Last editedOct 20222 min read
Working in the construction industry can mean fighting a never-ending battle to maintain liquidity. Notoriously slender profit margins, high operating costs and lengthy billing cycles can make it very difficult for firms to maintain a healthy cash flow. Xero is an extremely useful tool to improve visibility of your company finances, automating functions like invoicing and payroll and connecting to your live bank feed. It allows for both cash and accrual-based accounting systems, so can benefit companies adhering to both UK GAAP and IFRS.
What’s more, Xero has thousands of integrations that can help to improve operational efficiency, prevent wasteful spending, make workflows more efficient and allow faster payment.
Using GoCardless and Xero for construction companies
GoCardless and Xero integrate seamlessly to enable faster payments whenever you send an invoice to a client.
Attach a GoCardless payment link to your Xero invoices, helping to facilitate quicker and easier payments without card fees viaInstant Bank Pay. This saves time chasing up unpaid invoices and can improve your company’s liquidity.
There are several more Xero apps for construction that are built around the specific needs and challenges of the industry.
Let’s take a look.
Xero Projects
While there are many third-party Xero construction apps, its own offering has some impressive functionalities.
Xero Projects enables you to estimate project costs, create budgets with granular accuracy, generate customisable quotes in minutes and track how your team is spending its time, no matter where you are.
Xero Projects also integrates with other project management software like Trello, syncing job cards automatically for more accurate client invoicing.
You can also send and customise invoices and view the profitability of each job at a glance.
WorkFlow Max
WorkFlowMax is another tool designed to ensure that both workflows and cash flows are harmonious. While it is designed to suit the needs of a broad range of service providers, this can be used to great effect as a Xero construction app.
It features lead and client management tools to help you manage your pipeline more effectively, tools to create customisable invoices and purchase orders, and timesheet management tools to ensure that your team’s time is put to good use.
Seamless integrations with Xero ensure that data is transmitted to the platform in real time to ensure financial transparency.
Fergus
Fergus is one of the most popular Xero add-ons to the trade because it is designed by tradespeople for tradespeople. It is a one-stop resource with everything you need to run your firm more efficiently, whether you’re a sole trader doing odd jobs or a medium-sized firm with dozens or even hundreds of employees.
Fergus handles everything from the estimate stage to the invoice stage with job scheduling, on-site work management and even its own communications platform to stay in touch with teams.
Nextminute
Nextminute is an all-in-one Xero construction app for firms that need a centralised platform to manage projects. With Nextminute, keep up with timesheets, quotes, orders, invoices, schedules and more, as well as being able to manage images, blueprints, receipts and other files, transmitting data to and from Xero in real time.
Tradify
Another app made specifically for tradespeople, Tradify is designed to reduce the amount of time spent on tedious admin to make project management quicker, easier and more effective.
Used by over 25,000 tradespeople across the world, it lets you manage enquiries, create and send quotes, track jobs, create timesheets and invoices, manage teams and more.
It even offers a free 14-day trial with no need for a credit card.
We can help
GoCardless is a global payments solution that helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of financial admin your team needs to deal with. Find out how GoCardless can help you with one-off or recurring payments.
