A quick Google search for a job management system for trades and service businesses can turn up loads of recommendations. Great, this means you have lots of choices. But how do you decide which system is right for you?
How To Choose The Right Job Management System for Trades or Service Businesses.
To help you decide which software solution to go for, you will need to work out what you want based upon functionality and usability. Then you can identify the software providers who deliver what you want, or at least, most of it.
The Software Buddy approach is to ask yourself:
What do I want to work well for me in the next 24 months?
and
How do I want my staff to work?
This list then becomes the basis of the must-have features.
Once you know what you want, you can identify the software offerings that will be able to do this for you.
Your next consideration then is; what are the added extras which are nice to have but aren’t necessary.
These additional features could be added to your system as add-ons at a later stage, dependent on investment. Yet, in the meantime, this may help you whittle down which software solution to start with now.
Online software is developing so quickly that what you choose now does not necessarily mean it will be the same in 24 months’ time. Really, the software is likely that it will have been improved massively. With additional functionality brought in.
A lot of software houses publish, a road-map, i.e. what they have developed to date, and what they are going to develop in the future. In some cases, these are timetables with dates when they get closer to publishing. It is a good idea to take a look at the road-maps of those which do say 80% of what you want to see if they have already got the future functionality planned in.
From the Software Buddy point of view, we also want to look at the company behind the software; understand their background, their funding (a lot of them are still under venture capital and therefore not yet profitable) and checking for their stability in the form of industry awards and accolades, again seeing who has backed them.
We know that it can be quite a big leap to go from manual operating via spreadsheet into full-blown job/project/construction management. Software Buddy has worked with many companies where we have eased that transition by starting up with a more simpler job management program first before then going a more advanced system.
This way you can test how you and your teamwork with a much smaller outlay in time and money upfront. And then work towards the bigger systems. Initially giving you a hybrid of what you want, but as you become clearer in how an online system works, it removes the need for working in the old methods.
You are then able to move onto the larger platforms with a very clear plan for your next stages, as you will have covered many of the basics in the simpler plan first.
You can, of course, start with the full-blown construction software. This is simply an additional option to consider and may be beneficial, especially if you are new to using a job management system.
The Software Buddy Job Management System Comparison Guide
In the Software Buddy Job Management System Comparison Guide, we compare different software solutions side by side. This lets you see at a glance what features are included in each package. Helping you to make an informed decision about which job management system for trades or services businesses will work for you.
In these 3 tables we compare some of the most popular job management, project management and construction management programmes for businesses of all sizes. Proving that there is a software solution for every trades or service business model.
This list is by no means exhaustive. But it gives you a flavour of the functions and features that are available across job and construction management software.
We hope that this guide will help you to frame how you want to choose your job management system for trades and services business. We’d love to hear from you about your progress. Email us or schedule a call if you want any more help and let us know, which aspects of these software solutions are most useful to you and your business.
Before setting up a trial or new account with any of these job management systems, we suggest that you sign up for the Software Buddy Free Training course on How To Start Systemising Your Trades and Service Business.
For more help choosing the right job management system for your trades or service business, book a call with Software Buddy.