Ragic Construction Management Template by R&R Automation: Confronting Real-Time Challenges of Construction Business

From User to Partner

In 2018, R&R Industries a 75-year-old commercial roofing company started utilizing Ragic, building a system that transformed the day-to-day operations of their roofing company. The lightbulb moment came when R&R’s CEO, Guy Beasley, was chatting with a potential investor. The investor was amazed at the level of financial insight related to their forecasted revenues, and asked, "Where did you get those numbers? We have clients making millions, and they don't have stats like yours."

Typically, a CRM will give you insight into your sales pipeline, and your accounting platform will provide information on what has happened (i.e., general profit and loss). However, R&R was able to provide data-driven forecasted revenue because of the functionality they built into Ragic.

This got them thinking – with the unique combination of their technical expertise and roofing industry experience, they could help other companies go digital and optimize their operations with Ragic. Hence, they transitioned to become Ragic Partner. Later in 2021, the owners of R&R Industries Roofing partnered with Dave Howard and Angie Masini to form a new company - R&R Automation, which focuses on assisting other roofing and construction companies in digitalizing their business process workflows in Ragic.

After some time working with Ragic, they zeroed in on this Construction Management Template. Originally designed to replicate their Ragic system for other roofing companies, they soon realized Ragic's flexibility could cater to almost every need, and they didn’t need to limit this template only to roofing companies. It can be leveraged for work for all the various trade industries such as plumbing, electrical, HVAC, fencing, big landscape projects, and even general contractors handling various trades at once. It's a fit for both residential and commercial customers, taking a specialized tool and turning it into an all-in-one solution.

This Construction Management Template Solves Sales, Production, and Operational Challenges

When Angie Masini, the former Chief Operating Officer, joined R&R Industries, she realized the chaos of not having a system to handle their sales and production management.

“Sometimes, the Sales Team committed to a job without knowing that the Production Team didn’t have the crew capacity, and/or the Production Team was not at the job site when they were promised to be. There were instances when a job with a low margin was prioritized, and the realization that they were losing money only hit after completing the project, and so on. There was no job accountability, schedule visibility, or real-time job costing—everything was completely disjointed, and critical information was siloed within departments.” Angie realized that without an enterprise-level system that could coordinate the sales pipeline, production activities, and future financial forecasting, they would never be able to run the business smoothly due to the lack of real-time data for proactive decision-making.

But then, when it comes to choosing a system, one of the challenges is acquiring a system tailored to specific industry, but without excessive cost or end-user complexity. This is especially true for construction companies, where the end-users are often on the novice side of technology. The fear of investing a significant amount in a system that may not ultimately meet their needs and the consideration of how much time is spent preparing the system—time that could have been allocated to doing the 'real job'—these factors often hold companies back from making the leap from pen and paper and siloed documents to a centralized company-wide platform. This reluctance results in maintaining the status quo, sticking to the 'let's just get it done with what we have' approach to business operations.

Adoption in Days Instead of Months

Roofing and Restoration of Florida, a construction company that launched in 2023, has seamlessly implemented this template, allowing them to effortlessly track their sales cycle, manage estimates, and kickstart production for sold jobs. John Carr, President of Roofing and Restoration said, “Without this template, the process would have required an extensive amount of time documenting requirements and preparing a tool. With 90% of its functionality already aligned with our construction needs, the template facilitated a swift start, enabling us to focus on the crucial task of launching our business.”

The remaining 10%? R&R Automation is a Ragic Partner that is open for project discussion. Should you require specific adjustments to better align with your workflow, R&R Automation can serve as your dedicated Ragic consultant, providing tailored solutions without necessitating extensive time and financial investments.

How Is This Template Unique From Other Construction Management Tools?

1. Areas of Centricity

This template provides a unique tri-centricity approach for data management. The Ragic Construction Management Template seamlessly integrates CRM (lead, opportunity, and customer management), production/project management, and property management into one intuitive application suite. Having a multi-faceted approach to information organization for a construction company provides powerful analytics to the Sales and Production Teams, as well as back-office support.

- Customer/Account-Centric:

The template displays the complete bid and job history for a specific customer, including win ratio and margins, enabling the company to analyze which projects could be expedited or chosen to work on based on the customer’s history. For example, if a loyal customer needs urgent service, the process can be expedited. Conversely, if a bid opportunity has a low win ratio or historically low margins, it should be reconsidered and could be passed on.

- Property-Centric:

With this template, all work ever performed for a building is visible, regardless of the client. This functionality allows tracking when warranties are about to expire. It creates an additional sales pipeline for the Service Department to negotiate extended maintenance agreements. Furthermore, the Gutter Division can review all roofing work performed, forming a subsequent sales pipeline for them as well.

- Project-Centric:

With the essentials tracked above, this template also provides an overview of projects, scheduling, and important status indicators, allowing for comprehensive project management and ensuring all projects proceed as planned and on time.

