It is a common comment we hear, “the software is too expensive” or “I can do the same thing for a lot less using my spreadsheets.” These are realistic concerns that we too have faced running our own businesses over the years. This article is going to breakdown some of the areas where software can help optimize processes and thereby actually save money. This in turn will pay for itself and free up existing employees to focus on higher value tasks.
We believe the numbers below are conservative examples and depend on your specific processes. However, we have seen where Bitumio has saved time, removed unnecessary processes and closed deals by communicating and following up with prospects. By both trimming operational costs and winning new business, it is clear to see how the Bitumio platform will pay for itself.
Read below to see how Bitumio can save $40,000 a year. Let’s see how.
Acme Asphalt Company Example
For this illustration we are going to assume Acme Asphalt Company (AAC) has the following employees performing some of the following tasks on a daily basis.
- Owner A (Charlie)
- Office Manager A (Sally)
- Office Manager B (Gertrude)
- Estimator A (Bob)
- Estimator B (Steve)
- Foreman A (Joe)
- Foreman B (Buck)
Sally and Gertrude are responsible for scheduling job, inputting payroll hours, invoicing, and lining up trucking/materials. They are really the key players that make the whole system run. They also take phone calls and proposal requests that get handed off to the Estimators.
Bob and Steve are responsible for meeting with clients and prospects and making sure estimates are put together in an accurate, timely manner and signatures are collected before handing off to Sally and Gertrude.
Joe and Buck make sure crews know where they are going, what they are working on and jobs are completing on-time and according to the high standards for your company. At the end of a job, they are responsible for collecting employee’s time on the job and entering job costs to accurately track the financials for each job.
Lastly, Charlie. As the owner it is their responsibility to make sure all customers are happy and the sales pipeline is continually full to keep the estimators bidding and the crews on jobs.
I think this accurately reflects a common small asphalt maintenance or paving company. Let’s look at where these individuals spend their time.
Sally and Gertrude
- First thing each morning, the Office Managers must fill out a daily job list each morning. This consists of pulling up past estimates and handwriting where each crew is going, outlining from which plants crews will be pulling material, when the crews should get there, etc. This takes them 1 hour every morning to pull this list of jobs.
- Additionally, they must schedule the upcoming jobs. This requires them to pull all the proposals from the files that have been signed and emailed/faxed back and arrange them by location and or job type. They then write the jobs on a big whiteboard and/or input each job into Google Calendar. This takes them 2 hours a day to navigate, organize and input.
- Next they must invoice. This requires them to pull proposals from the completed jobs from the past several days and input each invoice into their accounting software. This takes them 1 hour each day to compile and input each invoice.
- Lastly they must run Payroll. They aggregate all the paper time cards from the foremen and input each value into their accounting software. This is 4 hours every two weeks.
Total Time Spent by Office Managers each Day:
1 + 2 + 1 + (4/10 = .4) = 4.4 hours a day on administrative tasks. Sally and Gertrude make $15 an hour.
This equates to $66 a day or $66 * 21 days a month = $1,386 per month.
Bob and Steve
Bob and Steve have filled the pipeline well and are putting together estimates every day. Each proposal is carefully entered into a spreadsheet. The numbers from the spreadsheet are copy and pasted into an Excel Proposal Template and saved as a PDF. That PDF is then attached to an email and sent to the prospect. Ah! Easy Peasy.
The prospect then has to print the proposal, sign it, scan it and email/fax it back. Which then has to be emailed/handed to Sally and Gertrude so they know to get it scheduled. But what if the prospect doesn’t sign it. Or does not receive the email. Bob and Steve must track each proposal they sent, when they sent it and input reminders into their phone to follow up with the proposals they sent.
Assume each proposal requires 15 minutes to fill out, save, and email. Bob and Steve are putting together 10 proposals a day. Then trying to remember which they sent and when to follow up, which (if they are doing this) takes another 30 minutes a day combing through their sent folder finding the proposals sent but not responded.
