The differences between Buildr and spreadsheets for preconstruction

Buildr and spreadsheets are two popular tools that general contractors use to run their preconstruction through.

Spreadsheets are ubiquitous in nearly every industry—their customization, cost-effectiveness, and familiarity make them a fixture for housing valuable data and formulas.

Buildr, meanwhile, is a preconstruction platform built for the general contractor workflow right out-of-the-box that takes many visual cues from spreadsheets. This stylistic decision was because we knew most folks in the industry would already be familiar with spreadsheets. A transition from spreadsheets to Buildr, once the former becomes no longer suitable, would thus be simple and painless.

Rest assured that while spreadsheets don't have the functionality of a full-blown CRM or workforce planning solution, they're not completely useless. Both Buildr and spreadsheets have unique cases of value for GCs.

Let's get into the pros and cons of both systems.

General differences (and similarities)

Both Buildr and spreadsheets are cloud-based, collaborative, and offer the ability for unlimited users to access data. Where the two start to differ is built-in integrations with other construction-specific software and CRM functionalities like notifications and task & activity management.

Limited functionality makes spreadsheets better suited for housing data, rather than a data analyzer or collaborative business tool—and general contractors know that the more data spreadsheets house, the bulkier and untraversable they inevitably become.

Spreadsheets are like rabbits; they have the knack for multiplying. Depending on your company's level of organization, spreadsheets tend to have countless tabs of data that don't interact with each other, different saved versions depending on which department is accessing the data, and worst of all, no easy way to make sure that all the data in every spreadsheet that's floating around is flush across the board.

While each spreadsheet is "cloud-based" and "collaborative," the spreadsheet ecosystem as a whole is isolated.

A company whose process is built on spreadsheets necessitates an increased level of proactive communication between departments, and on occasion, individuals within the same department, just to make sure that vital information stays flush across the company. This added effort can be taxing to larger firms and can lead to assumptions and miscommunications.

This is one of the many reasons why general contractors opt to run their preconstruction through a platform like Buildr, where ever-changing project and client data stays consistent and every department stays in the loop without a second wasted to have a meeting to "catch-up" or "get on the same page."

Client Relationship Management (CRM)

When we're talking about the bare minimum of CRM functionality—dashboards, various savable views, tagging team members, revenue forecasting, opportunities, companies, and contacts—spreadsheets simply doesn't compare to Buildr. It's apples to oranges.

If you've ever experienced the nightmare that is editing a spreadsheet on your phone, you already know the largest usability gap between Buildr and spreadsheets is a mobile-friendly app, which Buildr, and every construction CRM, should provide. An excellent mobile experience is vital because business development doesn't just happen in the office—accessing opportunity data on-the-go is paramount to a general contractor's success.

Workforce Planning

When it comes to workforce [lanning, spreadsheets are outmatched by workforce point solutions and preconstruction platforms. A general contractor could theoretically jerry-rig a spreadsheet to act as their workforce "board." Such a system is precarious and doesn't have the analyzation that workforce planning software like Buildr provides out-of-the-box.

While spreadsheets are perfectly suitable for housing data, they're ineffective for analyzing that data, empower the user to make better business decisions.

Strategic workforce planning is not just about staffing jobs. It's about staffing the right jobs with the right people with regard to location, certifications, and utilization, along with gaining hiring insights.

Tentatively staffing potential jobs in your pipeline becomes that much more convoluted with spreadsheets in regards to keeping track of your overall utilization rate. This is why employing a dedicated workforce planning software like Buildr is a no-brainer for GCs looking to optimize their process.

Construction-specific

The major pro of spreadsheets is their flexibility and customization for the data capture of any industry. The cons when it comes to construction-specificity, as one could imagine, are too many to count. With spreadsheets, you lose the support, integrations, implementation, and product roadmap of a software specifically designed for general contractors.

Have you ever had someone at Microsoft call you out of the blue to make sure your preconstruction team was getting the most out of your spreadsheets?

In Conclusion

In the end, the phrase "You get what you pay for," applies to spreadsheets. Whether it's spending the time yourself to customize spreadsheets to fit the complicated construction workflow or hiring a third-party to do it for you, "cost-effective" spreadsheets quickly snowball into an expensive endeavor.

Primary shortcomings of spreadsheets

• No CRM/project management/workforce planning functionality
• No ability to analyze or interpret data for better business decisions
• Edited data does not stay flush across every spreadsheet/tab
• Product updates are not built with general contractor needs/wants in mind
• Poor mobile experience

For most GCs optimizing processes with regards to a successful future, the graduation from spreadsheets to proper preconstruction software isn't an "if" but a "when." Once a general contractor's business reaches a certain level of maturity and volume that makes housing and interacting with data in spreadsheets far too impractical, they embark on the arduous platform switch and data transfer.

Note: Buildr makes the data transfer process easy and free, well-aware that GCs will level up from spreadsheets eventually.

For general contractors operating at a small enough volume, it's conceivable that spreadsheets could cut it for certain preconstruction processes. Better processes make happier employees and with an already dire labor shortage, you would never want a former team member to say something like "The way we did things at my last gig... let's just say, we used spreadsheets."

To dig more into a general contractor's benefits of upgrading from spreadsheets to a construction-specific CRM, check out our blog.

For a personalized walkthrough of the Buildr platform by a product expert, see a demo.

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