July 18, 2024 • 55 mins
Welcome to another insightful episode of The Construction Junction podcast, presented by The Profit Constructors. Join our host, Tonya Schulte, as she chats with Brian Cacian from Foundation Software. Dive deep into the history and evolution of Foundation Software, a pivotal tool designed to streamline accounting for construction companies.
Brian shares the journey from the company's inception in the mid-80s to its growth into a comprehensive suite of tools that includes payroll services, project management, and more. Learn about the unique features that set Foundation Software apart, such as its robust payroll capabilities, job costing, and the integration of various specialized tools like estimating and HR management.
Discover the importance of understanding the company's culture, customer service, and the practical applications of emerging technologies like AI in construction accounting. Whether you're a small contractor or a growing construction firm, this episode offers valuable insights into choosing the right software to meet your specific needs.
Stay tuned until the end for Brian's expert advice on ensuring a smooth transition to a new accounting system and how to leverage detailed reporting to drive business success.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
The Profit Constructors presents Construction Junction, the junction between
accounting and construction.
Please welcome our host, Tanya Schulte.
Welcome back to the Construction Junction podcast.
My name is Tanya Schulte, and I have here with me today, Brian.
(00:27):
Brian, how do you say your last name? Is it CanSiam?
It is CanSiam. Awesome. With Foundation Software.
Brian, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. Pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Appreciate you being here. So for those of our listeners who don't really know
what Foundation is or maybe haven't heard of Foundation,
and honestly, I'm quite surprised the number of construction companies that
(00:47):
are out there in the world trying to do accounting, struggling through various
different softwares and haven't
ever heard of Foundation. So tell us a little bit about Foundation.
How did it come to be? How did Foundation come to be?
Way back when 1984, 85, the founder of the company, Brett Odie,
was working for a local engineering firm here in the Cleveland suburban area.
(01:09):
And they decided they needed something better than what they were using.
Right. And the system was originally written on the Wang Mini Computer System.
And somehow, Somehow, Fred was able to come away with the basis of that tool
that was built for them and created
a DOS-based accounting system called Foundation Accounting Software.
(01:34):
And from there, it just grew. Our original first employee is still with us today.
We've gone through a lot of growth, a lot of changes, but just continually developing over time.
In the early 2000s, we migrated over to the Windows-based application that's
on the market today and added a lot of other products along the line.
(01:55):
About 16, 17 years ago, we took our core strength in the system,
the payroll module, and parsed that out and now offer a payroll service specifically for contractors.
And that is good, whether you're using Foundation or any other accounting system,
it's not necessarily needing to be used just with Foundation.
(02:15):
So we have many clients in the payroll service that don't even use our Foundation
software, which is great.
And and you know then since 2020
or so we've acquired a couple estimating packages that's estimating
edge and mccormick estimating we acquired
a company called harness safety and was able to rebrand that into our hq suite
(02:37):
of products so that's a whole homegrown set of tools for mobile project management
human resource management there's some executive reporting boarding,
like I said, the safety piece, and then project management, of course, if I said that.
And then most recently, we acquired About Time Technologies out in Utah and
(02:59):
their flagship product, WorkMax.
Which gives us a really powerful field
data collection tool and allows us to do timekeeping and various forms that
are in the field and have that all mesh with the back office So really created
a strong set of tools for the entire back office of a contractor.
(03:24):
I love that. So you guys started out really going after that accounting workflow,
but over time you've added on to make it, like you said, really a great suite for the whole app.
And in hindsight, you know, naming the company after the product or the product
of the company, it's kind of a killer because now we have to market foundation
software, but it's not just foundation software, it's all of these other products as well.
(03:47):
So, you know, foundation is the product versus foundation is the company.
It's an important distinction.
Yeah. Well, and having gone through a company wide rebrand over here,
just don't even try it. No, not happening.
It's like acquiring McCormick Estimate. I mean, you know, if we tried to rebrand that,
you would lose such the market recognition because it's, you know,
(04:10):
one of the foremost estimating packages in the mechanical electrical plumbing
industry, you know, and why would we do that? That would be silly.
So, yeah, no rebranding. Yeah, I love it.
What kind of sets Foundation Software apart from other accounting softwares that are out there?
Oh, you know, when you look at what you're buying, you know,
(04:31):
it's very easy to look at a piece of software and say, does it do this?
Does it do that? Does it do that?
Right? Is it going to do everything you need?
And just analyzing it from that perspective, it's, that's one piece of it, right? Right.
What sets us apart is when you start looking at not only the product,
but you start looking at also the company.
(04:53):
Right. You look at the retention, you look at the customer service response
times and just the entire culture of the organization.
We have many, many employees who have been here. I don't know how many,
but quite a few that were either here when I started back in 97 or came in shortly there.
(05:15):
Definitely, you know, people with 20 plus years, like I said,
our original developer that Fred Odie brought on to get this really moving forward.
She's still here today. day and i think that says
a lot when you have employees like that
that stick around and really focus on just
building the best company possible so it is
(05:38):
our company our culture if you come to our user conference it's just an amazing
experience you know we we deal on the internal this is probably the same at
any company right you deal day to day with the problems you know people don't
call because they're happy they call because they're having trouble doing something
or or or that they're not happy with this or that.
You get bogged down in that day-to-day. And our user conference was down in Nashville in April.
(06:03):
We had over 750 people attend, plus various vendors in our vendor pavilion.
I think we had 75 employees.
So, you know, easily 1,000 people at this event.
And the feedback that you get, the experience that everybody has,
and I know it's Nashville, it's easy to be happy, But, you know,
(06:24):
just the event and how well it was put on and how well received all of our information
was, all of our people and the customer feedback,
it kind of regrounds you to why you do what you do here when you're in the office every day.
I love that. And especially because
who you guys are serving has the same industry that our team serves.
(06:45):
And construction accounting is where I've built my entire career.
I was telling him when you and I were chatting before this episode,
I started doing construction accounting in 1997.
I was taking a community college for us, Accounting 101 in 1987,
but I also went to work for an architect and home builder and started doing
his accounts payable and then just sort of worked my way up from there.
(07:06):
So I've spent my entire career serving that industry.
And one of the things I think is fascinating about this industry as a whole,
we've talked about it here on the podcast before, they're very straightforward.
You get what you get. And so if they're telling you that they like your software,
they mean it. If they didn't like your software, they would be telling you otherwise.
Absolutely. And it's not to say that those who like it don't also have negative
(07:31):
things to say, you know, I mean, there's, hey, we really need it to do something
or, you know, this just isn't, it's not quite right.
And we listen to that. And we try to incorporate a lot of that into the direction
that the product takes. Yeah, absolutely.
Tell us a little bit more about kind of what does it look like when a client
reaches out to you guys and says, hey, I want to know more about foundation?
(07:54):
Kind of what are you guys telling them about why they should choose Foundation
as their accounting software?
Yeah, you know, first and foremost, the experience here, everybody or everything
that is involved in the process from sales and marketing, through the onboarding
implementation support, so on, it is all contained in house,
(08:14):
we do not have resellers, we don't have consulting firms that that sell or consult on this.
I mean, I'm sure there are companies out there that do consult on it,
but it's not run through us, you know, and there are plenty of people who know
a lot about it. That's great.
And some of my best implementations happened with a very up to date, CPA,
(08:35):
somebody who is involved with a company that can be more local can be a more
frequent point of contact, they take the information through these training
sessions, and they make sure that things are getting done as necessary.
But that's not to say that those don't exist. But we manage everything in house
so that we can really control the customer experience.
So, you know, if somebody is raising their hand, whether it be from a mailing,
(08:56):
an emailing, you know, a webinar that is put on, a referral,
they will come right into our sales staff for quick qualification.
If it seems like it needs a fit, they'll go right into our sales department.
They'll generally schedule an online demo.
That could be one and done. It could be a couple of different ones,
(09:17):
depending on the complexity of the client's needs.
You know, I think our sales team is pretty diligent at really looking at what
these people are asking for.
And if it's not a good fit, there's nobody's trying to force it.
Right. There are different things you can do. I mean, that's not how it's designed
to work, but we can do this and it will work.
(09:38):
And you pursue those. But when it's just, yeah, we do not do what you're looking
to do. It's not a good fit.
They'll just tell them. Let me let me ask you about that. Sorry to interrupt.
Up, but let me just ask you quickly, who do you guys describe as your ideal
client? Who is it a great fit for?
Yeah, we are designed really for a labor intensive contractor.
(09:58):
If you are a straight general contractor, basically managing the paper side
of the business, and subbing out everything, most likely not a great fit.
If the bulk of your jobs are residential, high volume, you know,
Low duration, generally not a good fit.
We're going to deal with the specialties of contractor, probably minimum of
(10:22):
$3 to $5 million in revenue.
Ideally, 20 to 25 employees out in the field, maybe less, it depends.
But a lot of these companies coming to us are coming from QuickBooks or maybe
another other construction specific application that just isn't meeting their needs.
(10:43):
Our strength is truly in the payroll processing. As I mentioned,
we started a whole payroll processing company.
But the ability to handle multi-state, multi-union, if you're doing any prevailing
wage, Davis-Bacon projects,
the ability to handle those various wage rates, the additional fringe benefits
(11:04):
that are required to be paid to those employees while working on those jobs
under certain trades or skills that...
To determine different rates, different fringes, and so on.
Not only can we handle all that, but then the reporting side,
to be able to, for lack of a better term, I guess, push a button and get a certified
(11:24):
payroll report for that week,
without having to gather all sorts of data to generate those union reports,
the workers' comp reports, all of the different things that are necessary.
So that's a huge piece. Most companies can do payables or receivables.
It's pretty simple. The payroll is what really sets it apart. I love that.
(11:45):
How do you guys handle like job costing and project management?
I know you said you do also even have a separate component, something else that
you guys acquired that handles more of that project management side.
But how does that all fit together?
And how is that happening? So that you mentioned reporting.
And one of the things that our team is always looking for is like,
can we do WIP reporting? What type of job do we get from Foundation?
(12:08):
Let's talk about that. So I spent the better part of my career here with Foundation
in the consulting realm.
So going out to clients post-implementation, whether it be six months,
a year, 10 years after, whether it's employee turnover, or just,
hey, we bought this software to do a certain thing. And like most companies...
(12:28):
You get it up and running, and you forget about all the other stuff that you
wanted and keep using your spreadsheets.
And you spend all this time before someone's just like, why are we doing this? Yeah.
So So yeah, that is that's where I spent most of my time.
So when it comes to job costing, right, everything that you do in the software,
(12:49):
from entering an invoice,
to insert in, you know, putting in time cards, billing, right,
all of that flows into the project.
