NEW YORK CITY—With the commercial subcontractor and residential contractor's work life a whirlwind of change orders and invoicing, all the while working to ensure that the project meets the developer's standards, a software platform from Knowify LLC aims to help keep matters anchored down while the whirlwind is blowing. Specifically, it's designed to provide project management tools as well as workflows and collaboration capabilities that enable a business to be seen in real time while increasing operating efficiency and reducing costly errors.

With construction here and across the US in a boom period, such tools can be especially useful, Knowfy's Dan deRoulet Jr. tells GlobeSt.com. Although commercial subcontractors aren't being asked to do anything they haven't had to do before, there's the issue of managing administrative tasks, especially in boom times. “When senior guys at a subcontractor spend all day chasing paper for existing jobs they are not spending sufficient time making sure the actual construction work is getting done on time and on budget—and to the developers' standards,” says deRoulet, the New York City-based company's cofounder.

While they're engaged in this paper chase, “they're not engaging with general contractors to bid new work, even if they have the capacity to take it on if they were better organized,” says deRoulet. He adds that what makes Knowify especially useful now is that it simplifies the administrative and project management sides of running a subcontracting business so that the business owner, and his senior people, can focus on what matters.

Take change orders, for example. “There can be significant downtime as the foreman calls one into the office, drafts the change change on a Word document and faxes it to the general contractor, and then everyone waits for the GC to sign it,” deRoulet says.

That change order will later have to be included on invoices and kept as a permanent record alongside the contract. Via Knowify, a change order can be prepared from a tablet on the jobsite and sent for e-signature to the client directly. Once they've been

e-signed, the administrative connections are made automatically behind the scenes, so invoicing and record keeping become simple matters.

The construction industry is “an ecosystem,” of which subcontractors are an important part, he says. In boom times, “a subcontracting marketplace that is better able to manage its administrative burdens is going to be better for everyone, because it should translate into more responsive subs, more bids, more management oversight and, ultimately, better execution on the jobsite.”

Instant Insights /

Software Aims to Smoothe a Contractor's Ride

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