How To Centralize Construction-Related Documents & Share With Ease Across Multiple Businesses 

The residential construction industry relies on so many documents — architectural and engineering plans, specifications, site measurements, contracts, purchase orders, change orders, materials lists, progress reports and photographs, warranty agreements… And as if this isn’t overwhelming enough, as a builder you are responsible for sharing these documents with a large number of project team members, internal and external. Project managers, salespeople, accounting staff, trades and suppliers all need information. Construction document management is an important part of your day-to-day operations. 

Too Many Applications With No Central Location For Documents 

Where do all of these documents live and how do your team members get access to them? Lack of a centralized document location causes problems for many builders. Most have switched from paper files to digital document management, but this doesn’t solve everything. You may still have multiple applications where documents are created and stored and multiple platforms across which they need to be shared. You may have to duplicate and move documents many times to get them to everyone who needs them. There may still take a lot of repetitive steps just to file your documents, such as manually creating new folders for each new lot. These issues are time-consuming. Maybe it doesn’t take long to find that one document you need today, to print or email it, or to manually create a new folder for it, but if you have dozens or hundreds of projects per year, each of those wasted moments is part of a significant time suck. 

Difficulties With Ease of Sharing Documents 

Some of the worst problems come in trying to share documents. It is essential that everyone involved in building a new home is working with the same information. Most costly delays occur because the ball has accidentally been dropped — someone was missed on the list of contacts or doesn’t realize they are working from outdated documents. If, for example, the crew installing rebar and the crew pouring concrete aren’t on the same page, your foundation could be ruined. If the homeowner requests a plan change and you alter the plan documents to reflect that, it still won’t happen unless the framer sees it. With the number of change orders that happen in residential construction and the high level of coordination that’s required, sharing documents becomes a very time-consuming and error-prone process. 

The only way to ensure that every team member in the office and the field is working with the same, up-to-date documentation is to have a real-time central document management location accessible to all.  

Centralize & Share With Document Management Software 

Hyphen’s Document Management feature within BuildPro solves construction project document management issues by digitally centralizing all construction-related documents. With BuildPro, you gain:

Automation — When a home is loaded from an ERP into BuildPro, it automatically creates a folder within BuildPro, eliminating the need to manually create folder organization and structures.

Ease of Sharing — You upload, share, store and retrieve digital documents instantly via the cloud. You can easily share documents in real-time with anyone inside your office and with trades and suppliers. 

Accountability and Collaboration — Whenever a folder is opened on SupplyPro or BuildPro, name stamps and time stamps are recorded. When changes are made to documents, they are observable by anyone with document access. Historical records of changes are maintained automatically.

Security — You control who has access to which documents. Only authorized document managers can update, edit or delete documents or folders.

Multiple Formats — BuildPro’s construction document management software is compatible with all major formats, including Word docs, PDFs, RTFs, GIFs, JPGs, DWFs, TIFFs, hyperlinks and more. 

Learn More About Centralizing Construction-Related Documents With Hyphen’s BuildPro 

BuildPro connects home builders with contractors, trades and suppliers on a single platform. It takes residential construction scheduling and supply chain management online, providing real-time information with accuracy and efficiency. You can execute home-build projects in less time with less effort than ever before by using BuildPro to receive and approve bids, schedule suppliers and approve purchase orders. 

Document Manager within BuildPro empowers builders to digitally centralize and organize all construction-related documents on the same platform they use for scheduling. 

Learn more about Hyphen’s BuildPro solution or schedule a demo today.