5 Cost Management Challenges That Owners Often Face and Their Solutions
One aspect of a construction project that should never be overlooked is cost management. Every project stakeholder is affected by improper cost management of a project. Therefore, the ideal situation is to use a single solution rather than searching through numerous unrelated technologies to gather the required pricing data. You may also consider hotel building construction consultants if you are involved in the hotel construction industry.
Simply put, you can use automated software to get the job done. General contractors have experienced the advantages, and we’ll show you why other owners also adore it. So let’s look at five common problems owners have with cost management and the owner-friendly tools offered.
1. Complex Or Unmanageable System Setup
You’ve finally made the decision to buy your cost management software and are prepared to set it up. You then realize that setting up dashboards, permissions, and project preferences requires a time-consuming and extremely careful configuration every time you start a new project.
This is why software named Autodesk Build for Cost Management’s project configuration wizard is so revolutionary. The wizard, known as Project Procedure, makes the configuration process easier for various user cohorts. This setting configures which components in Cost Management appear and sets authorization settings based on the chosen role and project preferences.
2. Lack Of Change Order Collaboration Between Owners And GC’s
Owners’ and other stakeholders’ lack of openness breeds mistrust, poor communication, and ineffective teamwork. In fact, FMI and Autodesk discovered that companies reporting high levels of trust saw 25% to 95% higher profit margins, according to a paper on the influence of trust on construction.
The severity of these problems increases when modification orders and rising prices are involved. Conflicts worsen, and the entire project and team suffer when owners, contractors, and subcontractors can’t agree on anything.
You may import your contracts straight into Autodesk Build to expedite the change order procedure and encourage improved team collaboration. By using a collaborative potential change order (PCO) approach, this lowers the chance of delays. For instance, you may give your contract access to your project instance’s direct PCO generation, review, and rejection functionality, along with a thorough audit trail of all actions.
This workflow streamlines the collaboration on change orders by enabling owners, general contractors, and subcontractors to work together in the same space. It ensures that everyone benefits by paving the path for greater levels of accountability and openness.
3. Complicated Schedule Of Values Management
The schedule of values (SOV), which represents the total cost of the contract, lists the cost of all billable project work. Owners use the SOVs to monitor the status of the project’s work in order to support payments to the general contractor and assess how well things are going in comparison to the plan.
However, managing SOVs might take a lot of time. Your general contractor’s SOV root nodes may number in the hundreds of items or more, depending on the scope of the project and the level of detail you, as the owner, require.
But now is the time to exhale in relief. Owners may easily manage SOVs with Autodesk Build. For instance, you can instantly link the necessary SOVs to the relevant contract, from which point you can view the SOVs in full-screen mode, organize items according to budget code segments, and save views for later. Making it much simpler to find what you need quickly. Additionally, accessing related payment applications from this view is simple. Previously difficult to find information is now just
4. Change Order Markup Inconsistency
Change orders are a necessary but annoying aspect of the construction process since they add to the workload of both owners and contractors.
However, before you open your pocketbook as an owner, you must have access to all the details around a potential change. To guarantee that the change order markup cost is within the predetermined markup fee percentage, it is necessary to have clear visibility into it. However, because projects move quickly and there is a constant flow of information, your budget will be affected if change orders aren’t handled properly, and there are markup inconsistencies.
Fortunately, you can immediately verify that change order markups are within the contractually authorized markup by managing change orders in Autodesk Build. If there is a mismatch, you can then correct it. This makes figuring markups for change orders simpler and easier for you and your contractors to communicate expectations.
5. Too Much Time Spent Compiling Reports
It can be challenging for an owner to understand the financial success of every project in their portfolio. It takes time to create reports on the budget and forecasts, especially when you have to do it for every project. When your financials aren’t standardized or, worse yet, come from numerous different sources, the procedure is made even more difficult.
This issue is resolved for you by the Executive Level Cross Project Budget Report in Autodesk Build. This account-level report displays information like the following and offers a summary of expense data by the project:
- The Original budget
- Budget after Revision
- Projected budget
- Forecasts
- And many more
Additionally, it enables you to filter outputs based on projects or business units, allowing you to spot internal profit-maximizing opportunities in addition to external ones.
With the help of the Executive Level Cross Project Budget Report, you can quickly create reports (instead of taking hours) and assess the financial performance of your projects in order to make more informed budgeting choices. Learn how to use Autodesk Build’s Reports.
Use Modern Technology To Get Project Costs Controlled
Owners are under enormous pressure to ensure that the project you paid for provides the value you were promised despite having a lot on their plates. Let technology lessen some of these difficulties for you, we say. Flexibility is a major priority in the design of Autodesk Build in order to satisfy the various needs of owners and other sorts of users.
Your workflows can be improved by Autodesk by streamlining cost management and assisting teams in maintaining alignment. You can therefore concentrate more on developing your portfolio and completing high-quality (and lucrative) assignments.
Ending Notes
Construction project managers have different tasks and obligations to complete from project to project because each construction project has a unique set of obstacles. These difficulties necessitate both a tactical awareness of the problems associated with each project phase and a strategic understanding of the construction industry.
The peculiar structure of building projects is the cause of the project management problems that managers encounter. All parties involved in a construction project, such as the landowner, lenders, suppliers, and subcontractors, have different viewpoints and objectives that can diverge at some point. The initiative also faces difficulties brought on by external factors like governmental rules and weather conditions.
A construction project’s ability to be completed on time hinges on efficient project management. To ensure that the project is finished, the project manager for construction must be prepared to deal with challenges, both anticipated and unanticipated.
The article above dealt with some of the most common challenges that project managers of a construction project often face. If you have any questions regarding the above article or anything related to the construction industry, feel free to reach out to us. Our team of professional construction project managers has many years of experience in solving your issues.
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