So it's not only hitting the ledger for the accounting side,
but it also flows through to job costing.
Everything that you do requires the job cost of the cost class or maybe a phase if you add that level in.
(13:10):
So it's a significant amount of reporting that's required.
And it's interesting because you talk to QuickBooks users and they're not accustomed
to needing all that data.
And they're like, well, hey, why can't I just download my credit card statement and have it in here?
I'm like, well, because it's really a lot more complicated than that. You
got 100 hundred transactions you got a hundred different jobs it
could go to and within that different codes it can go to
(13:32):
and with that even is it equipment is it material
so it requires a a much more granular level of detail to get that in to get
accurate reporting compared to your budget so so absolutely job costing is is
the entire backbone of the software for sure yes financials good, you got to get them.
(13:52):
But I don't care if your books, you know, show that you're making money.
If you don't know how you're making money on your jobs, and where you could
be making more, you're missing the boat.
Yeah. So that is that's definitely an important piece.
Project management side, again, you know, we have flexible job cost reporting,
you can generate various reports, you can create reports that are not canned out the box.
(14:18):
And, you know, the system has some project management capabilities there.
A lot of companies, though, are trying to keep some of these pieces of the company
in their own silos, which is interesting,
because, you know, 10 years ago, we were trying to look for something,
everything to be in one place, something that does it all. We want everybody in one system.
(14:38):
And now it's like, you know, I don't know if I want my project managers in my accounting system.
Them right and regardless i mean if they are
it's completely secure you can define users with roles and
permissions keep them out of the areas that's supposed to be into you can literally get
it down to the report level like hey these are the reports the guy could run and because
he is the project manager on the job these are the jobs that he's able to see
so it is really easy to do but still some people are like yeah you know just
(15:04):
like hey i don't i don't really want to do this online i don't want my books
out on the intranets right yes like yeah it's really not how it is but that's
It's okay. You can think what you want.
So, yeah, so that's it. But that's why we did develop the standalone project
management piece, which does share information back and forth with the accounting piece.
(15:24):
But, again, it just kind of keeps the project management team out of the accounting software.
What all is included in that project management package? What types of project
management things can they do over there?
Yeah, I mean, from RFCs, RFIs, submittal packages, things like that,
And getting change orders, you know, put together and pushed over to the accounting system.
(15:47):
There's reporting that comes through with it.
I'm trying to think of some of the other details. It's probably one of the areas
I had the least experience in because that was that was rolled out,
you know, sort of as I was getting out of the hands on piece. Yeah.
That's why we have a sales team. Yeah. And they know more about it. Correct.
Tell us a little bit about, because you've been doing this for quite some time
(16:10):
now, Brian, and you were just mentioning, you know, 10 years ago,
everybody was like, oh, I don't
like this, that, you know, you're forcing me to buy this and do this.
And how are they going to integrate while you talk in sync?
Now that it's becoming a little bit different where people started to recognize,
oh, but if I do give people access to my accounting software,
what are the permissions that I can hand out? and maybe not seeing some information.
(16:32):
So you mentioned that. What are some other trends that you're kind of seeing
in terms of construction technology and how that's playing into choices that
your customers are making right now?
Yeah, I think AI, obviously the buzzword, right? Everybody wants to use the latest and greatest.
Right. I think it's very exciting, but you got to really look at what's the
(16:58):
practical application.
Like you don't need it for something right it's like hey i don't have to go buy you know.
Fancy bmw when i really just
have to go to the store once a day
and my little beater will work just fine right i mean what do
you need and how fancy do you need to get so i
(17:20):
think that ai is a right and in
this space so far what i have seen is accounts
payable automation that's the big one right because it's
a very labor-intensive portion of what what people do in the back office and
a lot of it's just monotonous i gotta read an invoice i've got to keep the same
(17:41):
information in over and over right vendor date invoice number amount so on and
so forth that's all stuff that can be very easily done.
But the coding of the invoice to the proper job cost code class,
the splits and things like that, it's a little bit different, right?
So tools like that, where they can receive the invoices in, have a lot of that
(18:03):
information already populated, have workflows already embedded to get those
invoices in front of the right people to finish coding,
have someone else be able to review everything prior to pushing it right into
their accounting system, that's a big trend.
A little more kind of specific you know just general niche applications that do small pieces,
(18:27):
these these pieces of software that don't want to be an entire capital system
right nobody wants to get into the payroll and if you're thinking about it i
highly discourage it it's horrible it's a it's a horrible thing oh yeah absolutely
yeah the code behind it the upkeep to stay current with With,
you know, all of the local and state taxes and just all of that, it's a nightmare.
(18:53):
But, yeah, that's it. But, you know, hey, we have a very specialized billing application.
And it's for this particular industry that tends to do things a little bit differently.
Like we can't possibly do all of that. We would spend countless years developing
something that's, you know, really relevant to such a small portion of our target market.
(19:16):
So these small applications come along that do it, they do it really, really well.
And they need to share that accounting information with, you know,
the company's ERP system, because
why should I have to reenter an invoice that I already did over here?
Like can't you already know who it is can't you kind of talk together and and
(19:36):
that's kind of a very current trend and that's what i'm dealing with you know
pretty much on that on the day-to-day here i love that so tell us more about
that it's actually one of the things that i have been.
Shouting from the rooftops since we started the profit constructors about eight
and a half years ago we decided at that time i was laughing a little bit when
you were saying i don't want all my information on the internet that's a little
(19:56):
late for that that ship has sailed right Right.
Probably shouldn't have signed up for Facebook, should you? Right. Exactly.
And maybe you should never do your banking online or even go to the bank.
But I think that one of the things that I've been saying for quite some time
is as I've seen the evolution of construction accounting all the way from back
in the day when we had the big stamps, you know, whether we're this big for all the coding to be in.
(20:20):
And, you know, one of the things that I think is really amazing about being
able to have a lot more of cloud-based software and a lot of more software interactions
is that you can do that type of thing.
You can take an ERP software and also integrate something smaller that is specific
(20:41):
to your needs and make those two things work together really well.
So what types of apps do you guys work with and kind of what are some of the
integrations that you guys have?
Yeah. So as I mentioned, AP automation is a big one, that is.
These are . We have relationships with other companies.
And when I say relationships, I mean, you know, they're very loose relationships.
(21:02):
You know, we don't try or tend to favor one over another. We're not doing a
whole lot of co-marketing.
I mean, I shouldn't say we, yeah, I don't think we even do any real co-marketing.
We may do a webinar or two, but it's more information to bring to a client, right?
You know, a lot of times, you know, as you get into these partnerships,
they're like, oh, well, you know, there's RepShare, you know,
(21:23):
we'll send you business.
Business and like that's not that's not really important to us you know that
that doesn't move our needle in the grand scheme of things right so what we
want to do is make sure that we have companies that we feel comfortable first
and foremost right we've had partnerships that,
we start hearing things from you know clients are like hey you know we're not
(21:44):
getting this or we're not getting that this isn't good to work with and and
we kind of shut it down a little bit We're not going to send somebody over here
when they don't get treated the same way that they would over here.
It needs to be the same sort of culture.
Yeah, they need to share your values. Correct. Absolutely. But,
(22:04):
you know, so AP automation, again, it's a big one.
What else? We have material procurement. It is particularly common these days
because it's a difficult process.
You know, we have the ability to do purchase orders of software and we can track
receiving against those purchase orders and we can track the billing against those receipts.
(22:25):
But it's not out in the field and it's not difficult, but it's a lot of work.
And it puts a lot of that work on people who don't really know,
like they weren't in the field.
So until they get the receiving slips into the office, they don't know they got it.
Right? The matching up of the invoice, it's fine, it works. But,
(22:46):
you know, these applications that aren't there these days, they make a little bit lighter work of it.
Because the guys in the fields are the ones who can issue these POs as they
need them, obviously can still work with purchasing in office,
depending on, you know, the extent of what they're ordering.
But, you know, they automatically have relationships with a lot of the key vendors.
So those invoices come in right through EDI, I guess, and there's some automatic
(23:09):
matching, matching of the receiving to the PO, making sure the invoicing matches the receiving.
And then those invoices just can get pushed over to the accounting software. So it's pretty good.
There are companies that are dealing with equipment maintenance and tracking,
right? So a fair amount of our contractors deal with heavy equipment.
So separating out the mechanical, right? Not the rooftop units and things like
(23:32):
that, because those aren't really their pieces of equipment.
More specifically talking about the dozers, the excavators, There's the fleets
of trucks, tracking, utilization, maintenance, repairs, things like that.
We have an equipment module, right? Companies used to be able to do that all
through our software, and that's how it would work.
But again, it's all being run by the people in the office here.
(23:52):
So they're creating these field applications that can handle this and really
just have certain bits of information that need to come into the software.
So that's kind of the trend.
Analytics is a big piece. There's a particular partner of ours that can easily
connect into a client's database and pull out anything that they want.
They have a whole canned group of reports already in a sort of dashboard type
(24:16):
thing, but it's customizable.
They can do a ton of things with it. And it's things that, you know,
I always say, you know, because people are like, well, I need to do cash flow projections.
I need you to do projections and things like that. I'm like,
you realize you're dealing with an accounting system.
We look at what happened. We don't predict what's going to happen. Right.
Right. And that is where like these types of applications can come in and really,
(24:40):
I mean, just supercharge the database that you have with all of the information you've collected.
You know, even just looking at, you know, hey, you've done 10 jobs for this customer.
You've sent out, you know, 75 invoices for them. them, the average amount of
time it takes them to pay those invoices is 63 days.
(25:03):
So you can say, hey, if you just get a million and a half dollar contract with
them, you spread that out over a 12 month period.
And here's your average billing, here's what you can predict out your cash flow.
So these things just do it. And they do it very, yeah, and that's,
that's what those are the types of companies that we look to work with that
that make that easy for customers.
That's, I love that. I was actually
(25:24):
thinking we've recently encountered a company very similar to that.
And they can pull in databases, not only from your data, but other databases as well.
And then kind of, you know, make that an even more useful application.
One of the things that they're pulling in is even like weather,
like weather predictions.
What if you're going to have this many down days because of weather and that kind of thing.
(25:44):
So it's amazing what some of those applications can do. They can even pull in
from other software packages, like if you have a CRM system,
where you're tracking the lead from the bid to negotiations to the awarding,
you know, even pulling in information from your estimating and can really join
(26:05):
merge data from multiple systems and kind of see things from start to finish.
