The level of transparency that a construction management software package provides is an essential factor for Owners in the Public sector. Required to adhere to stringent accounting practices, a construction software package needs to provide an Owner with the ability to access project information easily to track all transactions, create audit trails and produce reports that meet accounting standards.
Accessing project information for an Owner is essential to the success of a project. In the current economic climate, Owners needs to be very careful in how funding for capital construction projects are allocated. A construction management software solution should be able to provide a full-featured financials component or be able to be integrated seamlessly with an existing financial package, so the flow of funds for the project can be tracked. A failing of most non-construction industry specific software solutions is that they lack the ability to track funding for multi-year and multi-funding source projects, only providing information on the amount of money at the beginning of the project and the amount of money at the end of the project. CMiC Open Enterprise v10, on the other hand, as the ability to track funding for a number of different sources over a long period of time.
Another crucial aspect is the ability to audit any and all transactions. When working with public funds, the standards of transparency and visibility are quite high, and any missteps might lead to the impression that not everything is above board. Being able to track every transaction, down to the detail level, and creating audit trails eliminates any clouds of suspicion and increases accountability. CMiC Open Enterprise v10 has a sophisticated set of tools that allow Owners to keep track of all capital construction project information and store that project information on a powerful database, so the information can be accessed in the future, if needed.
Construction projects are incredibly fast-moving with multiple stakeholders and every minute not spent building is a minute wasted. Keeping mistakes to a minimum is a priority, and being able to respond quickly to changes is important. CMiC Open Enterprise v10 provides the highest level of collaboration of any other construction industry solution on the market, linking all project stakeholders together in real-time. When a change happens, the Project Executive on the Owner side can quickly respond to the change and get the project moving forward again. Collaboration also increases visibility by having all project communications track and stored, to be used in the case of resolving any disputes.
A General Contractor/Construction Manager using a different project management system than the Owner can create problems. As an Owner in the Public sector, you may require that all project information be stored in your system, which means that GC/CM has to enter the information into their system and then again into yours. This can lead to a loss of data integrity through data entry mistakes, as well as a significant drain on time and resources. CMiC Open Enterprise v10 eliminates this problem with CMiC Real Time Integration (RTI), which uses advances in XML, a computer language, which allows for the bi-directional transference of project information. Both databases – the Owner’s and the GC/CM’s – are updated at the same time without the need of data re-entry.
No matter how accurate the project information is in the system, it needs to be taken out of the system efficiently. Public Owners need to have reports that not only match accounting standards but also provide valuable information needed to make decisions. CMiC Open Enterprise v10 allows Owners to customize reports to match any requirement, granting total control over the design and content of any report.
For more information on how CMiC Open Enterprise v10 can help your organization with transparency and accountability, please Contact Us.
