Architecture and Engineering Accounting and Project Management Software
Financial risks can be high as you manage projects, budgets, timelines, resources and cash flow. When you work with so many variables, you need a single version of the truth so you can make decisions quickly and solve problems as they occur.
To succeed in a project-driven environment, architecture and engineering firms have to break down the barriers between your accounting and project management teams. The best way to do this is by creating a culture where information is readily available. The next generation of successful architecture and engineering firms will use tools like integrated software and daily status meetings to share financial information with everyone. With Ajera, you can stop managing non-integrated solutions and start managing the entire project lifecycle from a single dashboard.
Real-time, integrated architecture and engineering accounting software will allow project managers to immediately see when time is billed against a project and will also add that time directly onto a client invoice. Giving project managers the ability to verify time and move it around throughout a project, makes for more accurate client invoices and also speeds up the final billing review process before invoices go out.
Over the last two decades, Axium has built a client base of long-term users who have grown with us, and continue to spread the word about our AE software, training and our in-house support. Our loyalty rate, which is above 95%, is what we consider our biggest success factor; almost everyone who invests in Ajera becomes one of our long-term success stories.
Benefits of Integrated Engineering and Architecture Accounting and Project Management Software
Boost Revenue Through Utilization
Successful companies are those where every employee is focused on the strategic purpose of revenue generation.
Firms can increase billable time just by having their employees fill in a timesheet daily and make employees aware of their personal billable utilization goals. If you have 20 billable people at $150/hour and each of them misses just 15 minutes of billable time per day, then you are losing out on $750 every day. Daily timesheet entry coupled with visibility into individual utilization can transform company goals into personal goals for every employee.
In architecture and engineering project planning, improving employee utilization rate will have an immediate impact on your firm's bottom line. A decline in the rate should be a call to action.
Project Management Reporting for Profitability
In engineering and architecture accounting and project management, the ability to report on project profitably should be available in multiple ways: by project type, project manager, client or department.
Reports by project type, for example, can help if you're trying to determine the size of an employee bonus, or what market segments provide the best strategic direction for growing your firm. When you can report on project profitability by spent-value, you can see which jobs are profitable, and which ones aren't -- allowing your firm to course correct.
What Percentage of Your Projects Finish On Time and Under Budget?
Projects that spiral out of control need project managers with experience and the right architecture and engineering project management tools to get them back on track. Failing projects, left untouched, could cause irreparable damage to your engineering or architecture firm.
Why do so many critical issues -- scope creep, slipping schedules, budget overruns – fail to show up on a project manager's radar until it's too late? The warning signals can be easy to miss unless you have the visibility that a real-time, integrated architecture and engineering project management software like Ajera can provide.
Manage Consultants in Real-time
Many consultants will send invoices in late. If you’re not accounting for this, your team may continue to enter more time against a project that is actually already over budget.
Ajera includes a commitment management report that allows architecture or engineering firms to easily manage the consultant relationship as its own individual budget within a project. Ajera also includes a “pay when paid” option that allows you to hold back payment until the client has covered the consultant’s portion of the contract. It can also help prevent consultant overruns by automatically notifying you if a consultant tries to overbill.
Managing the Engineer Billing Process Without Paper
Your architect or engineer billing software should allow for multiple billing types (percent complete, time & expense, fixed fee, etc.) and should also allow for different billing types to be applied to different phases of a project.
Ajera gives you the ability to have the entire billing review process happen electronically right within our Project Command Center. Rather than printing out stacks of paper and leaving them on a project manager's desk, the paperless billing review feature lets the accounting staff to notify those involved in the billing process when it's time for them to review the billing reports right in Ajera. Once any changes have been submitted and the invoices are ready, the accounting staff is notified and can immediately get the invoices out the door.
Axium's Ajera software also includes a custom invoice designer. We understand that in the engineering or architecture billing process, getting invoices to look a certain way and include the right information is important both to you and to your clients.
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