It's really powerful. yeah and that kind of thing i know
the outsourced cfo that is
on our team that we work with all the time that's the kind of stuff he can really
sink his teeth into and really yeah you know and
and those internal cfos i'm sure for your customers that's the kind of stuff
that they really want to see okay how how
(26:28):
can we move the business forward you know with all of that data coming from
all those different sources yeah that kind of leads back to to your original
question about job copy you mentioned whip report right you know in our system
we kind of refer to it as over under billing right so we do have the capability
to do it right as long as your contract and estimated cost values are updated
all your costs are in the system it's great you
know run a report at the end of the month yep here's here's where you're at compared to your.
(26:51):
You know contract whip here's your present complete here's your
earned revenue and so on so it's great but one of the other things that most
clients that i visited in those you know 15 plus years i was traveling the country
with working with clients is nobody ever has a solid a solid handle on the various
types of overhead that affect their business, right?
(27:13):
They're like, oh, yeah, our admins and what it takes to run our office.
But all of the shop-related things, right, just miscellaneous fuel and supplies
and whatever sit in the warehouse and fixing trucks, they lose sight of that.
And as part of what I did with these companies is we kind of really set up their
(27:33):
financial process to capture those dollars.
And even if they just know what it looks like from a financial perspective and don't do anything.
Or they take it to the next level and say, okay, now that we know what our running
rates are, we're going to somehow allocate that to our projects.
(27:54):
We're going to include it in bidding, and we're going to then allocate it to
our jobs based on actuals.
So now we can see, you know, when you narrow down the true cost to do the job,
right, that gives you the ability to sharpen your pencil on the bids.
When times are tough, you know, I can still go in here and I'm going to make money.
(28:15):
As opposed to if I bid it this low, I might lose. But also when times are good,
you know where you have some room to, you know, batten things up a little. Yeah, absolutely.
That's one of my favorite things to help clients do is kind of assess exactly
what you're talking about.
And it's amazing when you really start to dig in with them and ask them,
you know, it's just about asking the right questions. And we start to ask them,
(28:38):
well, you know, here, for instance, I'm in Arizona.
And so our jobs our crews we
do not have a client in arizona that doesn't just automatically have
one of their crew members go out and get ice and water every morning right
what does that cost it's a necessity yeah but is that being tracked and are
we are we thinking about that as a job cost you know it's an interesting thing
(28:58):
when you start to dig in or small tool loss how many times have your guys left
a pair of pliers on the job site worked away and it's gone right like Like,
how many small tools are you buying?
Those little things that you don't really think about as the business owner,
because you just know that it's happening.
Yeah. And you have to replace that pair of pliers. But if you're not counting
that cost and putting something back into your jobs to account for that,
(29:21):
yes, you're exactly right.
We could be losing money and not even really know where we're going.
Yeah. I mean, you know, when every job cost report shows that every job is making
money at the end of the year, you're right. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, those office salaries are too high. No, how about we focus on not losing our tools?
Right. Right. How are we incentivizing that? And how are we training on that? Right.
(29:45):
Talking to the employees about what this is costing the company and the importance
of not leaving the players behind.
Which is full circle to another niche application that's available for small tool tracking.
Right. Just to be able to say, you know, you've got an inventory of small tools
that are going out to a project, whether it's assigned to an individual or assigned
to a project in a tool chest or whatever. whatever, we know at it when the job started.
(30:08):
Yeah. Where is it? Yeah.
Yeah. And when the job's done.
What's coming back? Yeah. For sure. One of the things I think has been an interesting
journey for our team and some things that we're helping to talk to our clients
about on this subject is it's great to track it, but then what are you going
to do with that data, right?
And so I think this is a really important conversation to have around what are you tracking?
(30:32):
And it's great to have all these tools to help you track it,
but then how do you push that back down from a management level?
So this is interesting, interesting conversations, not necessarily about foundation
software, but I love to get into those conversations around like,
you know, the training of employees.
I think there are so many small businesses or that mid market kind of business
that you and I are really serving that are so focused on the work.
(30:56):
And they're maybe even tracking this data, but they don't really know how to
translate that data back into better employee training and helping their employees
really own that information.
Right. Yeah. And that's interesting. You bring that up, because that's talking
about tracking things on the detail perspective and pushing that down.
But I recently talked to prospect, right, one of our sales reps was talking
(31:16):
to this prospect, and they started getting into like the procurement side of things.
And so they wanted some information on what some of their options might be that
would work with our software if they went this direction.
And it's funny as an electrical contractor we're
talking about the ability to issue those detailed pos
what's being received and being built and she's like
(31:36):
i want nothing to do with that yeah it doesn't matter we know
when we're doing these jobs what the materials are that are needed and we have
solid pricing the dollars that we're going to spend chasing that detail far
outweigh the dollars saved by using a system like this right when we issue the
po we just we're going to send and this blanket PO.
(31:58):
These are the things we're going to need. We're going to call for these things
in certain releases and that's it.
We don't need to know that they came in and we don't need to know that we're
getting billed for those accordingly because if it didn't come in, we can't do the job.
If we have too much left over, we're going to know we're overshipped. Right.
And if we come in over cost, we can look at, is there a ton of stuff left on
(32:21):
the project? Right. Is that where the cost is at?
Or, you know, then maybe the pricing is wrong. But, you know,
a lot of these vendors, they don't want to overbill.
Right. Because it's really easy to go find someone else to provide the same
stuff. A supplier. Yeah.
It's interesting you're talking about that. We have a plumbing client,
The Profit Constructors, who was in a very similar situation.
(32:42):
They go out a lot of times on their new construction projects and will get quotes
for each project individually.
So they may be getting different pricing on certain individual parts for every
project because they're going to get that quoted at the beginning.
And the owner of the company came to me and said, I'm really positive that we're
getting overbilled on quite a few of these jobs because some of those parts
(33:03):
are being picked and it's not going out according to the quote that we got at
the beginning of the job.
I think you're probably right on that. I don't doubt that that could be happening.
But it's important to kind of take
into stock, like, what is the level of analyzation that we do need, right?
And so we had enough data on hand to, we did like a quick, I think,
three month audit, and kind of understood probably what they were losing in a year.
(33:25):
And then I went back and said, okay, what would, because her initial solution
was, let's just go ahead and hire a purchasing agent. That'll be our whole job
is to make sure we're not getting overcharged.
Sure. We did the analysis and took a look at it and said, this is what we think
you're probably losing over the course of a year.
And it's not enough to pay for that person's salary. Correct.
Let alone benefits and everything else to go along with it. Right. Exactly.
(33:45):
And so, you know, I think it is good to have a certain level of detail and be
able to understand what do we need to analyze?
But yeah, there's, it's just, it's a, it's a, it's sort of a balancing act to
determine as an owner, what do I need to track and what do I not need to track and why?
Absolutely. And every business is going to be different depending on their business
model, their customers, their employees.
(34:06):
And so it's great to have different options. For sure.
Yeah. What do you guys see as some long-term goals for Foundation?
What's happening now? How are you guys looking ahead to the future? Speak. Yeah.
So, I mean, obviously growth is certainly imperative.
We recently rolled out one of the products in our HQ suite of products is HR HQ, right? Right.
(34:29):
So with all of this payroll capability that we have, one thing we never had
was the ability to manage the people coming in.
And so that that's a big focus right now. Like I said, it's recently rolled
out, I think probably March of this past year.
And of course, you know, with any new release, right, you think you got it.
(34:51):
Even for the limited things that you're going to be rolling out and you get
it out now in the hands of the masses. and you realize everything you don't know, right?
So that's a key point there is, you know, we've got this product out there.
It needs to be, it needs to really be built.
There's a lot of feedback and a lot of action items that need to be addressed
(35:14):
as well as product enhancements, right?
You know, so we'll handle the applicants once they are coming in,
but we don't track the applicants, right?
So that's another piece that is pretty important, I think. I'm not sure where
that's at in the roadmap, about. But that's big piece.
Fintech is another big piece in the market today.
You know, our clients spend a lot of money and they receive a lot of money.
(35:37):
And, you know, historically, it's been mostly on paper.
And that's a really labor-intensive way to make payments and receive payments.
Yes. And there's a lot of fraud risk these days.
I've talked to numerous clients recently who have had checks go missing from
the mail. They get whitewashed.
(35:59):
And and they clear and you know yes they have fraud protection the bank's looking
into it they're they're you know they're not necessarily going to be responsible
for those dollars they're not going to lose those dollars but those dollars
are tied up for months during the investigation,
meanwhile the contractor they're paying or the supplier they're paying expects
to be paid so if i'm sending out you know eighty thousand dollar check and now
(36:20):
i've got to send out another one i'm out 160 grand while this thing is being
researched great i'll get it back but now i'm I'm digging into a line of credit
and so on. So it's a big mess.
And to top that off, someone's going to lose those dollars. And that's going
to cost everyone across the board. Right.
That doesn't mean that the money just came from nowhere. Correct. Right. No, absolutely.
(36:42):
So, you know, there are companies that offer payment services, right?
And they actively pursue vendors to accept, you know, virtual cards.
It's going to be the easiest and fastest way.
It comes at a cost, of course. course, but is it worth 2% to have your money
today versus having it in 15, 30, 45 days?
(37:05):
Cash flow is obviously very, very important.
Obviously, they could also do ACH. The vendor says, absolutely not.
Well, how about ACH? Great. We'll get you set up, and that's how we'll pay you
the point forward, and at least then it's electronic.
But these companies assume all of the responsibility as well.
So all I have to do is send you the information of who I want paid for which
(37:28):
invoices, how much and some other information.
And it's out of my hands.
I'm not collecting ACH data. I'm not keeping that on file. I'm not encouraging that.
Right. I don't want the PCI compliance risks, right?
Right. So, yeah, so these services are great. Again, on the receivable side,
we actually just partnered recently with a company that does processing of cards.
(37:49):
Yeah. And I've learned more in the last 18 months about credit card processing
and the fees of the different cards and the banks and the interchange and the,
you know, the rail system than I ever thought I would care to learn.
It's very interesting and it's ridiculous, but it's interesting for sure.
(38:09):
And so we've just added the ability for our clients to allow their customers
to pay their bills electronically online.
Yes. It goes right into the software. They don't have to touch it.
They just get a notification. Hey, you got one.
And it's great. And so just trying to help these clients speed their cash flow process.
(38:31):
Yeah, I think that's a great initiative that you guys are doing.
I think that's a great next step.
For sure. We work with a larger fintech company.
And they're making some concessions for us in terms of there still being a lot
of paper checks that are flying back and forth.
But really when we first approached them
on that they were like but why why would these
(38:52):
companies even want to continue that practice our bank
really doesn't want to and they laid out a lot of the reasons why
they didn't want to continue with paper checks and not
a lot of it had to do with convenience like you're talking about most
of it had to do with fraud yeah and fraud protection no
absolutely i mean the convenience is great i mean a
i don't have to print sign and stuff of
(39:14):
checks and then stamp them through
the machine and then take them to the mail right absolutely i
mean i think one of these companies said that the average cost to cut a check
and get it out the door in someone's hands is between seven and eight dollars
yes yeah that's my number with the number of checks these companies cut each
(39:34):
and every week yes yeah so that's a really great next step Yep.
