Contractor Success Map With Randal Dehart | Contractor Bookkeeping And Accounting Services

This Podcast Is Episode Number 464, And It's About Solutions To Reduce Debtor Days For Construction Business Owners   Steady, reliable cash flow is crucial for the survival of your construction business – so taking steps to ensure your customers pay promptly is a key priority.   Debtor days refer to the length of time it takes clients, on average, to pay you for the work you've done. A higher number of debtor days means clients take longer to pay you. A lower number of debtor days means clients take less time to pay you, which means there's more cash available for your business to use.    In the construction industry, debtor days can average as long as almost three months. Shortening that length can have a significant impact on your cash flow.   When your clients consistently pay on time, you'll avoid the dreaded "feast or famine" cycle. You'll be able to pay your vendors, suppliers, and employees on time, and, not least of all, yourself. Additionally, if clients start taking too long to pay you, you may lea

This Podcast Is Episode Number 463, And It's About Best Construction Employee Retention Secrets Revealed Most construction workers are good decent people who enjoy working with their hands making, building, repairing, remodeling, and fixing homes and commercial buildings.   Good construction workers will not tolerate chaos or unfair labor practices. They will try out many construction companies until they find a contractor with a system. Preferably with documented processes and procedures.   Desirable construction workers have these five traits in common: High Self Esteem Strong Work Ethic Always Learning Loyal To Family And Friends Law Abiding Citizen Traditionally, employers have relied on giving employees raises to retain their staff and reward them for being hard-working and loyal. Raises can get expensive, and there is often an upper limit for what you can offer to increase salaries and wages.  Keeping your employees happy makes business sense. You want to keep your good employees, and it costs money t

This Podcast Is Episode Number 462, And It's About How To Win Your Clients Back And The Secrets To Getting The Best Projects   Construction company owners - predominantly service-based businesses with monthly or yearly client subscriptions, likely deal with some level of customer churn, especially given the COVID-19 pandemic. Even customers who love your business and services may have lapsed for various reasons.    Whatever their reasons for leaving, it's still a great idea to win them back. Why? This is mainly because winning back a lost client still has a higher success rate than converting a prospect into a customer. After all, they've already hired your service once, so you don't have to convince them of the need. And you don't need to build brand awareness; they already know you exist.    Even if you can't win everyone back, those you can bring back to your business will affect your bottom line–and will do so at less expensive overall.   Here are some strategies to win back clients who have left: 1. Ask

This Podcast Is Episode Number 461, And It's About Construction Companies Who Fail Have One Thing In Common Every contractor who goes out of business has one thing in common, bad financial reports or none at all. Does this sound familiar? Contractor opens a business because they are so skilled at trade. With a small amount of cash, less than $10,000, a few credit cards with $5,000 available credit, they are off to the races. You tell friends and relatives about your new adventure and get lots of jobs. Of course, you wouldn't take advantage of friends or relatives at meager prices, would you? You open supplier charge accounts credit cards from Home Depot and Lowes. Your working capital increased by $20,000. "Wow, life is excellent! I should have done this a long time ago!" You were earning $25.00 an hour working for someone else. The contractor was charging $50.00 an hour for you. What a ripoff! You charge $30.00 an hour to be fair and undercut your competition. In six months, cash is gone, credit cards over t

This Podcast Is Episode Number 460, And It's About Different Skill Sets Of A Construction Company's Financial Team When you run your own business, it's tempting to take on every responsibility. There are many reasons for doing so: you want something done a specific way because you don't have the time to explain how to do it or because you're not sure someone else can handle the task.    Delegating saves you valuable time and energy. Sharing duties with your team also fosters a sense of responsibility, engages them, and helps them develop their skills.   What makes it so hard to delegate? Construction workers live in the real world, where everything can be seen, heard, felt, tasted, and sometimes smelled. They can look around and see evidence of their activities. Their long-term time horizon in years past was two weeks, which is why most payrolls are paid every two weeks. With the variety of check cashing and payday loan outlets, their long-term time horizon has been replaced with now and right now! Construct

