6 Benefits of Purchase Order and Subcontract Management in Construction

Controlling expenses for material and subcontractors is critical because mismanagement can jeopardize both cash flow and profits. To avoid these risks, many contractors use construction-specific accounting systems to help streamline the processes and improve decision-making capabilities to manage their purchase order and subcontract management systems.

Purchase orders (POs) were incepted a century ago and are still considered best-in-class to manage the ordering of goods and services. With POs contractors can manage the detail of every vendor order and track committed costs throughout the job lifecycle— POs are essential to remain profitable. Conditions of the sale are included in POs, such as delivery specifications, terms, price, and payment parameters. In order to effectively manage committed costs, contractors must match a vendor invoice with the filed purchase order. Automatically linking these purchase orders and subcontracts to these invoices help contractors track what has been ordered and what has been paid.

Without the right tools, contractors commonly struggle to control their job costs and manage their cash flow, resulting in profits that are less than expected. Furthermore, while they are trying to manage one job, another may have unexpected cash flow problems or need additional supplies and equipment.

When contractors do not have accurate data, it is hard to make the best business decisions when expenses are out of hand. Whether you self-perform or subcontract your work, you need high-quality construction software to track your purchasing and subcontract agreements.

Deltek ComputerEase Purchase Order and Subcontract Management is the solution to manage your costs and supplies in one place with the data you need. Our tool helps you track expenses in real-time to monitor documents, materials and supplies.

Benefits of Managing Purchase Orders and Subcontracts

There are a multitude of benefits when you are effectively managing your purchasing orders and subcontract agreements to ensure your jobs stay profitable. Easily monitor committed costs, material billings, and retainage throughout the job lifecycle.

1. Maintain Cash Flow
   You can avoid overpaying on subcontractor and material expenses by identifying overbilling. Generating job cost reports with committed costs can help you have the insight you need to ensure accurate reporting. You can avoid duplicate payments—giving you the ability to better control and maintain cash flow. You can avoid exceeding your budget by comparing vendor invoices to purchase orders and subcontractor invoices to contracts. You also have the ability to track change orders, and review pending and approved cost commitments.
2. Track Job Costs
   Track current and future job costs with purchasing and subcontractor detail, including retainage for subcontractors across all jobs to manage job costs.
3. Organize and Manage Essential Documents
   Save yourself time by automatically generating subcontract agreements, invoices, and payments. You can customize with purchase order/subcontract templates and search by vendor, job, buyer or status. Deltek ComputerEase can inform you of expired insurance certificates from your subcontractors so you can request updated information.
4. Streamline Material Management
   You can proactively make good business decisions and avoid job delays, streamlining the way you manage and order materials. General inventory counts are always available, and you can quickly verify the items received for each purchase order.
5. Keep Jobs on Track
   You can still stay on schedule while managing subcontractors by comparing the lowest bid with your estimated cost to award the bid on time.
6. Real-Time Reporting
   Get access to real-time information at your fingertips with purchasing and subcontractor reports. You can get details to ensure accurate job information and warn you in real-time if you exceed your budget. Your committed expenses can be tied to job costing and accounts payable for access to accurate information anytime. You can find overages before they happen by producing job cost reports that include committed cost details.
   
   Not only can you report on the status of these costs, but you can design custom reports based on your unique job conditions. Get access to invoice amounts, costs to date, and change orders.

Key Features of Purchase Order and Subcontract Management with Deltek ComputerEase

Deltek ComputerEase Purchase Order and Subcontract Management is the solution to manage your costs and supplies in one place with the data you need. Get your expenses in control, monitor documents in real-time, and effectively manage your materials and supplies.

Here are just some of the key features to help you maintain cash flow, keep jobs on track, and get the visibility you need to maintain job costs:

Deltek ComputerEase Purchasing and Inventory Module helps you:

• Keep a list of your supplies to properly allocate them to the right job
• Automatically catalogue and track real inventory, and
• Save money with scale pricing by purchasing in bulk

Deltek ComputerEase’s Subcontract Module helps you:

• Track everything related to your subcontractors
• Automate contracts, invoices, payments, retention, change orders, and retainage with one system
• Generate your own subcontract agreements
• Automatically generate letters to request information when workers compensation and liability insurance expires, allowing you to manage your bid process from start to finish
• Monitor responses from your vendors and generate subcontractor agreements
• Compare your bids to your estimates and highlight the lowest bid received