And especially for, I think, this industry, I really feel like there's a big
watershed coming, a lot of technological change.
I think the construction industry has been behind, but I think there's a lot
more newer, younger folks entering the industry that are excited for that kind of thing.
(39:55):
Isn't it funny? These construction companies, right?
If it's a tool, if it's a piece of equipment, if it's something,
you know, new and flashy and it's out in the field related, they're the first
ones to get all over it. right?
It's a piece of software, like, eh. Yeah. It's just, it's, you know,
the back office is going to take care of it. It doesn't, it doesn't affect us.
(40:16):
Yeah. You know, that's changing.
It's changing a lot, particularly in the last, probably five to seven years,
I think, like, they really realized that.
Back office is not equally responsible for the profits, but there's a lot of
money lost in the back office when things aren't done right.
(40:36):
Yes, I agree. And the other piece of that, too, is that especially since COVID,
we have a far more mobile-ready workforce.
Back office doesn't necessarily have to be anywhere near a real office.
Yeah. No. I mean, if you're using a full payments automation process,
and you're outsourcing your payroll,
(41:00):
you know, our payroll service doesn't, there's no check printing,
direct depositing or anything.
I mean, you literally review the time cards, make sure everything looks good.
They are responsible for all the computations, like they can review everything
prior to hitting that button to submit it.
Make sure that everyone's hours look good, the pay rates look good.
I mean, and proof it however you need to. Right.
(41:22):
And then hand it off. We take care of the check printing for those that still get checks.
I think that is still a thing. Yeah. You know, we do all the direct deposits.
We do all of the tax recordings for states and locals, the federals.
We do some of the garnishments.
And you have your certified payroll, which is huge. Well, yeah,
but even then, you know, now you have, we don't do the certified reports as in send them.
(41:46):
Right. But the reports can be generated it out of the software,
regardless of whether they're accounting software users or just the payroll service.
The financial impact, let's say it's a QuickBooks user that uses our payroll
service, right? Because sometimes that makes sense, right? I'm a QuickBooks user.
I don't have enough revenue. I'm not big enough yet to move into your accounting
(42:07):
software, but I'm starting to get these public jobs.
And I don't know how to do the certificate reports. I'm not sure how that That works.
So you come to our payroll service and we basically get you set up on the ledger,
job cost and payroll side of our software.
Yeah. Which is great because you get your job cost reports, at least that that
(42:28):
are impacted by the payroll, which includes all of your taxes and benefits,
any of the burden that goes along with it.
You get your financial reporting that you can just take out and dump into QuickBooks.
And then obviously you get your certified reports, right? You get your workers'
comp reports, things like that.
And when they're ready to look at another more sophisticated accounting application.
(42:51):
The hardest part of their implementation is already done. Right.
To go to foundation, to just get their payables and receivables looked up and
the beginning balances and actually start doing the full gamut of accounting
through our software, it's such an easy flow.
So it's a great way to do it.
Yeah, yeah. And I just can't emphasize it enough.
(43:14):
So for many, many years, our team has said, no, we just don't even do certified payroll,
because there are so many parts and pieces information and
data coming from different areas it's just not something that we ever really
want to get into and so to be
able to to pull those reports down with a minimum of effort i think is an invaluable
piece of what you guys are doing on that payroll yeah and and one of the things
(43:36):
that people a lot of times they don't want to get into it because they're like
oh it's so expensive we can't afford to pay our guys like that i'm like but
you already offer medical insurance you already offer pay time off you have
a match on your 401k, you have a lot of the things that are already built in
to that preventing wage fringe benefit amount, right?
Did you know that you can reduce what you're paying in that cash fringe benefit
(44:01):
by what you already provide, you just have to have means to report it, right?
And as long as you can do that, it's not that much more obviously,
whatever the pay rates are different between your, your, you know,
public Public jobs versus your private jobs, fine.
But if you know what you really need and you know that you're going to use this,
you can bid competitively and you can get this work. And it can be profitable.
(44:23):
Yes, absolutely. We have a mechanical client that that's exactly how they got
their start. They're a small woman-owned business.
And it just made so much sense for them to go into those public jobs. Sure.
Now they do a lot more private jobs. But when they first started up,
public was the way to go for them. And they did really well with that for a long time.
Yeah. A lot of people are just afraid to get into the unknown.
(44:45):
Yes. Honestly. And there are a lot of resources out there to help you with that.
And I didn't know. As I started working with clients, I mean,
honestly, my degree is in communications.
Yeah. Right? I figured I'd be in advertising, public relations, something like that.
And here I am, you know, 20 some years later in construction accounting.
It's like everything that I learned, I learned from the clients for having to
(45:10):
figure out because they needed something.
And now I need to figure this out for them. And getting into that public space
and having to get more familiar with, here are your reporting requirements.
Here's what you're going to have to do. Here's where you're going to go.
So the job has all of the rates and everything defined.
If you are not a union contractor, but you're going to bid this job,
(45:32):
here are the rates you're going to have to pay if you're doing these particular activities.
And a lot of people just don't know it. And so we just stay away from it.
And you're losing a whole...
A whole lot of potential work. Yeah, absolutely. 100% agree.
Thanks so much for hanging out with us today. What would you say,
before we kind of wrap this up, what would be the one big piece of advice that
(45:54):
you would give to anyone that's kind of looking around and saying,
okay, is foundation right for me?
You know, how would you, how would someone really know that foundation is the
choice that they should pick for their accounting software?
Yeah, I mean, do diligence, right? I mean, you've got to look at all of the options, right? Right.
You know, one of our strengths now is that it's not just the accounting system that we have. Right.
(46:18):
We have the payroll service. So if you want to outsource there,
you don't need any paychecks, you know, pay loss, whatever.
You can get it all right through foundation. You need an estimating system.
Right. One of these might work for you. Right.
If not, we can take an estimated estimate file and just bring it right into
the software. It's not hard.
(46:39):
You know, what about timekeeping? Right? How do you do you collect things mobile?
Are you doing annual timesheets, we can help with that.
And we can automate how that flows into the software.
So you know, you're not just buying an accounting system, because there are
other things that you will need to create an all encompassing solution.
The other thing is to truly get a feel for the company, right?
(47:04):
Talk to other users. Yeah, look at some of the message boards that are out there, right?
I mean, we don't have a 94% retention rate, because we're not responsive,
and we don't listen, and we don't help. Yeah, right.
So that's extremely important as well. And, and be diligent in your demo process,
you know, make sure you ask good questions.
(47:27):
One of the things, there's always, this is why a lot of times the consultants
won't make good salespeople.
Because if you ask me, do you have this capability? And I'm in sales, I say yes.
Yes. If I'm in consulting, I'm like, well, we do. But how do you do this?
Because this is what it takes to do it over here.
(47:47):
Right? So you really want to be comfortable that you've seen what you need to work, work.
Yes. And also, I think, taking competitors' comments with a grain of salt. Yeah. Right?
We've had run-ins with other companies. They shall remain nameless, like Voldemort.
(48:14):
You know, sales is tough, right? Right.
So I think we try to sell on merits of the software and what it's going to do
and how we're going to take care of you, as opposed to putting down another application.
If you're talking to other people that are putting down and saying things, they could be right.
(48:34):
Talk to us. Say, hey, we were talking to another company.
They said you can't do this or the way you do it is really difficult or whatever.
Ever ask that question you know don't just don't
just take it at face value because everybody's trying
to sell yeah i think that's a really good point and i
also want to bring it back around to something that we chatted about
earlier which is i like that you guys kind of
(48:56):
know your lane right so you were saying like some of the larger gcs
that's not a great fit you know just depending on each individual
situation it might not be the very
best software and i think that's really important from the
standpoint of what you were talking about earlier your culture and your values used to know
that and to from your sales team to be seeking that
out and making sure that you guys are selling to the people that are really
(49:18):
going to get the most use out of the software that you're selling yeah absolutely
because the reputation is what we have really been selling on for 30 years right
is that the companies come on and we can scale you know you can come from a five million
startup and you're doing 50 100 million now yeah and our software handles it
(49:40):
just fine there's very little difference other than now we're going to want
to get some more detailed.
Financials how are we doing maybe we divisionalize and see what sectors of our
business are doing better over over the others but but it's very scaled and
that's the other thing really to look at is how do these other software packages
scale yeah yeah and one other piece is make sure the
(50:02):
users are involved in the analysis because a lot of times you get executives
that make these decisions and they say, Hey, this is the route we're going.
And you get the implementation people going and they're like,
well, this is how we did it over here. And this is how we're going to do it. And like, I don't know.
We're buying this because we want to do things differently. Listen,
you know, if you do go this route, listen to the implementation team because
(50:25):
they're, they're making recommendations based on how things should go,
not how things have gone. Right.
Very important. Great point. Yeah. And sometimes your change is hard.
Sure. He loves change, but there are many times when change is necessary.
If we're going to come to the next level of growth and scale for our business.
Very much. Very much. So when is it necessary?
(50:48):
And what are the reasons? Again, that goes back to that whole training thing
we were talking about earlier.
I think it's super important if you are management pushing this initiative,
like, okay, we're going to go make this big move to foundation,
letting them know it's not going to be easy.
But also having the conversations with everyone in the office,
like, what are the reasons that we're doing this?
And everyone can get on board with what those reasons are. It's going to make
(51:08):
that transition and that implementation so much more effective.
No, absolutely. And that couldn't be said any better. you
know if you guys aren't all on the same page right
like look this is what's happening it's going
to suck for the next three to five months because it
just is it's accounting you never want to change your accounting system right
but this is the goal these are the some of the things that we're looking to
(51:32):
work on and we're hoping to streamline these processes so right we need you
on board and if you're not on board we kind of need you to tell us yeah it may
be time to part hard ways.
And sometimes I think it's super effective to even ask them, what did you not like?
Because if you can find the right ways, the things that they were unhappy about
in the old method, and help them find how that new method is going to improve,
(51:55):
then they can really own that and get on board and be solid in that process. Absolutely.
Yep. That was good. Thank you so much, Brian, for having this conversation with us today.
If someone wants to know more about Foundation, how can they reach out to your
sales team and where should they go? Yeah, I mean, they can get onto our website, foundationsoft.com.
(52:15):
And pretty much anything they needed there, there's contact us,
see more demo, all of those go right into our intake department.
Again, it goes right into our inside sales to do a soft qualification.
