Tailored to the Needs of Concrete & Masonry

The challenges you face as a contractor in the concrete or masonry trades are unique to your type of work and line of business. Whether you do poured concrete foundations and structures; structural steel and precast concrete; tilt-up construction work; and/or masonry, block, brick, and stone walls, and whether you focus on commercial or residential projects, it’s critical that you have a keen eye on materials, labor, equipment, budgets, and schedules to ensure your concrete and masonry projects are profitable.

To that end, your business requires a software solution that’s tailored to your industry so you can simplify and streamline your processes, communications, and project management.

To be successful in a concrete and masonry business, you must:

• Quickly and accurately quantify, price, and bid projects
• Easily view various costs for a project and manage with real-time reporting
• Efficiently schedule time and workforce and track important documents
• Control job costs and proper recognition of revenue
• Manage complex Human Resources, including Payroll, Workers' Compensation, Union, Certified Payroll, EEOC, and more
• Properly price, order, and track goods, so you can manage procurement efficiently, minimize costs, and maximize purchasing power
• Track materials inventories, plant costs, and customer invoicing; control manufacturing; and monitor costs
• Track equipment usage and maintenance costs (for a few pieces or an entire fleet) to minimize downtime and repair costs

To help you accomplish all that and much more, Maxwell Systems offers construction software solutions that address the critical issues that impact managing a concrete and masonry business.

• Takeoff, Estimating, and Proposal Management [+]
  • Choose digital or digitized takeoff to save time, improve accuracy, and cut costs on paperwork. This is especially valuable in concrete work where contracts awarded largely based on low price and profit margins are fairly low
  • Easily determine materials as well as variable labor and equipment needs for any job using pre-built and customizable databases tailored to concrete and masonry and based on industry standard labor units
  • Estimate properly considering variables such as workers' skill, weather conditions, full-time and seasonal labor force, etc.
  • Increase accuracy of cost estimates — especially critical when competing during a bidding process or for fixed-price contracts
  • Store an unlimited number of cost items and details per bid
  • Easily create proposals from a bid and track them by estimator, lead source, client, and so forth
  • Attach pertinent documents for future reference, such as customer requests and Microsoft Outlook e-mails
  • Automatically create project records, job budgets, and change orders in accounting from the original bid file
• Project Management [+]
  • Easily track to-date job costs against budgeted costs, including committed costs for material purchases
  • Efficiently track project documents such as RFIs, Submittals, and Change Requests, which helps your project manager know what documents have been created and the status of the document
  • Tools help you drive timely approvals, capitalize on opportunities for every job, and save money on potentially costly mistakes
  • Track the progress of existing jobs with tools to verify job performance, identify potential problems, manage business metrics, and more, which is critical to performing work on schedule
  • Alerts indicate when items are overdue and require attention
  • Quantity tracking and unitary billing are incorporated within project management
  • Create subcontract documents and track items including commitment of pricing, scope of work, terms and conditions, and more
  • Efficiently and accurately track lien notices and releases and waivers for your vendors and customers
  • Access up-to-date information and reports whether in the office or in the field, so project managers can conveniently track progress of projects and be more agile
• Financial Management [+]
  • Accounts receivable and payable are specifically tailored for contractors, including retention and discount capabilities
  • Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Project Costing, Payroll, and Purchase Orders in a seamless system ensures that commitments and payments are processed efficiently and accurately
  • Specific construction billing formats include T&M, AIA, Progress, Cost Plus, Retention Only, and more
  • WIP and Bonding reports are automatically created, which is important to show evidence of adequate surety bonding
  • Owners and accounting staff can easily access real-time financial information and drill-down to the detailed transaction level
  • Historical detail is maintained, allowing peace of mind with data integrity and reliable audit trails
• Employee Management [+]
  • Daily timecard entry is simple, and job reporting can include unposted payroll for up-to-the-minute labor tracking
  • Handle complex Human Resources, including Workers' Compensation, Union, Merit Shop, Certified Payroll, EEOC,  and more
  • Scan and store important documents such as I-9 verifications, drug tests, and certificates of completion
  • Easily process and report construction payrolls, as well as record work and calculate earnings, benefits, fringes, insurance liabilities, and taxes
• Equipment Management [+]
  • Whether it is a fleet of equipment or just a few critical pieces, software efficiently tracks equipment usage as costs, so you can bill to each project appropriately for optimal profitability
  • Manage preventive maintenance that includes extensive, multiple service intervals, and predictive analysis reports — keeping your equipment at peak performance and profitable in the field.
  • Specialized tools help track capital-intensive equipment fleets, including oil sample tracking and warranty tracking
  • Detailed reporting keeps track of how much a piece of equipment is earning versus how much it costs to operate
• Materials Management [+]
  • Automate accounting processes for material operations with features such as purchase order routing and approval and automated payments to truckers; eliminate costly errors and have timely, relevant information for better decision making
  • Complete integration from the scale through printing invoices allows more material tickets to be handled more quickly and with fewer errors
  • Production is sent on demand, which allows for daily job costing and invoicing for improved cash flow
  • Internal trucking and hired hauler costs are automatically sent to Job Cost on a daily basis and vouchers are automatically created to facilitate payment to truckers
  • Tracking and analyzing the Cost of Goods Sold for your material operations is simple and streamlined
  • Specialized Product Cost capabilities control manufacturing for materials producers, which includes maintaining inventory and monitoring production costs
  • Perpetual inventory is automatically tracked, which helps when forecasting raw material needs based on awarded jobs and quotes
• Procurement/Inventory Management [+]
  • Seamless workflow across applications helps ensure reliability of adequate stock of critical items and avoid shortages while keeping accounting and tracking tasks to a minimum
  • Buyout tools allow you to control costs and manage the buying process with an easy view of all sources to provide materials — Request for Quote, vendor pricing agreement, and inventory
  • Identify low price and quantity availability to simplify decision-making and then identify the source of materials for any size project
  • Automatically create a purchase order or inventory requisition; and easily account for materials received, invoiced, backordered, produced, and used
  • Purchase Orders give contractors control over all activity related to the pricing, ordering, and delivery of goods, whether for restocking inventory or for use on a given task

And because you face unique challenges in technology and communications in the office and in the field, Maxwell Systems solutions help you improve operational efficiencies and share relevant information:

• Seamless takeoff and estimating software that reduces data entry and increases speed and accuracy
• Mobile technology for two-way data transfer between those in the back office and those in the field, as well as bar code technology and dispatch board integration
• Job cost accounting capabilities that are critical to running construction projects profitably
• Comprehensive reporting features, including key performance indicators, customizable alerts, warranty tracking, and management by exception

With such easy-to-use yet robust software solutions, construction owners can gain full control of their business and insight into each project’s performance and profitability.

Maxwell Systems’ industry-specific construction software solutions are shaped by decades of leadership and innovation, expert professionals with direct experience in the construction industry, and critically valuable feedback from customers. And we continue to demonstrate our commitment to and build our understanding of the concrete and masonry industry by: contributing to trade publications as authors and advertisers, serving on association committees, and participating in trade shows including Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) EdCon & Expo, Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) Annual Conference & Exhibition, and World of Concrete.