Specialty Contractors have enough things to worry about during a project. Add in managing Time and Material Tickets and Change Order Requests on top of that and, well, you can start to see why the construction industry has one of the highest stress levels among all professions in the United States.
Consider the traditional way most contractors handle field-directed extra work. T&M Tickets are typically written on paper, which then have to be signed by a General Contractor on-site, then taken back to the office, priced, and submitted as a Change Order Request for approval. While this process might sound simple enough, there are tons of manual steps that can be optimized with best practices and software.
It’s probably no surprise that, on average, Specialty Contractors take 30 days to price T&M Tickets. This not only delays cash flow and presents an opportunity for lost revenue, it also creates opportunities for blind spots and surprises with General Contractor customers. This often leads to further delays in the approval process and frayed relationships.
The good news? It doesn’t have to be this way.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss seven actionable tips to help Specialty Contractors get their T&M Tickets and associated Change Orders processed and closed faster, with insights on how Clearstory can streamline these processes.
1) Eliminate Paper and Use a Digital Solution
Traditional Approach: The vast majority of contractors today still rely on carbon copy to track field-directed extra work. While this approach works on some level, it is riddled with pitfalls such as bad handwriting, lost documents, coffee stains, delays in transportation time, and much more. Eliminating paper T&M Tickets and switching to digital tools can dramatically speed up your process. Even using simple, fillable PDF forms can standardize your documentation, eliminate issues with illegible handwriting, and present professional-caliber documentation. This standardization makes it easier for GCs to quickly review and approve T&M Tickets, ultimately reducing processing time.
How Clearstory Helps: Clearstory takes this a step further by providing a purpose-built, cloud-based solution that not only digitizes T&M Tickets but also integrates them directly into your Change Order process. Clearstory’s platform ensures that every ticket is clear, legible, and instantly accessible by all necessary parties, eliminating the risks associated with paper-based processes and making your company look more professional to GCs.
2) Take Photos of Your Work
Traditional Approach: Pictures are worth a thousand words, and often describing work on a T&M Ticket is challenging even for the best foreman. Including photos as backup documentation for your T&M Tickets can significantly support your work. Photos help tell the story of the work completed and provide visual evidence that can expedite approval. However, manually attaching photos to paper or PDF T&M Tickets can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Even taking smartphone pictures can be error-prone or disorganized if you’re then texting or emailing those photos and then downloading them to a computer and then trying to match them to work performed and the actual T&M Ticket they should be coupled with.
How Clearstory Helps: With Clearstory, capturing and attaching photos is seamless. The mobile app allows you to snap before and after photos, time-lapse images, and other documentation directly within the T&M Ticket process. All these visual elements are automatically included in the T&M PDF package, ensuring that your submission tells a comprehensive story, which makes the approval process smoother and faster.
3) Create a T&M Log for Every Project
Traditional Approach: Do you have a complete view of all the signed and unsigned T&M Tickets on every project? The traditional way to solve this is to create a separate T&M tracking log and manually log every T&M Ticket to ensure you have a complete picture. Manually tracking T&M Tickets is often overlooked, leading to delays when it’s time to compile and submit Change Order Requests. Creating a dedicated T&M Log that records every ticket as soon as it’s generated can help you keep track of all outstanding T&M items, preventing them from being forgotten or delayed.
How Clearstory Helps: Clearstory automates this process by automatically generating a T&M Log whenever a ticket is created. This cloud-based log provides real-time summaries of labor hours and approval statuses, and it can be shared with your GC through a secure, shareable link. This transparency reduces surprises and keeps all parties aligned, significantly speeding up the approval process.
4) Speed Up the Time to Get T&M Tickets Back to the Office
Traditional Approach: One major delay in processing T&M Tickets and Change Orders is the time it takes to get signed tickets back to the office. Traditionally, you’re hand-carrying and routing tickets to the supervisor for signatures, then physically driving all of those paper slips back to the office. Implementing a simple process, such as taking a photo of the ticket and emailing it immediately, can help speed up this step. Ensuring that tickets are quickly recognized and queued for pricing can save days, if not weeks, in the overall process.
How Clearstory Helps: The second a T&M Ticket is created in the field, it is simultaneously logged back in the home office so project management has instant visibility. These tickets are instantly sent to your office queue, where they are automatically logged and ready for pricing. This real-time capture ensures no tickets are lost in transit, significantly reducing delays.
5) Have a Streamlined Pricing Process
Traditional Approach: Once T&M Tickets reach the office, they’re often stacked on a pricing desk somewhere, with a vague hope that the pricing manager or accounting department will be able to decipher, transcribe, and accurately price the T&M Ticket or group of Tickets into a Change Order Request. Having an organized and efficient pricing process is crucial. Ensure that your team has access to approved labor, material, and equipment rates and uses standardized templates to transcribe values from the tickets. This organization can help speed up the pricing process, reducing the time needed to submit the Change Order Request.
How Clearstory Helps: Clearstory dramatically simplifies and accelerates pricing by storing all your labor, material, and equipment rates within the platform. With the click of a button, you can batch-select multiple T&M Tickets and instantly price them into a Change Order Request. Clearstory automatically stores your markup rates, and creates a complete Change Order Request package with all the T&M Tickets, backup documents, and pictures. Clearstory’s automation ensures that the pricing process is both accurate and swift, leading to faster submission and approval.
6) Package and Assemble Supporting COR Documentation
Traditional Approach: The best practice for submitting a Change Order Request from T&M work is to create a complete PDF package that includes the Change Order Request cover sheet outlining the costs, and attaching the signed T&M Tickets and any related documents such as drawings, RFIs, submittals, vendor invoices, etc. The COR cover sheet needs to be saved as a PDF from Excel or a financial software, then that PDF file needs to be opened and have each supporting document manually inserted behind the cover sheet. While this process can be tedious, the more organized the overall package is, the easier it will be for your General Contractor to review and approve your Change Order Request.
How Clearstory Helps: Clearstory automates the packaging and assembly of all necessary documents, generating a comprehensive PDF package that includes photos, signed T&M Tickets, and any additional backup. You click one button, and the system generates a preview of the PDF package so you can review it in its entirety before submitting it to your customer without having to do any exporting. This automation ensures that your submission is thorough, professional, and ready to be sent with minimal manual effort, speeding up the entire approval process.
7) Leverage Digital Signatures
Traditional Approach: Obtaining signatures on paper T&M Tickets can be a bottleneck, especially if the GC’s superintendent isn’t available on-site. Implementing digital signature tools can help capture these authorizations easily, ensuring that all necessary approvals are obtained quickly.
How Clearstory Helps: Clearstory’s platform includes built-in digital signature capabilities, allowing you to capture signatures directly on your foreman's mobile device. If your customer is off-site, you can send them a digital signature request just like you would with DocuSign. This feature not only speeds up the approval process but also ensures that all signatures are securely stored and easily accessible for future reference, reducing the risk of disputes. You can also configure a distribution list so the GC project manager or engineer immediately gets a copy of the signed T&M Ticket, eliminating surprises or blindspots.
Conclusion
By following these seven tips, Specialty Contractors can increase team productivity, reduce revenue at risk that might be lost in the current process, and dramatically improve cashflow. While traditional methods offer some opportunities for improvement, adopting a modern, purpose-built solution like Clearstory can streamline the entire process from start to finish.
Clearstory offers a free no risk pilot program to test our solution on your projects. To schedule a demo with our team, click the link here.
