Reducing the Cost of Project Administration with Project Management Tools

Without quality project management tools, the administration function can be very costly for your business. It generally requires a lot of manual data entry, double handling, and tedious paperwork. Slow or excessive processes can have a significant negative impact on your ROI and can prevent companies from saving money.

Businesses will struggle to grow and remain profitable if all their time is allocated to filling out paperwork and applying time to non-value administrative tasks. So what is effective project management and how can you break it down for company wins using project management tools to accomplish the;

• Completion of timesheets, EBA related payroll and awards
• Reconciliation of material receipts, purchase orders and invoices
• Scheduling and tracking of Jobs, Tasks and Resources
• Capture of critical information like meeting notes, call logs

It’s well documented that ineffective project management and lack of project management tools adds extra paperwork to your day. Your business won’t have access to real-time data or any reliable way of tracking data and records if you maintain reliance on paper and you don’t evolve towards intelligent project management tools.

Moving to a digital world and mobile first approach that automates and simplifies a large majority of project management functions can all be done with minimal manual input. Automating processes (making the project management tools align exactly to your business) will stop time wasted chasing paper or trying to run in a poorly designed digital process. Making the project management tools your own, will allow you to mitigate the risks in your business and manage tasks more efficiently in one place.

What is effective project management?

Administration work can seem tiresome when completed through paper-based systems. We’ve seen companies transpose paper forms into massive project spreadsheets, with over 500 lines just to complete client reconciliations and create accurate invoices. Many now consider this approach inefficient, as it increases your business’s administrative burden and raises the risk of inaccurate billing or reporting.

Relying on paper systems increases the risk of staff losing paperwork or filling out forms incorrectly. With paper, it’s impossible to ensure that field staff complete forms accurately and on time. There are no forced workflows to make sure they submit forms, like a safety form, before starting a job.

Forms might be submitted with incorrect information days or even weeks later. Only once you receive them can you identify these errors. By then, costly mistakes may already have occurred. Imagine trying to request a variation after the fact!

Transitioning to a digital system could save your business over 30 hours a week. It can also reduce billing cycles from weeks to days. With less time needed for invoicing, your team can focus on other tasks, freeing up more time for income-generating activities.

Automated processes make data capture simple

Imagine raising invoices the same day a job is completed, without waiting days for data from the field. By empowering your field staff, they can log their timesheets directly from their phones as soon as they finish a task or project. Pre-populated details and mandatory sign-offs ensure that staff provide accurate information every time.

Automated workforce technology can reduce fraudulent time clocking as well, by requiring employee verification methods. This can include PIN codes, badge swipes, or NFC tags to validate point in time activities and makes the job of the project manager so much easier.

Manage timesheet submissions more efficiently

Letting employees submit their timesheets digitally reduces the number of queries received by the HR and payroll teams, which lets them focus on their core duties instead. Project management tools allow you to track absence patterns and ensure staff are achieving the key results areas that they have been given.

It also makes it easier to find replacement staff when temporary absences or last-minute leave requests arise. With scheduling tools for staff, contractors, equipment, and other resources—combined with intelligent clash detection—managing resource changes becomes simple and effective. This minimises disruptions to productivity and protects your bottom line.

Project management tools also allow you to apply complex pay rules and calculate employee awards, pay rates, and penalties accurately. This reduces the chances of payroll errors. Automating these processes ensures resources are correctly allocated, employees are satisfied, and compliance with award systems is maintained.

Use ‘ONE SYSTEM’ for for better continuity of your project management tools

Automating administrative processes with a paperless project management system can significantly reduce the amount of time spent manually entering and reviewing data. Effective project management will be the key to the success of many businesses. Technology will give you the power to prepare projects, track progress in real-time, and manage milestones with ease.

Manage all your administrative project tasks in one place with the following project management tools:

• Quoting and invoicing automation from field 
• Job & task management
• Time and attendance with payroll rules and awards
• Asset & equipment allocation and maintenance
• Resource scheduling and clash detection
• Managing Licenses, certificates and training
• Submitting forms for safety, toolboxes and client requested validations
• End of day or job financial summaries

Ask yourself “what is effective project management?”. If your current paper-based system, or a mix of Excel, paper, and email, isn’t up to scratch, it may be time to switch to a fully digital approach. Paperless project management tools offer a simple, centralised space. Here, all project-related files, tasks, forms, costs, and schedules can be easily managed.

Manage everything in the ONE SYSTEM, so that it’s well integrated between operations and finance and make sure data is collected accurately and on time through ubiquitous mobile field technologies that connect seamlessly to the cloud. There is no excuse for not enabling your team to keep all of their work, on glass and in the palm of their hand where the information is front and centre for the business!

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