Construction finance managers (CFMs) play a critical role in overseeing the financial health of construction projects and companies. One of the critical functions they have is to monitor the cash flow of their projects to ensure that it remains positive.
This can be a challenge in small and medium businesses, where the availability of working capital is lower than that of larger companies. Given this, it is imperative that CFMs have a solid handle on the expenditures where they face several challenges in maintaining a healthy cash flow due to manual processes, limited visibility into financial data, and information silos between departments.
CFMs are constantly tracking budgets versus actuals, managing cash flow, processing invoices, and reporting financials. Usually, this involves spreadsheets and paper-based processes to collect data from the field and other departments.The data is disconnected, leading to errors and delays, ultimately leading to reactive decision making. There is often limited visibility into real-time project costs and profitability.
This results in a lot of chasing down of information instead of analyzing data and providing insights. The lack of automation and real-time data makes it challenging to get an accurate picture of financial performance.This leads to decisions being made based on incomplete or outdated information.
Here are some examples of how manual processes and data silos hinderCFMs:
· Difficulty in consolidating data from spreadsheets of multiple job sites into a single view of the project's financial health
· Higher likelihood of errors when re-entering data across multiple spreadsheets.
· Labor intensive data entry. Construction finance teams spend countless hours manually entering data instead of more strategic analysis.
· Lack of automation for routine financial tasks. Everything from reporting to approvals must be done manually.
· There is no central repository for financials, and retrieving reports requires tedious manual processes.
· Data from different teams live in different systems, creating silos.Without a unified source of data, the chances of errors are high
Construction finance is fundamentally about making data-driven decisions. But with data trapped in silos, construction firms struggle to leverage financial insights to maximize profitability. There is a clear need to break down data silos to empower smarter decision making.
KYRO is a leading construction management software built specifically for small and mid-sized contractors. It provides an all-in-one platform to manage projects, finances, documents, and communications.
Some of KYRO's key features and benefits include:
Real-Time Financial Insights - KYRO integrates with accounting software to provide real-time visibility into financial performance. Dashboards and reports give instant access to profitability by project, cash flow, and other key metrics.
Centralized Data - All project information and documents, from bids and budgets to RFIs, submittals, and change orders are stored in a single source of truth. This breaks down silos and provides full transparency. Moreover, these are easily accessible for financial planning and analysis.
AI Copilot - KYRO's AI Copilot acts as an ever-present assistant that provides instant insights on-demand. For example, using a simple prompt, CFMs can immediately get financial information about projects, expenses, payroll etc.and make informed decisions.
Custom Reporting - Users can create custom reports and dashboards tailored to their specific needs. This flexibility allows drilling into details for better decision making.
Team Collaboration - The platform centralizes communication, allowing project teams to collaborate efficiently.
KYRO’s AI Copilot has helped a construction management finance team improve their efficiency by spending more time on what matters. A lot of the manual work highlighted earlier are replaced by one single prompt. Within seconds, CFMs have all the data they need from several different projects, allowing them to process payroll and send invoices faster. This ensures that CFMs have more time to dig deeper into the data and make better decisions to improve the company’s financial health.
For example, with a simple prompt like “Please give me details of the revenue generated by 'Team A' for the last month and compare that with the targets set for them. If they have come short, please provide details of why that happened.” With this prompt, our AI will dive into the numbers and compare them with the preset targets. If 'Team A' had not met the targets, it will go further into the daily reports of that period for any issues reported, inaccuracies in the timesheet, if any, that caused delay in raising invoices.
Here are more examples of how AI Copilot has helped finance teams:
Financial Planning and Analysis: KYRO’s Copilot can extrapolate forecasted regular and overtime hour splits at the client level. It is also able to calculate revenue and gross profit results at the employee or client level with a simple prompt. Additionally, the KYRO can report Unbilled Hours used togenerate employee efficiency metrics.
Timekeeping and Expense Management: As a single source of input for all employee time and expense management, along project and HR related items (daily field reports, drawing mark-up, PTO etc.), KYRO helps companies reduce the number of apps required for their processes by providing all the required data within one app. KYRO’s Copilot then combines these data in real time, empowering line managers to quickly address over/under and unapproved time and expense errors.
Weekly Payroll Processing: KYRO’s Copilot can serve as your accounting team’s real-time timecard approval validation system. A simple prompt can generate a report that lists all timecards and expense reports pending field manager approval or any field employee who has not submitted a timecard. This allows companies to scale without adding additional back-office employees.
Accounting Pre-Close and Accrual Estimating: Our Copilot can quickly assist accounting staff in evaluating accruals and serve as a spot check on revenue and cost-of-sales calculations.
KYRO provides significant benefits for construction finance managers of small and medium businesses. By leveraging AI and centralized data, KYRO gives finance managers real-time visibility into financials with automatic insights and reporting. This eliminates inefficient manual processes, resolves data silos, and enables better decision making.
With KYRO, finance managers can gain control, improve their operations, optimize spending, and drive growth. The custom reporting and analytics allow for data-driven decisions tailored to the needs of each small construction business.
KYRO empowers construction finance managers to effectively oversee finances so construction firms can operate more efficiently and profitably. The AI-powered financial insights bring visibility, automation, and intelligence to small business construction.