This Podcast Is Episode Number 459, And It's About Improving Your Business Negotiation Skills As A Contractor Several aspects of the construction business can only be learned through experience. One of them is negotiating contracts.    Owning your business requires many skills, and among the most important might be the ability to manage negotiations. As a business owner, you could find yourself negotiating in many circumstances, such as:  Salary and job expectations with a potential employee  Financing terms with a lender Payment terms with a supplier Lease or property agreements Equipment agreements. Most people fear the negotiation process because it is an intrinsically uncomfortable process. Asking for more money or making personal demands doesn't come naturally to everyone. But with the right toolkit, you can breeze through contract negotiations. And you'd better get used to it because you'll have to handle many contracts whether you're a construction company owner or employee. Having the right mindset

This Podcast Is Episode Number 458, And It's About Different Skill Sets Of A Construction Company's Financial Team As your construction business grows, it's essential to have trusted financial professionals managing your books and providing strategic financial advice.    After all, the busier you get, the more complex financial management becomes - and the less time you'll have to maintain your books and try to make sense of all the data.    However, many construction business owners are not sure of the differences between a construction bookkeeper, a construction accountant, a financial planner, and a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) - or whether hiring one or all of them makes the most sense.   Keep in mind that each branch of accounting serves a different function similar to how it works in construction. There are framers, rough carpenters, and finish carpenters, and all three work with lumber, yet in most cases, the skill sets to do everything are rarely found in the same person.   An established, growt

This Podcast Is Episode Number 457, And It's About 5 Steps To Setting Up Your Construction Business Processes For Success When a business starts, it’s natural for the owner to be a jack-of-all-trades. You may not have the capital to hire specialists or access the technology to help you. As your business grows–or as you look to take a minor role in your construction company–you may find the industry has become over-reliant on you, which makes it difficult for you to take a step back.  Have you M.A.P.ped your business yet? Consider this before retreating and delegating: Marketing - never sells more than Production can provide; on-time and on-budget Accounting - manages the money to maintain operations and produce a reasonable profit Production - delivers the project intending to exceed customer expectations As you know, we are big on Marketing, Accounting, and Production; having a basic operation manual in place for your office, remote, and field employees pays off in the long run. Now, here are some steps yo

This Podcast Is Episode Number 456, And It's About Managing Generational Diversity In Construction Workplace Every manager has habits that make them effective. Managing contractors doesn't just mean scheduling them and making sure they're progressing on the project, but also knowing how to address workplace matters proactively - for one, the growing generational differences among their peers to communicate effectively and boost productivity. These days, it's inevitable that a diverse group of older and younger workers cross paths in the construction industry. After all, the young, tech-savvy, socially conscious Gen Y (Millennials) and Gen Z are currently the largest living generation in the U.S., navigating the workforce in record numbers. And the boomers may be retirement age, but that doesn't mean they're ready to stop working. Many baby boomers choose to enjoy "encore careers" – jobs that allow them to continue applying their skills and experience to personally meaningful projects. Here are a few ways to

This Podcast Is Episode Number 455, And It's About How To Leverage Automation And Technology In Your Construction Business The daily processes and transactions involved in operating a general maintenance and repair contracting business can mean long hours of repetitive tasks and occasional oversights due to human nature. These days, you can use technology to take care of almost any issue facing your business. Automating these tasks can result in significant savings in resources and eliminate mistakes caused by human error. The key, however, is to know which tasks should be automated and which ones warrant staff intervention and guidance. Let's discuss some of them:   Lead Capturing, Nurturing, and Scoring Automating your lead development process can do wonders for your service-based company's conversion rates. Both hot and cold leads require attention and targeted engagement to convert into paying customers. Using automation software can help sales reps guide prospects to end the sales cycle strategically,

