Why Vancouver Construction Companies Are Replacing Spreadsheets with Custom ERP
BC contractors are losing weeks per project to spreadsheet sprawl. Here is what changes when you ship a custom ERP that fits your real workflow.
The 14-spreadsheet problem
Most BC contractors we meet run a $20M-plus business on a stack that looks like: QuickBooks for accounting, 4 Excel files for job costing, 2 more for subcontractor tracking, a shared Dropbox for change orders, and a WhatsApp group for the actual day-to-day. Information lives nowhere and everywhere at once.
What breaks first
Job costing. Variance is invisible until the job is closed and accounting reconciles materials and labour. By then it is months too late to fix anything.
Why generic ERPs fail
SAP / NetSuite require you to bend your operations to fit the software. For construction in particular, the off-the-shelf modules never quite match how a real BC job site actually runs.
What a custom ERP looks like
One source of truth for estimating, job costing, change orders, progress billing, and field time tracking. Two-way QuickBooks sync, BC builders' lien deadlines built in, and an iPad app for the crew so the data lands at the source.
The numbers
From a recent project: estimating time -64%, job-cost variance -41%, $620K freed in working capital, payback in under 9 months.