The best apps to help you manage your construction business

Business has moved on from the world of paper invoices, carrier bags of receipts and managing accounts on spreadsheets. Luckily, there’s a better and easier way to keep on top of your day to day tasks. The world of financial technology has created some amazing apps that can be used to streamline your construction business and save you valuable time. Here we’ve rounded up some of the best pieces of software to help you transform your business, and why you’ll wish you had them sooner! 

Online Accounting Platform– Xero

We’ve not met many business owners who love to sit down at the end of a long day and do their admin and accounts, and we’re sure you’ll feel the same. But thankfully, there’s intuitive and easy to use software that will do most of the hard work for you! As your core accounting platform, we recommend Xero, but we’ve got plenty of experience with other tools on the market too, like FreeAgent and QuickBooks.

Xero is easy to use, online accounting software that gives you a clear view of the numbers. Login anytime from your office, van or building site to manage your cash flow. 

With Xero, you’ll never have to manually calculate CIS tax deductions again! And you can file your monthly returns directly from Xero. Keep your bank account on track, send all your invoices and automate your expenses, all from one place. If you’re VAT registered, Xero also makes managing your VAT returns a hundred times simpler. 

Think of your accounting software as the central hub for all your finances, and who knows, after a while you may find that you actually enjoy logging in and seeing what’s going on under the bonnet!

Not only will accounting software save you valuable time, but there are a host of other useful apps that will plug directly into Xero, helping you streamline your construction business. 

Sounds good, right? 

We work with a growing number of construction businesses, so we know a thing or two about the world of construction, and the best industry-specific tools you can use to maximise your business. Here’s some of our favourites below, (and the ones our clients love too!). 

Expenses Management– Receipt Bank

Piles of invoices arriving from your suppliers each month? And receipts for fuel in all of your vans? We feel your pain. Let’s get rid of all that paperwork and route your invoices through Receipt Bank.

Receipt Bank is an automated bookkeeping solution, available on desktop and as a mobile app. It digitally captures your invoices and receipts, extracts the data, then pushes that through to your accounting software. Plus, it’s super easy to use. Just download the mobile app, and you can start photographing your paper receipts. ­Receipt Bank then extracts all the important data for you. All that’s left to do is publish that to your accounting software, wave goodbye to those pesky paper receipts, and you’re done.  

With Receipt Bank, you’ll never have to type up an invoice for your VAT returns again, and your employees can use it to manage their expenses, too. Hurray! 

Plus, once it’s all up to speed, it’ll automatically send everything into Xero for you. Job done!

Automate your payment chasing– Chaser

Chaser is an app that sits between Xero and your bank account to work out who hasn’t paid you on time, and then send them gentle reminders to make sure they don’t forget.

The chasing of payments in most smaller construction businesses usually ends up on the desk of the owner, or sometimes the bookkeeper. Automating the process will free up your time and take the unnecessary stress away, allowing you to get on with running your business. 

With an app like Chaser, you’ll never have to chase a late payment again, which also means great news for your cash flow! 

Make Payments easier– GoCardless and SumUp / Square

Let’s be honest, the easier you make it for your customers to pay you, the sooner the money will be out of their bank account and into yours! And the best way to do that is by automating the process. 

Easily collect recurring payments with GoCardless. GoCardless can be used for frequent customers or for larger jobs when you have staged payments. Setup the payment schedule and the funds will hit your bank within days of being collected. Customers only need to set up their payment details once, then they’ll be notified before any payments are collected. 

There’s no excuse for not taking card payments nowadays, as it’s so easy (and dare we say it, cheap) to get a card reader that you can take with you wherever you go. A card reader from SumUp or Square will set you back less than 50 quid initially, and you’ll be able to accept card payments from all your customers. 

With SumUp, you can easily connect a card reader to your smart phone to accept payments. Customers can pay via contactless, chip and pin, Apple Pay or Google Pay, then the SumUp mobile app will do all the organising for you.

With Square, you can connect your card reader to your smartphone via Bluetooth, then the Square point-of-sale app will do the rest.  

Job Management via Tradify

Unfortunately, tradespeople and construction businesses often get a bad rep for job management and organisation, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Let Tradify automate this for you! 

Tradify is the number one job management app for tradesman and contractors. It’s an easy to use, all-in-one tool that handles quoting, invoicing, job scheduling and more. Track jobs, allocate your team, raise quotes, send invoices, all in one place. And even better? It integrates with Xero & QBO, so there’s no doubling up of admin. Winner!