Ontario Construction news staff writer
Construction management software provider Procore Technologies, Inc. says it has updated its Financial Management products. “These updates drive even more efficiency with project financials, providing a real-time project cost management solution that integrates with ERP systems to offer a single financial ecosystem for construction projects,” the company said in a statement last Tuesday. “Users can connect all financial stakeholders to an integrated financial solution that is purpose-built to empower project teams to manage the bottom line.”
“At Procore, we know that financial management can be one of the most detailed, challenging elements of a construction project,” said Geoff Lewis, vice-president product management at Procore. “And while the bottom line is most important, there are many steps taken to get there. Our latest updates to Procore’s Financial Management products are designed to make those steps easier to manage, and in turn, protect our customers’ bottom line.”
Real-time financial productivity
Through the Real-Time Financial Productivity feature, users can now see the financial impact of labour costs and productivity the moment a timesheet is submitted, making it easier for specialty contractors to plan, manage, and track labour costs and productivity with unit-based budgets. Users can eliminate manual data transfer between multiple apps and see all relevant information in one place. This feature helps users avoid overruns with real-time insights into labour’s impact on the project budget, protecting their profits.
“From a company leadership level, this is the information we need to make important decisions with regard to resource allocation,” said Rob Krueger, vice-president, operations at Fessler & Bowman, Inc. “In today’s world of specialty contractors, manpower is the most precious resource – Procore’s Real-Time Productivity feature helps us be better with that. Across the portfolio of projects, we can aggregate productivity and costs so that executives can have feedback on the company’s efficiency.”
Advanced forecasting
With the new Advanced Forecasting feature, users can manage financial risk, reduce manual data entry, and streamline reporting with actionable monthly cash flow forecasts. This solution allows users to easily generate and update cash flow forecasts across the project lifecycle at any point in time, with the help of automatically aggregated financial data and spending curves. The goal of this feature is to help project stakeholders stay on top of cash flow needs by utilizing data aggregated in Procore to streamline and enhance monthly reporting and forward-looking financial planning.
Enhanced budget detail reporting
As one of the most frequently requested product enhancements, Procore’s new Budget Detail Report gives customers the ability to customize and configure their report. This feature allows users to see all detailed financial information in one view, configure what and where financial information is displayed, and generate reports with detail-level information. Users can now access all financial information in a single view, group, and filter based on their needs.
Enhanced budget detail reporting makes financial data easy to manage directly with the Procore platform—streamlining monthly reporting, preventing manual data entry and the need for multiple systems to meet financial reporting needs, the Procore statement says.
Sage 300 CRE connector
Procore’s Invoice Management is now integrated with Sage 300 CRE, enabling project teams to streamline their invoicing process. This new feature streamlines payment to subcontractors and further eliminates unnecessary double data entry by allowing users to export subcontractor invoices from Procore to Sage 300 CRE. Users can now increase visibility and simplify construction financials with the Sage Connector.
“The addition of exporting invoices directly from Procore to Sage 300 has cut time in half for our accounting team,” said Kardi Barton, senior information technology and human resources manager, Cumby Group, LLC. “Instead of manually typing in every single line item, the line items are now populated in Sage 300 CRE once they’re exported from Procore. This also eliminated human error, as we no longer need to worry about mistakes being entered into Sage 300. No more time will be wasted backtracking mistakes that may have been entered in the past. Everything is becoming more automated.
“This process is going to continue to evolve and get better over time. Now we can trust the integrity of reports generated from Sage 300. We are so excited about this addition to Procore, and in the short amount of time we’ve been utilizing this upgrade, we are already seeing several positive changes.”
Redesigned and improved mobile experience
Procore’s mobile application now supports easy access to critical Prime Contract and Commitment data with the touch of a finger, putting information in the hands of project teams where they need it and when they need it. Additionally, Procore delivered a fully redesigned experience for its Change Events, which allows project teams to capture potential cost and schedule impacts from the field and communicate the data to the office in real-time. This feature surfaces project risks faster between field and office teams to keep the project moving forward.
New and improved invoicing
Lastly, Procore’s Invoicing home page has a new user experience, designed to help users manage their invoices more efficiently. Users can now easily monitor invoice status and gross invoice amounts to surface high priority items quickly, keeping billing processes running smoothly.
“We have a row of monitors in our bullpen with several KPIs and live jobsite cameras connected. Now, through Procore’s Invoicing tool, when we see any invoice state that hasn’t changed or open invoices at the end of the month that haven’t been approved, the team can easily see that on the monitor without having to dig through spreadsheets or emails,” said Cameron Pumphrey, vice-president business operations, Cumby Group, LLC.
“Procore understands the critical importance of clear, real-time, actionable financials to the success of a project build and continues to invest in its financials management solutions in order to support builders,” the Procore statement says.