You know, what are you looking for? Is it a good fit? All right,
we'll get you set up for a demo. What works for you?
If you're already a client and you need information on some additional products,
(52:37):
all of the products are listed out on the webpage as well.
There's no shortage of means by which to get in touch. Awesome.
Great. Well, thank you, Brian. Have a great rest of your week.
Good talking to you. Thanks, Tanya. Appreciate it.
If you would like to share your company or product on the Construction Junction,
email hello at theprofitconstructors.com to become a sponsor. Thank you.
The Profit Constructors presents Construction Junction, the junction between
accounting and construction.
Please welcome our host, Tanya Schulte.
Welcome back to the Construction Junction podcast.
My name is Tanya Schulte, and I have here with me today, Brian.
(00:27):
Brian, how do you say your last name? Is it CanSiam?
It is CanSiam. Awesome. With Foundation Software.
Brian, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely. Pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Appreciate you being here. So for those of our listeners who don't really know
what Foundation is or maybe haven't heard of Foundation,
and honestly, I'm quite surprised the number of construction companies that
(00:47):
are out there in the world trying to do accounting, struggling through various
different softwares and haven't
ever heard of Foundation. So tell us a little bit about Foundation.
How did it come to be? How did Foundation come to be?
Way back when 1984, 85, the founder of the company, Brett Odie,
was working for a local engineering firm here in the Cleveland suburban area.
(01:09):
And they decided they needed something better than what they were using.
Right. And the system was originally written on the Wang Mini Computer System.
And somehow, Somehow, Fred was able to come away with the basis of that tool
that was built for them and created
a DOS-based accounting system called Foundation Accounting Software.
(01:34):
And from there, it just grew. Our original first employee is still with us today.
We've gone through a lot of growth, a lot of changes, but just continually developing over time.
In the early 2000s, we migrated over to the Windows-based application that's
on the market today and added a lot of other products along the line.
(01:55):
About 16, 17 years ago, we took our core strength in the system,
the payroll module, and parsed that out and now offer a payroll service specifically for contractors.
And that is good, whether you're using Foundation or any other accounting system,
it's not necessarily needing to be used just with Foundation.
(02:15):
So we have many clients in the payroll service that don't even use our Foundation
software, which is great.
And and you know then since 2020
or so we've acquired a couple estimating packages that's estimating
edge and mccormick estimating we acquired
a company called harness safety and was able to rebrand that into our hq suite
(02:37):
of products so that's a whole homegrown set of tools for mobile project management
human resource management there's some executive reporting boarding,
like I said, the safety piece, and then project management, of course, if I said that.
And then most recently, we acquired About Time Technologies out in Utah and
(02:59):
their flagship product, WorkMax.
Which gives us a really powerful field
data collection tool and allows us to do timekeeping and various forms that
are in the field and have that all mesh with the back office So really created
a strong set of tools for the entire back office of a contractor.
(03:24):
I love that. So you guys started out really going after that accounting workflow,
but over time you've added on to make it, like you said, really a great suite for the whole app.
And in hindsight, you know, naming the company after the product or the product
of the company, it's kind of a killer because now we have to market foundation
software, but it's not just foundation software, it's all of these other products as well.
(03:47):
So, you know, foundation is the product versus foundation is the company.
It's an important distinction.
Yeah. Well, and having gone through a company wide rebrand over here,
just don't even try it. No, not happening.
It's like acquiring McCormick Estimate. I mean, you know, if we tried to rebrand that,
you would lose such the market recognition because it's, you know,
(04:10):
one of the foremost estimating packages in the mechanical electrical plumbing
industry, you know, and why would we do that? That would be silly.
So, yeah, no rebranding. Yeah, I love it.
What kind of sets Foundation Software apart from other accounting softwares that are out there?
Oh, you know, when you look at what you're buying, you know,
(04:31):
it's very easy to look at a piece of software and say, does it do this?
Does it do that? Does it do that?
Right? Is it going to do everything you need?
And just analyzing it from that perspective, it's, that's one piece of it, right? Right.
What sets us apart is when you start looking at not only the product,
but you start looking at also the company.
(04:53):
Right. You look at the retention, you look at the customer service response
times and just the entire culture of the organization.
We have many, many employees who have been here. I don't know how many,
but quite a few that were either here when I started back in 97 or came in shortly there.
(05:15):
Definitely, you know, people with 20 plus years, like I said,
our original developer that Fred Odie brought on to get this really moving forward.
She's still here today. day and i think that says
a lot when you have employees like that
that stick around and really focus on just
building the best company possible so it is
(05:38):
our company our culture if you come to our user conference it's just an amazing
experience you know we we deal on the internal this is probably the same at
any company right you deal day to day with the problems you know people don't
call because they're happy they call because they're having trouble doing something
or or or that they're not happy with this or that.
You get bogged down in that day-to-day. And our user conference was down in Nashville in April.
(06:03):
We had over 750 people attend, plus various vendors in our vendor pavilion.
I think we had 75 employees.
So, you know, easily 1,000 people at this event.
And the feedback that you get, the experience that everybody has,
and I know it's Nashville, it's easy to be happy, But, you know,
(06:24):
just the event and how well it was put on and how well received all of our information
was, all of our people and the customer feedback,
it kind of regrounds you to why you do what you do here when you're in the office every day.
I love that. And especially because
who you guys are serving has the same industry that our team serves.
(06:45):
And construction accounting is where I've built my entire career.
I was telling him when you and I were chatting before this episode,
I started doing construction accounting in 1997.
I was taking a community college for us, Accounting 101 in 1987,
but I also went to work for an architect and home builder and started doing
his accounts payable and then just sort of worked my way up from there.
(07:06):
So I've spent my entire career serving that industry.
And one of the things I think is fascinating about this industry as a whole,
we've talked about it here on the podcast before, they're very straightforward.
You get what you get. And so if they're telling you that they like your software,
they mean it. If they didn't like your software, they would be telling you otherwise.
Absolutely. And it's not to say that those who like it don't also have negative
(07:31):
things to say, you know, I mean, there's, hey, we really need it to do something
or, you know, this just isn't, it's not quite right.
And we listen to that. And we try to incorporate a lot of that into the direction
that the product takes. Yeah, absolutely.
Tell us a little bit more about kind of what does it look like when a client
reaches out to you guys and says, hey, I want to know more about foundation?
(07:54):
Kind of what are you guys telling them about why they should choose Foundation
as their accounting software?
Yeah, you know, first and foremost, the experience here, everybody or everything
that is involved in the process from sales and marketing, through the onboarding
implementation support, so on, it is all contained in house,
(08:14):
we do not have resellers, we don't have consulting firms that that sell or consult on this.
I mean, I'm sure there are companies out there that do consult on it,
but it's not run through us, you know, and there are plenty of people who know
a lot about it. That's great.
And some of my best implementations happened with a very up to date, CPA,
(08:35):
somebody who is involved with a company that can be more local can be a more
frequent point of contact, they take the information through these training
sessions, and they make sure that things are getting done as necessary.
But that's not to say that those don't exist. But we manage everything in house
so that we can really control the customer experience.
So, you know, if somebody is raising their hand, whether it be from a mailing,
(08:56):
an emailing, you know, a webinar that is put on, a referral,
they will come right into our sales staff for quick qualification.
If it seems like it needs a fit, they'll go right into our sales department.
They'll generally schedule an online demo.
That could be one and done. It could be a couple of different ones,
(09:17):
depending on the complexity of the client's needs.
You know, I think our sales team is pretty diligent at really looking at what
these people are asking for.
And if it's not a good fit, there's nobody's trying to force it.
Right. There are different things you can do. I mean, that's not how it's designed
to work, but we can do this and it will work.
(09:38):
And you pursue those. But when it's just, yeah, we do not do what you're looking
to do. It's not a good fit.
They'll just tell them. Let me let me ask you about that. Sorry to interrupt.
Up, but let me just ask you quickly, who do you guys describe as your ideal
client? Who is it a great fit for?
Yeah, we are designed really for a labor intensive contractor.
(09:58):
If you are a straight general contractor, basically managing the paper side
of the business, and subbing out everything, most likely not a great fit.
If the bulk of your jobs are residential, high volume, you know,
Low duration, generally not a good fit.
We're going to deal with the specialties of contractor, probably minimum of
(10:22):
$3 to $5 million in revenue.
Ideally, 20 to 25 employees out in the field, maybe less, it depends.
But a lot of these companies coming to us are coming from QuickBooks or maybe
another other construction specific application that just isn't meeting their needs.
(10:43):
Our strength is truly in the payroll processing. As I mentioned,
we started a whole payroll processing company.
But the ability to handle multi-state, multi-union, if you're doing any prevailing
wage, Davis-Bacon projects,
the ability to handle those various wage rates, the additional fringe benefits
(11:04):
that are required to be paid to those employees while working on those jobs
under certain trades or skills that...
To determine different rates, different fringes, and so on.
Not only can we handle all that, but then the reporting side,
to be able to, for lack of a better term, I guess, push a button and get a certified
(11:24):
payroll report for that week,
without having to gather all sorts of data to generate those union reports,
the workers' comp reports, all of the different things that are necessary.
So that's a huge piece. Most companies can do payables or receivables.
It's pretty simple. The payroll is what really sets it apart. I love that.
(11:45):
How do you guys handle like job costing and project management?
I know you said you do also even have a separate component, something else that
you guys acquired that handles more of that project management side.
But how does that all fit together?
And how is that happening? So that you mentioned reporting.
And one of the things that our team is always looking for is like,
can we do WIP reporting? What type of job do we get from Foundation?
(12:08):
Let's talk about that. So I spent the better part of my career here with Foundation
in the consulting realm.
So going out to clients post-implementation, whether it be six months,
a year, 10 years after, whether it's employee turnover, or just,
hey, we bought this software to do a certain thing. And like most companies...
(12:28):
You get it up and running, and you forget about all the other stuff that you
wanted and keep using your spreadsheets.
And you spend all this time before someone's just like, why are we doing this? Yeah.
So So yeah, that is that's where I spent most of my time.
So when it comes to job costing, right, everything that you do in the software,
(12:49):
from entering an invoice,
to insert in, you know, putting in time cards, billing, right,
all of that flows into the project.
So it's not only hitting the ledger for the accounting side,
but it also flows through to job costing.
Everything that you do requires the job cost of the cost class or maybe a phase if you add that level in.
(13:10):
So it's a significant amount of reporting that's required.
And it's interesting because you talk to QuickBooks users and they're not accustomed
to needing all that data.
And they're like, well, hey, why can't I just download my credit card statement and have it in here?