This Podcast Is Episode Number 454, And It's About The Treatment To Your Construction Bookkeeping Symptoms Most contractors are skilled technicians who learned their tradecraft in an apprenticeship program taught by a Master Technician, experience, or combination of these methods.    There is a way to learn to operate your contracting company from a Master Contractor.   With time, they developed a Paradigm, Mindset, Understanding, whatever word makes the most sense to you about how construction companies operate based upon their experiences.   In their experience, production, getting work done is the most important part of the business because they always do as employees.    Since all learning is based upon connecting new things to things we already understand, most contractors fall into the trap of only doing what they know and not learning what they don't know.   Getting to own and operate a successful construction company is similar to understanding a construction trade. There are only two ways to do it.

This Podcast Is Episode Number 453, And It's About Construction Industry Insights For 2022 There is a natural ebb and flow in the business cycle, which in regular times operates, somewhat predictable.   In normal times, contractors who pay close attention to their Five Key Performance Indicators financial reports and stay aware of the macro global economy and the microlocal economy can plan and earn an expected profit after paying themselves a reasonable salary.   The past two years have been anything but ordinary, and frankly, we are having a tough time with the economic forecasts models we follow, including our internal ones.   Something similar occurred from 1976 to 1980, and suddenly in early 1981, the national and global economy began to turn around, and there was a severe shortage of contractors and qualified construction workers.   During the remainder of that expansion and boom cycle, many construction company owners made substantially high profits, and the wise ones who thought ahead invested their

This Podcast Is Episode Number 452, And It's About Last-Minute Reminders Before The New Year Countdown It’s been another excellent year for Fast Easy Accounting. We appreciate your support for those of you who have been with us through all these years; without our contractor clients, template customers, construction accounting academy students, email subscribers, podcast listeners, blog readers, and social media followers, we wouldn’t get to where we are today.   As we look back on our 2021, I hope your fondest memories will include the time you’ve spent with all the things you love and are passionate about. And because we love what we do and we are passionate about serving our contractor friends - for us, this year was all about empowering your contracting business by continually providing you with outstanding products, high-quality services, and dependable resources for your bookkeeping and accounting needs.   Year-End Review: Time flies when everyone is busy. Start now - review your records for the follow

This Podcast Is Episode Number 451, And It's About What Is Your Contractor Superpower? As a Construction Contractor, much of your world is Outside The Box. You make what seems impossible and turn it into a finished product; the whole house remodel, kitchen or bath remodel, new roof, install an attic fan, replace windows, deck, patio, hot tub, swimming pool, children's backyard playhouse.    The Handyman Contractor fixes "Things," which are very important to the clients who need them—fixing a door, hanging a closet rod, moving something, removing something. Compared to a Whole House Remodel, it may seem like you are not doing anything. The reality is that to the person who needed the work done that a few simple little things may change their whole world for the better. Your Work as a Handyman Contractor brings joy to their life. Be Proud of it. No job is insignificant, and no construction business is too small for us.   I want to be the person who says Merry Christmas! You have earned it.    It's the holiday

This Podcast Is Episode Number 450, And It's About Four Practical Reasons To Switch To Cloud-Based Accounting If you've been considering making a move to a cloud-based accounting system, you're not alone. Cloud technology has impacted many business functions, including efficiently managing your business's financial aspects.   Cloud-based accounting moves your accounting from being hosted on your computer's hard drive to an online platform. Cloud-based platforms like QuickBooks and Xero offer important features that save you time and money, freeing you to focus on other essential construction business activities.     Here are four reasons to switch to a cloud-based accounting system.  1. Efficient invoicing If your business relies heavily on invoicing, an online accounting system like QuickBooks or Xero makes invoicing incredibly efficient. You can email invoices to clients directly through your software and track how long it's been since the invoice went out.  Clients pay you through a link attached to the i

