5 minute read
How to win with Trade and Construction apps
David Parker, Senior Manager - Global Product Marketing, Xero
David is a self confessed geek when it comes to SMB apps. He works across the Xero business and ecosystem of 600+ apps in pursuit of the goal that each Xero subscriber and advisor connects with the best cloud technology to meet their goals.
Your trade and construction clients have hopefully kicked off 2018 empowered with business resolutions, from running their jobs more efficiently, to having a greater work-life balance, to spending less time on admin. But as we get further into the year, some of these good intentions may have already fallen by wayside - as jobs build up, or your clients get buried under growing paperwork...
This is where help from
the right app can get your clients’ business goals back on track. The Xero app marketplace offers best in class job and project management software, that share data seamlessly with Xero, to help your clients work smarter and see the benefits at the bottom line.
Let’s take a moment to reflect on a few key principles to help you select the right tool, to help your clients achieve their 2018 business goals.
The cashflow challenge
Solid cashflow is a concern for any trade and construction business - yet the jury is out on whether that’s due to that backlog of ‘yet to be created’ quotes and invoices or
In 2017, several of our ecosystem partners, including ServiceM8, Fergus and SimPRO launched full versions of their payment functionality allowing trade clients to take payment onsite with a customer. Also, by pushing invoices directly into Xero, apps like Tradify allow integration with online payments through any of the payment providers that integrate with Xero Business Edition.
This means that between a job management solution and Xero, your trade and construction clients can remove the bottlenecks that delay getting paid. Currently, less than a third of trade and construction customers use an app to accept payment* - so there is a huge step forward in closing the loop on cash flow and one that must be seriously considered when looking for a solution.
Start and end with profitability
Keeping abreast of job profitability is even harder than cashflow - especially considering the fact that 86% of the trade and construction customers we surveyed included a model. To find the right solution on Xero’s app marketplace, it helps to understand the types of jobs your clients work on.
A trade client that’s focused on high volume, low duration jobs (i.e. an on call plumber or electrician) is likely to require a solution for back costing. This allows them to back into the quoted, invoiced and even paid jobs to ensure that the labour, material and other incidental costs to complete the job line up with the intended profit margin.
A client that focuses on longer duration, more complex projectbased work will benefit from a real time view. Solutions like WorkflowMax are a project manager’s dream, offering piecemeal tracking of job progress - as well as in-depth reporting capability to delve into past projects in order to improve. Xero also recently released Xero Projects, which offers a simple way to track project time and costs to give visibility of project financials from anywhere.
The True North is Adoption
This far, we’ve linked some specific functionality to two very important financial success factors, yet the fixed pricing element to their pricing
third won’t necessarily hit the end of year statement (although it’s no less important). Efficiency, or gaining a better work-life balance is just as critical to long term success.
One really interesting finding from our research was that 42% use a desktop computer as their main method for quoting and invoicing (and less than 20% using a tablet or smartphone). Whilst desktop or laptop machines may remain tool of choice for complex tasks, a huge opportunity remains for the combined use of Xero Business Edition and a job management tool for keeping on top of critical admin whilst on the move.
It’s critical to remember that efficiency will only come with sustained usage (and, in fact, so will any of the financial benefits). So encourage and remind your client to keep using the app. If scoping a recommendation for an app with a client - be sure to ascertain with them what their motivating factor is and make a note of reminding them of that each time you speak to them during the year.
Head on over to the Xero app marketplace to have a look at the great Trade and Construction apps available to help your clients achieve their goals for the coming year.
Here’s to good intentions [and even better results]!
*Xero research conducted in December 2017: 130 trade and construction customers surveyed online across UK, Australia, United States and New Zealand.
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