What are the big EC’s using to track material? Are they using software or doing it by hand? Are they tracking it by PO number and using a PO process? Does anyone know how that works?
What about for service trucks with a lot of tedious turnover between service calls and small remodel jobs that might have some truck stock and some material ordered specifically for the job?
If nobody has a good solution yet that leads me to my next question: Am I the only who wants what I am describing, or if I could write (and/or hire out) software to handle this, does it sound like something you would buy?
I am currently using QuickBooks Pro and have been researching the possibility of creating an Access database for entering in receipt data etc. with the ability to add a bar-code scanner that will tell me what material is where at anytime. I have found a way to make all the different software talk to each other, but it is going to take quite a bit of coding and research into how QuickBooks works. Job Costing would be done in Access pulling customer and invoice info from QB. I would track time & material spent on jobs by employee, invoice and/or estimate number, change order no. etc. Ultimately I want to view profitability many different ways to pick out trends. A particular employee is consistently more profitable, a particular contractor is consistently less profitable, a particular week went really well. Then I can look back to analyze what we did right or wrong in different situations. Isn’t this stuff you want to know, or have you resigned to it being to cumbersome to consider wanting it?
