Are you a dynamic, forward-thinking architecture business looking to utilise technology to grow your practice?
As an architecture firm, you’re likely using technology to deliver outstanding, bespoke projects for your clients. And your finances should be no different. There’s a range of financial technology you could be using to gain huge efficiencies in your practice. Implementing the right financial software can help boost your profits and help you manage your projects more efficiently, saving you valuable time and money.
We know financial planning will probably never be the most exciting part of your job, but having the right systems in place can make a real difference between getting by and maximising your success.
Here we’ll give you a run-through of the best financial software and how you can use it to grow your architecture firm. 🚀
Streamline your accounting with Xero
Time is valuable when you run an architecture firm. But with the right financial software, you can maximise your team’s productivity and cut time wasted on chasing invoices, logging expenses and managing finances.
Enter Xero!
Xero is intuitive online accounting software that automates everyday business tasks. You can streamline admin tasks, pay staff quickly and smoothly, and get up-to-date financials from anywhere. Xero also plugs in to over 800 other business apps, allowing you to manage just about any aspect of your firm. With Xero doing the heavy lifting, and your accountant managing things remotely, you can ditch spreadsheets and spend more time on what you love.
What’s more, you can manage your client projects all within Xero, using Xero Projects, an add-on that works inside of Xero. With Xero Projects, you can link invoices, bills and transactions to a project, allowing you to see the profitability of every project.
There are a range of intuitive tools built into the product, so you can manage budgets, costs, staff time and profitability, as well as how you’re doing compared to estimates, giving you an easy way to track all your client projects and boost your team’s productivity.
Manage projects more effectively with WorkflowMax
Managing multiple projects all at once? As your firm grows, your project management needs will grow too, so the systems you initially developed might not be as efficient now.
If you’re looking to up your game and streamline your project workflow, look no further than WorkflowMax, software for managing jobs from start to finish. Track leads, quotes, and invoices as well as coordinating work with staff, clients, councils, engineers and other subcontractors. WorkflowMax also integrates with other popular apps like Dropbox, Xero and Hubspot, so you can streamline your whole business.
Having an all-in-one system like WorkflowMax will ensure consistency at every stage of a job, maximising your workflow and helping you take your firm to the next level.
Streamline your bookkeeping and expenses with Receipt Bank
With clever apps like Xero and WorkflowMax, you can really harness your financials to get a clear overview of your business, helping you make decisions on how best you can grow. But to make good decisions, you need good data. This is where bookkeeping comes in.
With bookkeeping software like Receipt Bank, you can snap a photo of receipts on your phone and instantly upload them to your accounting software, saving you time and endless piles of paper receipts. After you’ve uploaded your receipt, the software will scan it for key information. All that’s left to do is review and publish to your accounting software. You’ll never have to manually enter data from receipts again!
Make more confident decisions with Float
As an architecture firm, you might have periods where business is slow, and other times where you’re working on multiple projects at the same time, which can negatively impact your cash flow. But with proper financial planning, and the right tools in place, you can prepare for best and worst-case scenarios, and stay ahead of the curve.
Just as you would model out a potential project in 3D to test it before building, cash flow forecasting software can help you visually model future scenarios for your practice. Looking at any ‘what-if?’ situation, you can see how that would play out, visualising the impact on your business.
At Complete HQ, we use Float with our clients, cash flow forecasting software that gives you a real-time, up-to-date picture of money in and out. With Float, you can test out future plans and model the impact they might have on your cash flow. And just as you would use virtual reality technologies to walk around a project in ‘real time’, Float will help you model your cash flow in real time, in a highly visual way, so you can always base your decisions on the most up-to-date information.
You might be looking to hire a new architect or take on some new domestic refurbishment projects. With Float, you can play those scenarios out before they happen and estimate their financial impact, giving you the confidence to make the right decisions.
What next?
When used correctly, technology can be one of the best ways to tighten processes, boost productivity and grow your architecture firm. A proactive accountant can introduce you to these pieces of tech and show you how to use them to grow your business.
At Complete, we work with a range of businesses in the construction industry, so we know the ins and outs of collaborating on projects, working with subcontractors and managing jobs, and the best tools in the marketplace that can help you take your firm to the next level.
If you’d like to find out more about using tech to grow your firm, drop us a message and we’d love to help.
