Nobody knows where each job is
To answer “how far are we with the Brīvības street project?”, someone has to call the site manager, open two spreadsheets and scroll through a WhatsApp group.
Typical in: Construction and subcontracting, installation and service, facility and property management, agencies, manufacturing to order
What it looks like
Every job passes through several hands: sales, planning, the crew or team doing the work, and the person who invoices. Information about it is spread across a plan in Excel, a whiteboard in the office, a WhatsApp group, someone’s inbox and a folder of paper. The only way to know where a job stands is to ask, and the people you ask are busy doing the work.
When the work happens on site, it gets worse. Hours come back on paper timesheets, photos sit in chat, and signed acts end up in a glovebox. Someone in the office types it all in again at the end of the month, and until they do, you can’t invoice.
How many of these sound familiar?
- Managers spend hours a week phoning for status.
- Something promised in sales never reaches the people doing the work.
- Invoices go out weeks after the work is done because the paperwork isn’t ready.
- Clients call to ask when you’re coming or when it will be ready.
What the research says
Three companies, same problem
Daugmale Build
Twelve projects run at the same time. The weekly status meeting takes three hours because each site manager reports verbally. The owner learns that a project is slipping when subcontractor invoices arrive, not when the delay starts.
Voltis Electrical
Hours are written on paper sheets and collected on Fridays. Foremen send photos to a WhatsApp group. At month end, two people spend four days building completion acts in Excel for the general contractors, so invoices don’t go out until the 10th.
Klints Ventilation
Service requests come by phone. The dispatcher plans the week on a whiteboard. Technicians sometimes arrive without the right part because the job notes stayed in the office, and clients call twice a day to ask when someone will come.
Illustrative examples. The companies are fictional; the situations are typical of the industries we work with.
How we fix it
- 01
One record per job.
Client, scope, stages, people, documents, deadlines, hours and costs in one place.
- 02
Stages and handovers.
Each stage has a checklist and an owner. When one stage is done, the next person is told automatically and gets everything they need.
- 03
Reports from the field, typed once.
Crews log hours, materials, photos and the client’s signature on a phone, even offline. Completion acts and service reports are generated from that data, with no retyping.
- 04
Overview for you, status for clients.
A board shows every job by stage, what’s late and what’s at risk. Clients get automatic updates or a simple status page.
What changes
Before
After
A typical first project
A job board with stages, owners and deadlines for one type of job, plus a mobile form for your most common field report. A client status page can follow. First working version in about four weeks. It starts with a free Process Mapping session.
Apply for a free Process MappingFind out what’s slowing your business down.
Start with a free analysis to identify your biggest bottlenecks and discover where improvements will have the greatest impact.