I'm like, well, because it's really a lot more complicated than that. You
got 100 hundred transactions you got a hundred different jobs it
could go to and within that different codes it can go to
(13:32):
and with that even is it equipment is it material
so it requires a a much more granular level of detail to get that in to get
accurate reporting compared to your budget so so absolutely job costing is is
the entire backbone of the software for sure yes financials good, you got to get them.
(13:52):
But I don't care if your books, you know, show that you're making money.
If you don't know how you're making money on your jobs, and where you could
be making more, you're missing the boat.
Yeah. So that is that's definitely an important piece.
Project management side, again, you know, we have flexible job cost reporting,
you can generate various reports, you can create reports that are not canned out the box.
(14:18):
And, you know, the system has some project management capabilities there.
A lot of companies, though, are trying to keep some of these pieces of the company
in their own silos, which is interesting,
because, you know, 10 years ago, we were trying to look for something,
everything to be in one place, something that does it all. We want everybody in one system.
(14:38):
And now it's like, you know, I don't know if I want my project managers in my accounting system.
Them right and regardless i mean if they are
it's completely secure you can define users with roles and
permissions keep them out of the areas that's supposed to be into you can literally get
it down to the report level like hey these are the reports the guy could run and because
he is the project manager on the job these are the jobs that he's able to see
so it is really easy to do but still some people are like yeah you know just
(15:04):
like hey i don't i don't really want to do this online i don't want my books
out on the intranets right yes like yeah it's really not how it is but that's
It's okay. You can think what you want.
So, yeah, so that's it. But that's why we did develop the standalone project
management piece, which does share information back and forth with the accounting piece.
(15:24):
But, again, it just kind of keeps the project management team out of the accounting software.
What all is included in that project management package? What types of project
management things can they do over there?
Yeah, I mean, from RFCs, RFIs, submittal packages, things like that,
And getting change orders, you know, put together and pushed over to the accounting system.
(15:47):
There's reporting that comes through with it.
I'm trying to think of some of the other details. It's probably one of the areas
I had the least experience in because that was that was rolled out,
you know, sort of as I was getting out of the hands on piece. Yeah.
That's why we have a sales team. Yeah. And they know more about it. Correct.
Tell us a little bit about, because you've been doing this for quite some time
(16:10):
now, Brian, and you were just mentioning, you know, 10 years ago,
everybody was like, oh, I don't
like this, that, you know, you're forcing me to buy this and do this.
And how are they going to integrate while you talk in sync?
Now that it's becoming a little bit different where people started to recognize,
oh, but if I do give people access to my accounting software,
what are the permissions that I can hand out? and maybe not seeing some information.
(16:32):
So you mentioned that. What are some other trends that you're kind of seeing
in terms of construction technology and how that's playing into choices that
your customers are making right now?
Yeah, I think AI, obviously the buzzword, right? Everybody wants to use the latest and greatest.
Right. I think it's very exciting, but you got to really look at what's the
(16:58):
practical application.
Like you don't need it for something right it's like hey i don't have to go buy you know.
Fancy bmw when i really just
have to go to the store once a day
and my little beater will work just fine right i mean what do
you need and how fancy do you need to get so i
(17:20):
think that ai is a right and in
this space so far what i have seen is accounts
payable automation that's the big one right because it's
a very labor-intensive portion of what what people do in the back office and
a lot of it's just monotonous i gotta read an invoice i've got to keep the same
(17:41):
information in over and over right vendor date invoice number amount so on and
so forth that's all stuff that can be very easily done.
But the coding of the invoice to the proper job cost code class,
the splits and things like that, it's a little bit different, right?
So tools like that, where they can receive the invoices in, have a lot of that
(18:03):
information already populated, have workflows already embedded to get those
invoices in front of the right people to finish coding,
have someone else be able to review everything prior to pushing it right into
their accounting system, that's a big trend.
A little more kind of specific you know just general niche applications that do small pieces,
(18:27):
these these pieces of software that don't want to be an entire capital system
right nobody wants to get into the payroll and if you're thinking about it i
highly discourage it it's horrible it's a it's a horrible thing oh yeah absolutely
yeah the code behind it the upkeep to stay current with With,
you know, all of the local and state taxes and just all of that, it's a nightmare.
(18:53):
But, yeah, that's it. But, you know, hey, we have a very specialized billing application.
And it's for this particular industry that tends to do things a little bit differently.
Like we can't possibly do all of that. We would spend countless years developing
something that's, you know, really relevant to such a small portion of our target market.
(19:16):
So these small applications come along that do it, they do it really, really well.
And they need to share that accounting information with, you know,
the company's ERP system, because
why should I have to reenter an invoice that I already did over here?
Like can't you already know who it is can't you kind of talk together and and
(19:36):
that's kind of a very current trend and that's what i'm dealing with you know
pretty much on that on the day-to-day here i love that so tell us more about
that it's actually one of the things that i have been.
Shouting from the rooftops since we started the profit constructors about eight
and a half years ago we decided at that time i was laughing a little bit when
you were saying i don't want all my information on the internet that's a little
(19:56):
late for that that ship has sailed right Right.
Probably shouldn't have signed up for Facebook, should you? Right. Exactly.
And maybe you should never do your banking online or even go to the bank.
But I think that one of the things that I've been saying for quite some time
is as I've seen the evolution of construction accounting all the way from back
in the day when we had the big stamps, you know, whether we're this big for all the coding to be in.
(20:20):
And, you know, one of the things that I think is really amazing about being
able to have a lot more of cloud-based software and a lot of more software interactions
is that you can do that type of thing.
You can take an ERP software and also integrate something smaller that is specific
(20:41):
to your needs and make those two things work together really well.
So what types of apps do you guys work with and kind of what are some of the
integrations that you guys have?
Yeah. So as I mentioned, AP automation is a big one, that is.
These are . We have relationships with other companies.
And when I say relationships, I mean, you know, they're very loose relationships.
(21:02):
You know, we don't try or tend to favor one over another. We're not doing a
whole lot of co-marketing.
I mean, I shouldn't say we, yeah, I don't think we even do any real co-marketing.
We may do a webinar or two, but it's more information to bring to a client, right?
You know, a lot of times, you know, as you get into these partnerships,
they're like, oh, well, you know, there's RepShare, you know,
(21:23):
we'll send you business.
Business and like that's not that's not really important to us you know that
that doesn't move our needle in the grand scheme of things right so what we
want to do is make sure that we have companies that we feel comfortable first
and foremost right we've had partnerships that,
we start hearing things from you know clients are like hey you know we're not
(21:44):
getting this or we're not getting that this isn't good to work with and and
we kind of shut it down a little bit We're not going to send somebody over here
when they don't get treated the same way that they would over here.
It needs to be the same sort of culture.
Yeah, they need to share your values. Correct. Absolutely. But,
(22:04):
you know, so AP automation, again, it's a big one.
What else? We have material procurement. It is particularly common these days
because it's a difficult process.
You know, we have the ability to do purchase orders of software and we can track
receiving against those purchase orders and we can track the billing against those receipts.
(22:25):
But it's not out in the field and it's not difficult, but it's a lot of work.
And it puts a lot of that work on people who don't really know,
like they weren't in the field.
So until they get the receiving slips into the office, they don't know they got it.
Right? The matching up of the invoice, it's fine, it works. But,
(22:46):
you know, these applications that aren't there these days, they make a little bit lighter work of it.
Because the guys in the fields are the ones who can issue these POs as they
need them, obviously can still work with purchasing in office,
depending on, you know, the extent of what they're ordering.
But, you know, they automatically have relationships with a lot of the key vendors.
So those invoices come in right through EDI, I guess, and there's some automatic
(23:09):
matching, matching of the receiving to the PO, making sure the invoicing matches the receiving.
And then those invoices just can get pushed over to the accounting software. So it's pretty good.
There are companies that are dealing with equipment maintenance and tracking,
right? So a fair amount of our contractors deal with heavy equipment.
So separating out the mechanical, right? Not the rooftop units and things like
(23:32):
that, because those aren't really their pieces of equipment.
More specifically talking about the dozers, the excavators, There's the fleets
of trucks, tracking, utilization, maintenance, repairs, things like that.
We have an equipment module, right? Companies used to be able to do that all
through our software, and that's how it would work.
But again, it's all being run by the people in the office here.
(23:52):
So they're creating these field applications that can handle this and really
just have certain bits of information that need to come into the software.
So that's kind of the trend.
Analytics is a big piece. There's a particular partner of ours that can easily
connect into a client's database and pull out anything that they want.
They have a whole canned group of reports already in a sort of dashboard type
(24:16):
thing, but it's customizable.
They can do a ton of things with it. And it's things that, you know,
I always say, you know, because people are like, well, I need to do cash flow projections.
I need you to do projections and things like that. I'm like,
you realize you're dealing with an accounting system.
We look at what happened. We don't predict what's going to happen. Right.
Right. And that is where like these types of applications can come in and really,
(24:40):
I mean, just supercharge the database that you have with all of the information you've collected.
You know, even just looking at, you know, hey, you've done 10 jobs for this customer.
You've sent out, you know, 75 invoices for them. them, the average amount of
time it takes them to pay those invoices is 63 days.
(25:03):
So you can say, hey, if you just get a million and a half dollar contract with
them, you spread that out over a 12 month period.
And here's your average billing, here's what you can predict out your cash flow.
So these things just do it. And they do it very, yeah, and that's,
that's what those are the types of companies that we look to work with that
that make that easy for customers.
That's, I love that. I was actually
(25:24):
thinking we've recently encountered a company very similar to that.
And they can pull in databases, not only from your data, but other databases as well.
And then kind of, you know, make that an even more useful application.
One of the things that they're pulling in is even like weather,
like weather predictions.
What if you're going to have this many down days because of weather and that kind of thing.
(25:44):
So it's amazing what some of those applications can do. They can even pull in
from other software packages, like if you have a CRM system,
where you're tracking the lead from the bid to negotiations to the awarding,
you know, even pulling in information from your estimating and can really join
(26:05):
merge data from multiple systems and kind of see things from start to finish.
It's really powerful. yeah and that kind of thing i know
the outsourced cfo that is
on our team that we work with all the time that's the kind of stuff he can really
sink his teeth into and really yeah you know and
and those internal cfos i'm sure for your customers that's the kind of stuff
that they really want to see okay how how
(26:28):
can we move the business forward you know with all of that data coming from
all those different sources yeah that kind of leads back to to your original
question about job copy you mentioned whip report right you know in our system
we kind of refer to it as over under billing right so we do have the capability
to do it right as long as your contract and estimated cost values are updated
all your costs are in the system it's great you
know run a report at the end of the month yep here's here's where you're at compared to your.