This template enables real-time job costing analytics so that decisions can be made proactively to course-correct a job that is going over budget.

2. Overall Cost Cutting

This template presents a cost-effective solution, and reasonable subscription price based on the required number of licenses for construction companies to manage their full-cycle workflow. In fact, the sales front end of this template replaced SalesForce, saving R&R Industries thousands of dollars per year. By eliminating the need to build a system from scratch, it addresses the significant cost burden in both money and time. This streamlined approach, developed with industry expertise, replaces the aftermath of misguided project prioritization and margin mismanagement, putting the company's workflow in order.

3. Tangible KPIs

- Sales Trends

Average Win Ratio Per Customer, Customer Lifetime Value, Average Gross Margin, Average Sales Cycle

This allows the Sales and Production Teams to evaluate the types of work that are the most profitable, impacting marketing targets and prioritizing the types of work they want to do. As the CEO of R&R Industries Guy Beasley said, “Doing more of what you are good at, and less of what you are not good at is a core component in growing our business. With Ragic, we now have the data to make these decisions.”

- Production Efficiency

Total Days from Contract Signed to Job Completion (With every step clear for how many days is the contract signed to the job turned over to production, to it starts, and completion)

All of these are indicators of how efficiently the Production Team is managing available crews, schedules, and even purchasing lead times.

For instance, in roofing jobs measured in squares (10'x10'), a 100-square job taking 10 days and a 200-square job taking 12 days may indicate an efficiency issue on the smaller job. Delays can signal skillset problems with the assigned crew, presenting an opportunity for training and production improvement.

- Cost and Revenue

Dave believes that data-driven metrics are the key.

“Having a system of reference is key to any business large or small that wants to operate better and provide better service to their clients and partners. In a few short months after implementing this template, the data captured will begin to expose areas of the business that are operating well, as well as areas that need tweaking, and even processes that may need a complete overhaul or even need to be scrapped. Making decisions based on your gut is ok. Making decisions with your gut supported by data-driven metrics is even better.”

Accumulating data allows for the analysis of cost and revenue per square in roofing projects. This information proves invaluable for sales managers and estimators when creating accurate bids. Applying these key performance indicators (KPIs) to different divisions reveals which types of work generate the highest profits. Data in Ragic is relational in nature, meaning that you can filter any of these KPIs to fine-tune performance, such as viewing margin performance by job type, size, or even internal divisions.

How Being the Person in the Industry Helps with Fine-Tuning This Template

In construction, knowing the industry but lacking tech skills can make it hard to turn needs into a digital workflow. Conversely, having tech know-how but no industry insight means not knowing what construction companies truly need. Angie and Dave excelled in building this template because they were able to leverage the roofing and construction expertise of their partners from R&R Industries, along with their significant years of experience in technology process re-engineering. Their blend of tech and construction expertise allows them to add and tweak vital details that matter to construction companies. It's this perfect blend that sets their template apart, addressing construction needs with clarity and precision.

1. Functionality at Your Fingertips

With the Google Maps integration in this template, when the Property Address is entered, the full address is automatically generated via a formula.

And an aerial view of the building is automatically embedded as an image in the Detailed Property Information Tab.

Additionally, when the Property is linked to an Opportunity/Job, the distance, time, map, and directions are automatically populated. This is very helpful to incorporate a fuel surge charge as part of the estimate.

2. What You Need, Where You Need It

R&R Automation understands that many construction companies need user-friendly and intuitive applications for company-wide adoption. However, creating a 'simple' template wasn't feasible due to the complexity it handles. Drawing from their experience at R&R Industries, team members use Ragic differently, tailoring it to their roles. For instance, the Head of Production focuses on finances and scheduling, while the Head of Sales looks at close dates and performance. To meet these diverse needs, the template is customized for various roles, ensuring value for every employee's specific tasks.

Eric Frate, Vice President of Sales and Estimation at R&R Industries Roofing, said, “As someone who used SalesForce and many MS Excel-based programs the flexibility of Ragic and the ability to customize to our specific needs is invaluable. I have been a power user for years and the possibilities are endless. It’s a great time saver and productivity enhancer.”

To enhance the user experience, the User Guide is directly embedded within the template and placed according to relevance and intended audience. Users can easily access the guides when needed, avoiding the hassle of searching through documents. This approach increases the likelihood of users referring to the guides, eliminating the need to hunt for information as if searching for a needle in a haystack.

Go to Ragic Template Library and search for "Construction Management" to download this template. This template will allow a 30-day free trial for you to try it out before deciding whether it is a suitable system for you. Before downloading, register for a free Ragic database account. You won’t have to enter your credit card information, so you never have to worry about being charged without your consent.

About Ragic Construction Management Template by RR Automation Solutions