10 proposal x 15 minutes a day = 2.5 hours x 2 estimators = 5 hours a day
Following up with prospects = 30 minutes a day * 2 estimators = 1 hours a day
In total 6 hours x $15 = $90 a day * 21 days a month = $1,890 a month
Joe and Buck
Each morning Joe and Buck show up to the yard and ask Sally and Gertrude where they are heading. Sally and Gertrude show the list of jobs, but Joe and Buck are unsure which equipment is needed or if there are special requirements or notes for the job that require different skillsets. They spend an hour each morning calling Bob and Steve and Charlie to get details about the job. When they arrive they also have questions about which areas to service and see that there is a lot of stuff scattered around the job site. They spend 1.5 hours a day determining where they are going, what they are doing, what equipment is needed and any special notes or requirements for the job/s that day.
1.5 hours * 2 foremen making $25 per day = $75 per day or $2,325 a month
Charlie
Charlie spends a lot of time on the phone making sure everything is moving along efficiently and dealing with customers. Their time is very valuable, but they still get pulled back into the day to day. Each day Charlie spends 1 hour on the phone helping line out Joe and Buck, answer questions from Sally and Gertrude, and share pricing or material changes with Bob and Steve.
1 * $100 an hour = $100 a day or $2,100 a month.
Hopefully the above isn’t too far off from what your team experiences. Now let’s see how Bitumio can solve many of these pain points.
Bitumio
Sally and Gertrude
- Bitumio automatically creates work orders for each job scheduled. These are distributed to the foremen assigned to each job. No more needing to write down the day’s activities.
- Bitumio will automatically label each won proposal as a job that needs to be scheduled. Each morning Sally and Gertrude can spend 15 minutes adding new jobs to the calendar, which is available to all employees.
- For each completed job from the day before, invoices can be pushed directly into Quickbooks without needing to manually copy things over. This takes 5 minutes to push 10 jobs into Quickbooks.
- Lastly, since Foremen are inputting their time tracking and job costs into Bitumio, Sally and Gertrude simply need to pull a time report and input the hours into the accounting software. This saves them 1 hour every two weeks.
15 mins + 5 mins + (3 hours / 10 days = .3) = .6 hours each day or $9 or $189 a month. A savings of $1,197 a month!
Bob and Steve
- Bitumio’s patent pending proposal generation takes seconds to configure your proposal. Proposal generation, sending and e-signature is also built in, saving time from having to save a PDF, attach to an email and send. This cuts the time to generate a proposal from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.
- With automatic email follow ups, Bob and Steve no longer need to comb through their sent mail to find the proposals they sent and need to follow up with. They are notified who they need to call each day so they can follow up immediately. This saves them 30 minutes a day and because the follow up is taking place automatically closes 1 extra deal a month for them.
10 proposals a day * 5 minutes * 2 estimators = 1.6 hours * $15 = $24 a day or $504 a month. A Savings of $1,386 a month!
Joe and Buck
- Bitumio will automatically generate a work order for each phase of the job that includes where the job is, the size of the job, how much material is needed, each piece of equipment that was bid, and when the job should start. This is emailed to the foreman each day or easily accessible from the application. This saves Joe and Buck 1 hour each day trying to determine where they are going and what is needed for each job.
.5 hours * 2 foremen * $20 = $20 or $420 a month. A savings of $1,905 a month!
Charlie
- Because Bitumio has all the great features above, Charlie gets to kick back and sip Mai Tais all day every day. Just kidding! The above will obviously save a lot of headache and trouble from Charlie’s plate. However, the job of the owner never sleeps and will always carry the brunt of the work. We are not going account for a lot of cost savings in Charlie’s time. However, because more deals are closing because of Bitumio’s automated sales follow up, we will assume that 2 new deals a year are closed because of consistent, thoughtful follow up on behalf of the estimators.
2 deals with an average deal size of $10,000 at a 20% profit margin = $4,000 Net at the end of the year.
Total Savings: $4,488 a Month or $53,856 per year
Incremental Closed Deals : $4,000
Total Cost Savings and Incremental Revenue: $57,856 per year
Now assume each member of the team has a Bitumio user license. That is:
7 Users at $200 per month per user = $1,400 per month to use the Bitumio Platform.
$1,400 * 12 months = $16,800 per year
Net Savings with Bitumio: $41,056
We believe the numbers above are conservative counts and depend on your specific processes. However, we have seen where Bitumio has saved time, removed unnecessary processes and closed deals by communicating and following up with prospects. By both trimming operational costs and winning new business, it is clear to see how the Bitumio platform will pay for itself.
Ready to see how this works. Schedule a demo or Sign up for a Free Trial and let’s start scaling your company together.