(26:51):
You know contract whip here's your present complete here's your
earned revenue and so on so it's great but one of the other things that most
clients that i visited in those you know 15 plus years i was traveling the country
with working with clients is nobody ever has a solid a solid handle on the various
types of overhead that affect their business, right?
(27:13):
They're like, oh, yeah, our admins and what it takes to run our office.
But all of the shop-related things, right, just miscellaneous fuel and supplies
and whatever sit in the warehouse and fixing trucks, they lose sight of that.
And as part of what I did with these companies is we kind of really set up their
(27:33):
financial process to capture those dollars.
And even if they just know what it looks like from a financial perspective and don't do anything.
Or they take it to the next level and say, okay, now that we know what our running
rates are, we're going to somehow allocate that to our projects.
(27:54):
We're going to include it in bidding, and we're going to then allocate it to
our jobs based on actuals.
So now we can see, you know, when you narrow down the true cost to do the job,
right, that gives you the ability to sharpen your pencil on the bids.
When times are tough, you know, I can still go in here and I'm going to make money.
(28:15):
As opposed to if I bid it this low, I might lose. But also when times are good,
you know where you have some room to, you know, batten things up a little. Yeah, absolutely.
That's one of my favorite things to help clients do is kind of assess exactly
what you're talking about.
And it's amazing when you really start to dig in with them and ask them,
you know, it's just about asking the right questions. And we start to ask them,
(28:38):
well, you know, here, for instance, I'm in Arizona.
And so our jobs our crews we
do not have a client in arizona that doesn't just automatically have
one of their crew members go out and get ice and water every morning right
what does that cost it's a necessity yeah but is that being tracked and are
we are we thinking about that as a job cost you know it's an interesting thing
(28:58):
when you start to dig in or small tool loss how many times have your guys left
a pair of pliers on the job site worked away and it's gone right like Like,
how many small tools are you buying?
Those little things that you don't really think about as the business owner,
because you just know that it's happening.
Yeah. And you have to replace that pair of pliers. But if you're not counting
that cost and putting something back into your jobs to account for that,
(29:21):
yes, you're exactly right.
We could be losing money and not even really know where we're going.
Yeah. I mean, you know, when every job cost report shows that every job is making
money at the end of the year, you're right. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, those office salaries are too high. No, how about we focus on not losing our tools?
Right. Right. How are we incentivizing that? And how are we training on that? Right.
(29:45):
Talking to the employees about what this is costing the company and the importance
of not leaving the players behind.
Which is full circle to another niche application that's available for small tool tracking.
Right. Just to be able to say, you know, you've got an inventory of small tools
that are going out to a project, whether it's assigned to an individual or assigned
to a project in a tool chest or whatever. whatever, we know at it when the job started.
(30:08):
Yeah. Where is it? Yeah.
Yeah. And when the job's done.
What's coming back? Yeah. For sure. One of the things I think has been an interesting
journey for our team and some things that we're helping to talk to our clients
about on this subject is it's great to track it, but then what are you going
to do with that data, right?
And so I think this is a really important conversation to have around what are you tracking?
(30:32):
And it's great to have all these tools to help you track it,
but then how do you push that back down from a management level?
So this is interesting, interesting conversations, not necessarily about foundation
software, but I love to get into those conversations around like,
you know, the training of employees.
I think there are so many small businesses or that mid market kind of business
that you and I are really serving that are so focused on the work.
(30:56):
And they're maybe even tracking this data, but they don't really know how to
translate that data back into better employee training and helping their employees
really own that information.
Right. Yeah. And that's interesting. You bring that up, because that's talking
about tracking things on the detail perspective and pushing that down.
But I recently talked to prospect, right, one of our sales reps was talking
(31:16):
to this prospect, and they started getting into like the procurement side of things.
And so they wanted some information on what some of their options might be that
would work with our software if they went this direction.
And it's funny as an electrical contractor we're
talking about the ability to issue those detailed pos
what's being received and being built and she's like
(31:36):
i want nothing to do with that yeah it doesn't matter we know
when we're doing these jobs what the materials are that are needed and we have
solid pricing the dollars that we're going to spend chasing that detail far
outweigh the dollars saved by using a system like this right when we issue the
po we just we're going to send and this blanket PO.
(31:58):
These are the things we're going to need. We're going to call for these things
in certain releases and that's it.
We don't need to know that they came in and we don't need to know that we're
getting billed for those accordingly because if it didn't come in, we can't do the job.
If we have too much left over, we're going to know we're overshipped. Right.
And if we come in over cost, we can look at, is there a ton of stuff left on
(32:21):
the project? Right. Is that where the cost is at?
Or, you know, then maybe the pricing is wrong. But, you know,
a lot of these vendors, they don't want to overbill.
Right. Because it's really easy to go find someone else to provide the same
stuff. A supplier. Yeah.
It's interesting you're talking about that. We have a plumbing client,
The Profit Constructors, who was in a very similar situation.
(32:42):
They go out a lot of times on their new construction projects and will get quotes
for each project individually.
So they may be getting different pricing on certain individual parts for every
project because they're going to get that quoted at the beginning.
And the owner of the company came to me and said, I'm really positive that we're
getting overbilled on quite a few of these jobs because some of those parts
(33:03):
are being picked and it's not going out according to the quote that we got at
the beginning of the job.
I think you're probably right on that. I don't doubt that that could be happening.
But it's important to kind of take
into stock, like, what is the level of analyzation that we do need, right?
And so we had enough data on hand to, we did like a quick, I think,
three month audit, and kind of understood probably what they were losing in a year.
(33:25):
And then I went back and said, okay, what would, because her initial solution
was, let's just go ahead and hire a purchasing agent. That'll be our whole job
is to make sure we're not getting overcharged.
Sure. We did the analysis and took a look at it and said, this is what we think
you're probably losing over the course of a year.
And it's not enough to pay for that person's salary. Correct.
Let alone benefits and everything else to go along with it. Right. Exactly.
(33:45):
And so, you know, I think it is good to have a certain level of detail and be
able to understand what do we need to analyze?
But yeah, there's, it's just, it's a, it's a, it's sort of a balancing act to
determine as an owner, what do I need to track and what do I not need to track and why?
Absolutely. And every business is going to be different depending on their business
model, their customers, their employees.
(34:06):
And so it's great to have different options. For sure.
Yeah. What do you guys see as some long-term goals for Foundation?
What's happening now? How are you guys looking ahead to the future? Speak. Yeah.
So, I mean, obviously growth is certainly imperative.
We recently rolled out one of the products in our HQ suite of products is HR HQ, right? Right.
(34:29):
So with all of this payroll capability that we have, one thing we never had
was the ability to manage the people coming in.
And so that that's a big focus right now. Like I said, it's recently rolled
out, I think probably March of this past year.
And of course, you know, with any new release, right, you think you got it.
(34:51):
Even for the limited things that you're going to be rolling out and you get
it out now in the hands of the masses. and you realize everything you don't know, right?
So that's a key point there is, you know, we've got this product out there.
It needs to be, it needs to really be built.
There's a lot of feedback and a lot of action items that need to be addressed
(35:14):
as well as product enhancements, right?
You know, so we'll handle the applicants once they are coming in,
but we don't track the applicants, right?
So that's another piece that is pretty important, I think. I'm not sure where
that's at in the roadmap, about. But that's big piece.
Fintech is another big piece in the market today.
You know, our clients spend a lot of money and they receive a lot of money.
(35:37):
And, you know, historically, it's been mostly on paper.
And that's a really labor-intensive way to make payments and receive payments.
Yes. And there's a lot of fraud risk these days.
I've talked to numerous clients recently who have had checks go missing from
the mail. They get whitewashed.
(35:59):
And and they clear and you know yes they have fraud protection the bank's looking
into it they're they're you know they're not necessarily going to be responsible
for those dollars they're not going to lose those dollars but those dollars
are tied up for months during the investigation,
meanwhile the contractor they're paying or the supplier they're paying expects
to be paid so if i'm sending out you know eighty thousand dollar check and now
(36:20):
i've got to send out another one i'm out 160 grand while this thing is being
researched great i'll get it back but now i'm I'm digging into a line of credit
and so on. So it's a big mess.
And to top that off, someone's going to lose those dollars. And that's going
to cost everyone across the board. Right.
That doesn't mean that the money just came from nowhere. Correct. Right. No, absolutely.
(36:42):
So, you know, there are companies that offer payment services, right?
And they actively pursue vendors to accept, you know, virtual cards.
It's going to be the easiest and fastest way.
It comes at a cost, of course. course, but is it worth 2% to have your money
today versus having it in 15, 30, 45 days?
(37:05):
Cash flow is obviously very, very important.
Obviously, they could also do ACH. The vendor says, absolutely not.
Well, how about ACH? Great. We'll get you set up, and that's how we'll pay you
the point forward, and at least then it's electronic.
But these companies assume all of the responsibility as well.
So all I have to do is send you the information of who I want paid for which
(37:28):
invoices, how much and some other information.
And it's out of my hands.
I'm not collecting ACH data. I'm not keeping that on file. I'm not encouraging that.
Right. I don't want the PCI compliance risks, right?
Right. So, yeah, so these services are great. Again, on the receivable side,
we actually just partnered recently with a company that does processing of cards.
(37:49):
Yeah. And I've learned more in the last 18 months about credit card processing
and the fees of the different cards and the banks and the interchange and the,
you know, the rail system than I ever thought I would care to learn.
It's very interesting and it's ridiculous, but it's interesting for sure.
(38:09):
And so we've just added the ability for our clients to allow their customers
to pay their bills electronically online.
Yes. It goes right into the software. They don't have to touch it.
They just get a notification. Hey, you got one.
And it's great. And so just trying to help these clients speed their cash flow process.
(38:31):
Yeah, I think that's a great initiative that you guys are doing.
I think that's a great next step.
For sure. We work with a larger fintech company.
And they're making some concessions for us in terms of there still being a lot
of paper checks that are flying back and forth.
But really when we first approached them
on that they were like but why why would these
(38:52):
companies even want to continue that practice our bank
really doesn't want to and they laid out a lot of the reasons why
they didn't want to continue with paper checks and not
a lot of it had to do with convenience like you're talking about most
of it had to do with fraud yeah and fraud protection no
absolutely i mean the convenience is great i mean a
i don't have to print sign and stuff of
(39:14):
checks and then stamp them through
the machine and then take them to the mail right absolutely i
mean i think one of these companies said that the average cost to cut a check
and get it out the door in someone's hands is between seven and eight dollars
yes yeah that's my number with the number of checks these companies cut each
(39:34):
and every week yes yeah so that's a really great next step Yep.
And especially for, I think, this industry, I really feel like there's a big
watershed coming, a lot of technological change.
I think the construction industry has been behind, but I think there's a lot
more newer, younger folks entering the industry that are excited for that kind of thing.
