How Are You Managing Your Critical Back Office Documents?

While document management, or the system or process that is used to capture, track and store digital data, might seem like a foundational process for any successful company, too often it’s fraught with disconnects. Too much manual entry, lack of integration with accounting and ERP software, too much reliance on spreadsheets, high dependence on email for communication and limited or difficult access to data (i.e., no single source of truth ) are among the most common challenges. This is especially true when managing project-related documents such as certificates of insurance, diversity spend, invoices and contracts.

Here’s three ways to improve your document management practices:

1. COI Documents

   Poor document management practices limit a firm’s ability to track certificates of insurance (COI) on federal contracts—limits that could jeopardize success of current contracts or ability to win future work. The consequences of lost or misplaced insurance or lien waivers or missed coverage gaps, unidentified exposures and unforeseen liabilities, are all potential signs of concern for any contractor.

   Automate your COI workflow.  A platform that approves and tracks COIs, sends automatic notification reminders prior to expirations, and parses through insurance documents with help from machine learning and AI algorithms simplifies and streamlines the process for everyone–project managers and subcontractors. 

2. Diversity Spend

   Winning projects with M/W/DBE partners is typically well understood – actually facilitating the process to meet the requirements is a bit more challenging.

   From defining diversity specifications to measuring and verifying payment goals, diversity tracking on construction projects can be fraught with missteps. Traditionally, project managers are tasked with assessing diversity spend at the end of a project to ensure that goals were met. It’s a look back method, often dependent on spreadsheets or surveys, that requires project managers to search through payments and often leads to inaccuracies.

   A streamlined back office solution can greatly improve your diversity spend data management.  A platform that collects, stores, and sorts diversity data improves accuracy and saves you time during the subcontractor procurement process. 

    

3. Invoices & Contracts

   Are your contracts managed in one place, easily accessible for change orders and with automated signature processing? Contract management can be a challenging task for any organization especially when it comes to identifying relevant clauses and preparing accurate contracts.

   A contract management solution ensures a single source of truth for all your documents. It stores templates and documents for easy access, facilitates safe and secure signatures, tracks changes while maintaining a versioning history, and finally, integrates with invoice management.

   Without a good document management system in place, it’s easy to lose track of what’s been billed, paid and delayed. For a contractor, slow payments lead to significant cash flow issues. Since the average time to get paid is more than 90 days, invoice management is essential to any well-run operation. With an intelligent back office solution, contractors can match payment schedules to contract payment clauses.

A well-formed intentional document management strategy is essential to a firm’s ability to make data-driven decisions, particularly when issues arise, and all around project success.  

To learn how Constrafor can help you efficiently manage your back-office documents, book a meeting today.