Hiring Vs. Outsourcing   Are you thinking of hiring a bookkeeper? After reading this, you may think it is not as good an idea as it seems. In addition to the costs of advertising, reading many fiction stories (resumes), interviewing candidates (like a brand new car on the showroom floor), job-seekers are the best they will ever be during the interview. After that, it is all downhill, and the only question is how fast.   We interviewed hundreds of candidates for Construction Bookkeeping positions, and 90% of them said they could do the job - if we trained them.   What does it cost to have a bookkeeper on your payroll?   Fully Burdened Bookkeeper cost means what it will cost you to hire someone, including the company portion of the payroll taxes and all those little costs that only an accountant like me would think about.   Unlike hiring employees, when outsourcing your bookkeeping (to us), you don't pay for any 'down time' or office chatter, excessively long breaks, cell phone calls, surfing the web. You are

This Podcast Is Episode Number 448, And It's About Invoicing Construction Clients The Fast And Easy Way Creating invoices and receipts is vital to successfully running a business. You need receipts to track your purchases and expenses. Your clients need invoices for their tax purposes and to manage their finances. Paper receipts and invoices have been around a long time, so many people are used to them and may even resist moving away from them.  Thanks to technology, paper receipts and invoices are becoming more a thing of the past. There are environmental reasons for the move. Paper invoices require millions of trees and billions of gallons of water to produce, and they emit carbon dioxide (CO2), so going paperless can be a good thing for the environment. The Old Way Contractors Invoiced the jobs was sometimes just as much or more work than doing the job itself. In the past, you needed to make notes, collect customer information, go to your office, open QuickBooks or whatever construction accounting software

This Podcast Is Episode Number 447, And It's About Why Getting The Leads And Doing The Work Are Still Not Good Enough There was a time when a contractor put a simple ad in the paper or a line listing in the Yellow Pages, and they would have more leads than they could handle. It was the only way to go, and the contractors who insist on that and "Word of Mouth" do not survive.   Could those contractors have avoided failure?   I believe they could have. This article explores the top reasons construction businesses fail and the three key questions that every contractor like you needs to ask to prevent failure. It would be best to answer these questions to provide a clear path to your continued and future growth and success.    Contractors who did not move from simple ads that had always worked, and evolved a Marketing Plan made the same mistake other failed companies and brands made. They were unable to Innovate, Reinvent, and Evolve by having a deep understanding of what business they were in, who and what they

This Podcast Is Episode Number 446, And It's About Practical Tips For Encouraging Repeat High-Profit Clients Many data support the idea that it's less costly, easier, and more efficient to encourage repeat customers than bring in new ones. Among the stats Hubspot lists are: that a 5% increase in customer retention is responsible for more than 25% increase in profit; repeat customers are nine times more likely to convert than first-time visitors, and a 2% increase in customer retention has a similar impact to your bottom line as reducing costs by 10%. Understand The High-Profit Client - Most of them have personality traits commonly known as drivers - folks who are accustomed to getting things done quickly and efficiently. They do not mind paying professionals to service, repair, or build new construction projects related to their houses and commercial buildings. Design and develop your internal customized systems and processes when and where it makes sense. As much as possible, when it is cheaper to buy someth

This Podcast Is Episode Number 445, And It's About How To Get Your Life Back In A Seven-Day-A-Week Construction Business Construction business owners already have a time-consuming and challenging job running their business. If their business is open five days a week, they usually need the weekend to catch up on paperwork, pay bills and manage any tasks they didn't get to during the week.    For those with a seven-day-a-week business, there's even less time off. They often feel the need to be onsite whenever the company is open to deal with unanticipated issues, help the staff out, and ensure all tasks are completed.    Being onsite seven days a week isn't healthy or productive, however. It can cause burnout and result in errors being made. It affects the construction owner's personal life and quality of life, not to mention their overall well-being.    Here are three tips for getting your life back when you operate a seven-day-a-week business.  1. Hire a trusted manager The next best thing to having you ons