(39:55):
Isn't it funny? These construction companies, right?
If it's a tool, if it's a piece of equipment, if it's something,
you know, new and flashy and it's out in the field related, they're the first
ones to get all over it. right?
It's a piece of software, like, eh. Yeah. It's just, it's, you know,
the back office is going to take care of it. It doesn't, it doesn't affect us.
(40:16):
Yeah. You know, that's changing.
It's changing a lot, particularly in the last, probably five to seven years,
I think, like, they really realized that.
Back office is not equally responsible for the profits, but there's a lot of
money lost in the back office when things aren't done right.
(40:36):
Yes, I agree. And the other piece of that, too, is that especially since COVID,
we have a far more mobile-ready workforce.
Back office doesn't necessarily have to be anywhere near a real office.
Yeah. No. I mean, if you're using a full payments automation process,
and you're outsourcing your payroll,
(41:00):
you know, our payroll service doesn't, there's no check printing,
direct depositing or anything.
I mean, you literally review the time cards, make sure everything looks good.
They are responsible for all the computations, like they can review everything
prior to hitting that button to submit it.
Make sure that everyone's hours look good, the pay rates look good.
I mean, and proof it however you need to. Right.
(41:22):
And then hand it off. We take care of the check printing for those that still get checks.
I think that is still a thing. Yeah. You know, we do all the direct deposits.
We do all of the tax recordings for states and locals, the federals.
We do some of the garnishments.
And you have your certified payroll, which is huge. Well, yeah,
but even then, you know, now you have, we don't do the certified reports as in send them.
(41:46):
Right. But the reports can be generated it out of the software,
regardless of whether they're accounting software users or just the payroll service.
The financial impact, let's say it's a QuickBooks user that uses our payroll
service, right? Because sometimes that makes sense, right? I'm a QuickBooks user.
I don't have enough revenue. I'm not big enough yet to move into your accounting
(42:07):
software, but I'm starting to get these public jobs.
And I don't know how to do the certificate reports. I'm not sure how that That works.
So you come to our payroll service and we basically get you set up on the ledger,
job cost and payroll side of our software.
Yeah. Which is great because you get your job cost reports, at least that that
(42:28):
are impacted by the payroll, which includes all of your taxes and benefits,
any of the burden that goes along with it.
You get your financial reporting that you can just take out and dump into QuickBooks.
And then obviously you get your certified reports, right? You get your workers'
comp reports, things like that.
And when they're ready to look at another more sophisticated accounting application.
(42:51):
The hardest part of their implementation is already done. Right.
To go to foundation, to just get their payables and receivables looked up and
the beginning balances and actually start doing the full gamut of accounting
through our software, it's such an easy flow.
So it's a great way to do it.
Yeah, yeah. And I just can't emphasize it enough.
(43:14):
So for many, many years, our team has said, no, we just don't even do certified payroll,
because there are so many parts and pieces information and
data coming from different areas it's just not something that we ever really
want to get into and so to be
able to to pull those reports down with a minimum of effort i think is an invaluable
piece of what you guys are doing on that payroll yeah and and one of the things
(43:36):
that people a lot of times they don't want to get into it because they're like
oh it's so expensive we can't afford to pay our guys like that i'm like but
you already offer medical insurance you already offer pay time off you have
a match on your 401k, you have a lot of the things that are already built in
to that preventing wage fringe benefit amount, right?
Did you know that you can reduce what you're paying in that cash fringe benefit
(44:01):
by what you already provide, you just have to have means to report it, right?
And as long as you can do that, it's not that much more obviously,
whatever the pay rates are different between your, your, you know,
public Public jobs versus your private jobs, fine.
But if you know what you really need and you know that you're going to use this,
you can bid competitively and you can get this work. And it can be profitable.
(44:23):
Yes, absolutely. We have a mechanical client that that's exactly how they got
their start. They're a small woman-owned business.
And it just made so much sense for them to go into those public jobs. Sure.
Now they do a lot more private jobs. But when they first started up,
public was the way to go for them. And they did really well with that for a long time.
Yeah. A lot of people are just afraid to get into the unknown.
(44:45):
Yes. Honestly. And there are a lot of resources out there to help you with that.
And I didn't know. As I started working with clients, I mean,
honestly, my degree is in communications.
Yeah. Right? I figured I'd be in advertising, public relations, something like that.
And here I am, you know, 20 some years later in construction accounting.
It's like everything that I learned, I learned from the clients for having to
(45:10):
figure out because they needed something.
And now I need to figure this out for them. And getting into that public space
and having to get more familiar with, here are your reporting requirements.
Here's what you're going to have to do. Here's where you're going to go.
So the job has all of the rates and everything defined.
If you are not a union contractor, but you're going to bid this job,
(45:32):
here are the rates you're going to have to pay if you're doing these particular activities.
And a lot of people just don't know it. And so we just stay away from it.
And you're losing a whole...
A whole lot of potential work. Yeah, absolutely. 100% agree.
Thanks so much for hanging out with us today. What would you say,
before we kind of wrap this up, what would be the one big piece of advice that
(45:54):
you would give to anyone that's kind of looking around and saying,
okay, is foundation right for me?
You know, how would you, how would someone really know that foundation is the
choice that they should pick for their accounting software?
Yeah, I mean, do diligence, right? I mean, you've got to look at all of the options, right? Right.
You know, one of our strengths now is that it's not just the accounting system that we have. Right.
(46:18):
We have the payroll service. So if you want to outsource there,
you don't need any paychecks, you know, pay loss, whatever.
You can get it all right through foundation. You need an estimating system.
Right. One of these might work for you. Right.
If not, we can take an estimated estimate file and just bring it right into
the software. It's not hard.
(46:39):
You know, what about timekeeping? Right? How do you do you collect things mobile?
Are you doing annual timesheets, we can help with that.
And we can automate how that flows into the software.
So you know, you're not just buying an accounting system, because there are
other things that you will need to create an all encompassing solution.
The other thing is to truly get a feel for the company, right?
(47:04):
Talk to other users. Yeah, look at some of the message boards that are out there, right?
I mean, we don't have a 94% retention rate, because we're not responsive,
and we don't listen, and we don't help. Yeah, right.
So that's extremely important as well. And, and be diligent in your demo process,
you know, make sure you ask good questions.
(47:27):
One of the things, there's always, this is why a lot of times the consultants
won't make good salespeople.
Because if you ask me, do you have this capability? And I'm in sales, I say yes.
Yes. If I'm in consulting, I'm like, well, we do. But how do you do this?
Because this is what it takes to do it over here.
(47:47):
Right? So you really want to be comfortable that you've seen what you need to work, work.
Yes. And also, I think, taking competitors' comments with a grain of salt. Yeah. Right?
We've had run-ins with other companies. They shall remain nameless, like Voldemort.
(48:14):
You know, sales is tough, right? Right.
So I think we try to sell on merits of the software and what it's going to do
and how we're going to take care of you, as opposed to putting down another application.
If you're talking to other people that are putting down and saying things, they could be right.
(48:34):
Talk to us. Say, hey, we were talking to another company.
They said you can't do this or the way you do it is really difficult or whatever.
Ever ask that question you know don't just don't
just take it at face value because everybody's trying
to sell yeah i think that's a really good point and i
also want to bring it back around to something that we chatted about
earlier which is i like that you guys kind of
(48:56):
know your lane right so you were saying like some of the larger gcs
that's not a great fit you know just depending on each individual
situation it might not be the very
best software and i think that's really important from the
standpoint of what you were talking about earlier your culture and your values used to know
that and to from your sales team to be seeking that
out and making sure that you guys are selling to the people that are really
(49:18):
going to get the most use out of the software that you're selling yeah absolutely
because the reputation is what we have really been selling on for 30 years right
is that the companies come on and we can scale you know you can come from a five million
startup and you're doing 50 100 million now yeah and our software handles it
(49:40):
just fine there's very little difference other than now we're going to want
to get some more detailed.
Financials how are we doing maybe we divisionalize and see what sectors of our
business are doing better over over the others but but it's very scaled and
that's the other thing really to look at is how do these other software packages
scale yeah yeah and one other piece is make sure the
(50:02):
users are involved in the analysis because a lot of times you get executives
that make these decisions and they say, Hey, this is the route we're going.
And you get the implementation people going and they're like,
well, this is how we did it over here. And this is how we're going to do it. And like, I don't know.
We're buying this because we want to do things differently. Listen,
you know, if you do go this route, listen to the implementation team because
(50:25):
they're, they're making recommendations based on how things should go,
not how things have gone. Right.
Very important. Great point. Yeah. And sometimes your change is hard.
Sure. He loves change, but there are many times when change is necessary.
If we're going to come to the next level of growth and scale for our business.
Very much. Very much. So when is it necessary?
(50:48):
And what are the reasons? Again, that goes back to that whole training thing
we were talking about earlier.
I think it's super important if you are management pushing this initiative,
like, okay, we're going to go make this big move to foundation,
letting them know it's not going to be easy.
But also having the conversations with everyone in the office,
like, what are the reasons that we're doing this?
And everyone can get on board with what those reasons are. It's going to make
(51:08):
that transition and that implementation so much more effective.
No, absolutely. And that couldn't be said any better. you
know if you guys aren't all on the same page right
like look this is what's happening it's going
to suck for the next three to five months because it
just is it's accounting you never want to change your accounting system right
but this is the goal these are the some of the things that we're looking to
(51:32):
work on and we're hoping to streamline these processes so right we need you
on board and if you're not on board we kind of need you to tell us yeah it may
be time to part hard ways.
And sometimes I think it's super effective to even ask them, what did you not like?
Because if you can find the right ways, the things that they were unhappy about
in the old method, and help them find how that new method is going to improve,
(51:55):
then they can really own that and get on board and be solid in that process. Absolutely.
Yep. That was good. Thank you so much, Brian, for having this conversation with us today.
If someone wants to know more about Foundation, how can they reach out to your
sales team and where should they go? Yeah, I mean, they can get onto our website, foundationsoft.com.
(52:15):
And pretty much anything they needed there, there's contact us,
see more demo, all of those go right into our intake department.
Again, it goes right into our inside sales to do a soft qualification.
You know, what are you looking for? Is it a good fit? All right,
we'll get you set up for a demo. What works for you?
If you're already a client and you need information on some additional products,
(52:37):
all of the products are listed out on the webpage as well.
There's no shortage of means by which to get in touch. Awesome.
Great. Well, thank you, Brian. Have a great rest of your week.
Good talking to you. Thanks, Tanya. Appreciate it.
If you would like to share your company or product on the Construction Junction,
email hello at theprofitconstructors.com to become a sponsor. Thank you.
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