Control Centers

Labor control
You must manage you own crews as well as subcontractors. With union and non-union resources, you’re faced with a myriad of different pay rates, and keeping this information straight used to be almost impossible. With Singletouch, compensation is no longer a challenge. Time entry is easy with the jobsite tools we provide. Workers clock in and out in the field, electronically capturing their own hours and seamlessly routing the information back to the data control center.

Equipment control
Using Singletouch, you have complete visibility into what equipment is being used on what project, where its deployed and at what cost. As a first step, data about your fleet is entered into our platform along with certifications, historical maintenance records, costs and operators. When loading that data, multiple pieces of equipment be logically hooked together — a truck and a trailer, for instance — so they can be checked out as a single item. It’s then easy to manage equipment and control costs because like equipment is pooled together by category for standard costing and rate schedules are viewable by contract.

Procurement control
Workers in the field are the best people to determine whether you have enough materials to complete the job or if you need to order more. Traditionally, however, the field has had to wait for accounting to issue a purchase order or select a supplier. With Singletouch, the field can generate purchase orders and have access to historical pricing, a list of preferred vendors and contracted prices. Purchase requisitions, purchase orders and sales invoices are just a few of the documents that can be generated with the click of a mouse. Comprehensive data enables contractors to control cost commitments by separating requisitions from purchase orders. Shipments can be tracked through the platform and vendors can be held accountable for both committed prices and delivery dates.Singletouch recognizes that large construction, service or maintenance projects can be complex, so our platform allows you to easily manage procurement of services, rentals and subcontractors in one centralized database. Historical data and real-time up-to-date information gives contractors total control of all of the materials and services that make up the project.

Inventory control
Singletouch provides up-to-date information about inventory — pricing, whether it’s on location or in a vehicle or trailer, where it needs to be used — making it easy for you to always know exactly what you have on hand and how to find it. Tracking inventory effectively requires sound warehouse management and, with Singletouch, you always have a real-time view of materials on hand and can eliminate shortages and excessive over-purchasing. Selling existing inventory is an easy way for you to maximize profits;  because contractors using Singletouch have complete visibility into and control over their inventory, the amount of materials on hand is reduced and inventory turn rates are improved.

Cost control
Contractors operating on a fixed-bid system must keep detailed track of their costs to contain the price risk associated with this approach. Any costs incurred or committed over and above the estimate come out of your pocket, not the customer’s. With time and materials contracts, customers are the ones who bear the price risk. In both cases, we restore control over costs and reduce cost risk.

Reporting control
Reporting requirements differ depending on the structure of the job. In a fixed bid scenario, the price risk is held by the contractor. Any costs over and above the estimate come out of the contractor’s pocket. In a variable bid, the customer has a time and materials budget and will want to have the job completed within those parameters.

With a fixed bid, the chief operating officer is going to want to keep a handle on the costs and how the project is performing against budget. The COO calls and asks, “How’s the project going? Are we on track?” In the past, this call incited panic. Pulling together relevant data was a time-consuming, spreadsheet-intensive exercise that involved a lot of guesswork and estimation.

When working with a time and materials budget, it’s the customer who will want transparency and visibility into how the job is progressing and performance against the budget. Singletouch can easily generate standard and custom reports to answer those questions.

We give you real-time progress reports at the click of a mouse. This visibility gives you a distinct competitive advantage over competitors still scrambling to access this data from disparate systems. When the job is finished, project managers can examine the details of the project, assess where and why there were deviations from the budget and build a better estimate for the next job. Control over reporting gives you the tools you need to improve profitability.

Billing control
Invoices get issued swiftly and they accurately itemize all the actual labor, equipment, materials and services. There’s no waiting for weeks-old information, no double checking tallies, no pulling together information from multiple sources. Billing is simple and easy.

Cash control
All the information required to generate the final bill is up to date, accurate and centrally housed and can easily be routed to your accounting system to speed invoicing and payment. The sooner you issue the invoice, the sooner you get paid. Your billing and collections are expedited, keeping cash flowing and your business moving forward.

Project control
At the outset of your project, estimates are loaded into our platform, budget is determined and cost codes are allocated. This project definition provides the framework for your data. It’s project control that makes the Singletouch platform so powerful. By building a comprehensive framework for your project, all the aspects of the job are integrated and, as data such as time tickets and field surveys is entered into that framework,  project managers can easily manage workforce efficiency and productivity. As work is completed, materials ordered, equipment used or per diems paid out, the system is constantly updated. You can access cost information and percentage completion in real time, avoiding the delays that have traditionally hampered your productivity. The larger the job, the more expensive inefficient processes become. With Singletouch, it’s easy to have complete visibility into and control your projects, no matter their size.

Data control
Control of your data is the basis for the Singletouch platform. Accurate data is necessary to feed all of the other control centers. Singletouch assures the integrity of your data by capturing it electronically in the field, eliminating the paperwork bottlenecks and transcription errors that hamper your productivity and cripple your cash flow. We understand that data flows from the field into the office, not the other way around. Engineering drawings and information from vendors and your estimating system provide the framework for visibility into actual operations as they’re happening. Actual users in the field populate your centralized database by entering data electronically into the system as transactions occur, accelerating data entry, minimizing transcription errors and eliminating redundancies.