation and procedures

If you haven’t already, you should develop documentation and record keeping procedures that are appropriate for your contracting operation or service. Once procedures are in place, it’s equally important to ensure that everyone understands and follows the procedures. It’s good practice to hold a workshop on documentation procedures with your employees and have them sign off that they understand and have copies of the procedures.

For construction jobs, some of the documents that may be obtained and maintained as part of your documentation procedure include:

• Project tenders/estimates
• Contracts or work orders
• Duty to perform documents
• Site inspection forms
• Tests on work completed
• Documentation for materials delivered to the site
• Documentation of your risk services assessment
• Certificates of insurance from your subcontractors

Using Digital Tools and Software

Implementing project management and documentation software can significantly reduce the time spent on paperwork. These tools can help in tracking project progress, managing invoices, and storing important documents securely in the cloud for easy access from any location. 

There are many options on the market and it’s unlikely that a single piece of software will meet all of your project management needs. Companies usually combine a few applications to create a custom solution.

This is why we recommend choosing project management tools that integrate nicely with the parts of your setup that don’t need changing.

What to look for

Real-time reporting capability

Effective construction project management requires up-to-date information. Without this, you won’t be able to make important decisions unless you rely on guesswork, which isn’t a good way to do things.

The best project management tools for the construction industry offer instant reporting.

Accessibility

Your data must be as accessible as possible. The best construction project management tools are cloud/web-based, which makes them accessible from virtually anywhere in the world.

Good Support

You’ll inevitably encounter hiccups when incorporating even the best construction project management tools. That’s why you should look for programs from companies with reliable customer support.

Security

Your data is very valuable and sensitive. Construction project management tools and techniques should reflect this. Before you incorporate any software into your workflow, research the company behind it, their terms of use, and what security measures they implement to keep your company’s data private.

Construction project management tool checklist

Here are questions to ask yourself once you’ve narrowed your options using the above criteria.

• Does the software come with enough licences for my company?
• Can I use the tool on multiple devices?
• Does the software have several positive reviews?
• Will the company demo its software for my company?
• Can my current data be easily transferred to this new software?
• Do partner companies use the same software or a program that integrates well with this one?

The right construction project management tools can make a big difference to your company and its productivity.

We hope this helps identify the best picks and what you must consider when evaluating them.

Get in touch with us if you have any questions.