Sage Timberline Office News & Tips
Tips to Weather a Tough Economy: Protecting Your Profit Margins

The recent headlines seem to indicate that the economic slowdown experienced by the rest of the U.S. has finally reached the Northwest in a big way. If you’re looking for some smart strategies to help deal with the downturn, Sage Timberline Office is here to help. Over the next few months, we will offer valuable tips to help your company survive and thrive in today’s economy – and prepare for increased market share when the recession lifts.

In this issue, we’ll look at how to protect your profit margins so you can conserve your cash.

Look for efficiency in every corner of your business. Any task that you can perform faster or better will help you save precious cash and improve profitability.

With fewer projects available, you’ll want to bid on – and win – as many projects as you can. But you don’t want to underbid and suffer a costly mistake. It’s more important than ever to produce fast, accurate estimates. Material costs have changed rapidly over the past two years, first shooting through the roof and now falling back. It’s impossible to keep an accurate spreadsheet of all your estimating costs.

Consider using Estimating software that includes a specialized database with regular updates to ensure that you are using accurate costs for your materials and labor. Automated estimating software can help you complete each estimate in as little as half the time of manual calculations, so you can compete for twice as many jobs. An estimating solution that integrates with your accounting and operations software significantly increases efficiencies and reduces errors.

Make sure you have accurate and reliable financial information with these Sage Timberline Office tools and stay informed about the health of your business:

• Cash management - Enjoy the power to view and track all your cash transactions and reconcile them with your company’s bank statements and general ledger.
• Job cost - Utilize this valuable resource to collect all project-related information so you can view potential cost overruns, percent complete and production units in place any time you need to.
• Reporting analysis - Put key financial and operations information at your fingertips with executive management tools including the executive dashboard, financial review, job cost analysis and report drill-down.
  

For additional information about any of these topics, call Integrated Computer Systems Support at 425-820-6120.