5 Must Have Tools for Construction Office Managers

Office managers are always balancing many different tasks and responsibilities, from making sure different teams are scheduled to go to the correct locations to keeping track of invoicing and income. In the construction industry, in addition to standard project tracking and invoicing, office managers are also responsible for keeping track of the deadlines for mechanics lien filings and bond claims. This gets even more complicated for companies that work in multiple states and has different timelines for each project.

Thankfully, there are a number of tools for construction office managers available to help them manage their different responsibilities from payment collections to risk management. From helping you research the requirements to actually facilitating the process, here are five of our favorites.

1. CE Tech Trends: For information specific to the construction industry from the latest news to technical advice, this website focuses on the areas that matter most to construction professionals. Product reviews and comparisons, as well as information about new products in the market, are shared to keep construction office managers informed of tools and services available to them.
2. ConAppGuru : For office managers who love their smartphone or tablet, ConAppGuru knows the best apps to help you solve your daily issues. From bookkeeping to job-costing, they review and recommend the best applications. They take a lot of the guess work out of trying to find the right technology solution for your office.
3. PandaDoc : With the amount of contracts and paperwork that flies around in the construction industry, it makes sense to use a digital solution, e-signatures, and cloud storage to manage it all. From job proposals to change orders, this online contract and signature solution integrates seamlessly with other popular solutions to become an important part of your documentation process.
4. FieldLens : Tracking the different project participants on a construction project and their relationships can be challenging, but this product helps connect managers under a single umbrella to organize project communications. This is customer relationship management software (CRM) customized to work for the construction industry and still provide you with the same valuable data, insights, and oversight.
5. Smartsheet: For busy office managers, automated reporting systems can handle a lot of the informing and communications that previously took up hours of phone conversations and email writing as well as automate the creation of regular project reports. Smartsheet focuses on transparency between everyone on a project from the prime contractor to their sub-contractors, partners, owners, and other stakeholders. This tool allows everyone to see project status, helps streamline waivers and release documents, and keeps everyone on the same page about what's happening.

Implementing new technology in your office can cause a bit of a learning and implementation curve, but the long-term benefits often outweigh the short-term costs and frustration. Having an organized office where the information is available from a quick search or the click of an app can really make the job of the construction office manager manageable.

National Lien & Bond has worked with construction firms for years to help them streamline their process for collecting job information, lien waivers, release forms, and tracking lien deadlines. Let us help you find the best solutions for your office and get to know you so that when the complicated situation arises, we're able to step in and help quickly.