Why Industry-Specific Tech Partners Matter in the Construction Sector and How Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Fits the Bill

Sometimes the best tool for your needs is hiding in plain sight, like someone who turns their house upside-down looking for a tape measure because they don’t realize their smartphone now comes with a built-in app that lets you instantly measure the size and distance of objects. Many small and midsize construction firms are in a similar boat when it comes to finding the right ERP and right tech partner for their needs.

That’s why many construction firms were pleasantly surprised when the Forbes Advisor Small Business team named Microsoft Dynamic 365 Business Central as 2024’s Best Overall ERP for the construction industry.

That’s right, the Forbes team picked Business Central as the best ERP specifically for construction businesses. This may seem counterintuitive, because people typically think of Business Central as a general solution that’s used across industries.

And that’s true as far as it goes. But a big part of what sets Business Central apart is not its universality, but rather its ability to be adapted and tailored to the needs of a particular industry—in this case, construction. When integrated with Project Pro, a third-party solution specifically designed for construction companies, Business Central truly excels.

However, without the right tech partner that possesses construction industry-specific knowledge, firms risk poor implementation.

The Importance of Industry-Specific Knowledge in a Tech Partner

The construction industry is subject to requirements that may seem opaque to outsiders. The complexities of keeping projects on track, on time, and under budget demand a thorough understanding of concepts like Work in Progress (WIP) reporting, progress billing, job costing, revenue recognition and accruals, over/under billing, and lien management, among others.

That’s why not just anyone can design solutions that truly meet the needs of construction firms. And when construction firms turn to inexperienced tech partners who lack that specialized knowledge, they may run the risk of inaccurate implementations or one-size-fits all approaches that fall short. Worse, they may miss out on innovative tools and strategies that can help them identify and master profitable new opportunities.

Unlike tech partners who don’t know the ins and out of the construction business—and may not even be familiar with its specialized language—Sikich is able to draw on a long history of working closely with construction firms to help them successfully implement and fine-tune ERP implementations.

How Sikich and Dynamics 365 Business Central Bridge the Gap

This deep expertise makes Sikich and Business Central an unbeatable combination for construction businesses.

Business Central itself offers a user-friendly interface with customizable features that simplify and automate working processes, and help you make informed, data-driven decisions.

On top of that powerful functionality, Sikich helps construction firms take full advantage of Business Central’s adaptability by delivering an integrated software solution that’s thoughtfully designed to speak to their needs: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for Construction.

Business Central for Construction integrates construction firms’ critical billings, estimating, documents, project management, labor, and financial information into one place, allowing them to more efficiently manage projects, budgets, schedules, field activities, subcontracts, customer relationships, and more.

Business Central’s Advantages for Construction Firms

Business Central for Construction emphasizes and addresses crucial construction-industry functionalities like WIP reporting, revenue recognition, and built-in job costing.

Some of its key capabilities include:

• Job Material Planning: Track actual materials and resources required for jobs. Manage items needed by required date, automate purchase suggestions so you’re never low on inventory and run reports by individual job or across multiple jobs.
• Job Cost Accounting: Manage jobs to increase efficiency. Compare budgeted costs vs. actual costs. Make projections and track actual costs, customer billings, and payments received by current period, year to date and job to date.
• Subcontract Management: Easily track and manage subcontractor contracts, change orders, work performed, retention values, lien releases and certificates of insurance.
• Timesheets: Record hours and rate tables and quickly sort timesheets by job or resource. Allow employees to complete their own time sheets, right from their mobile device, with automated authorization built in for managers and accounting staff.
• Project Management: Control and manage budgets, budget changes, contracts, change orders, labor resources, vendors, and subcontractors at the task level.
• Progress Billing: Bill customers based on project progress. Manage bills based on unit consumption or lump sum contract. Easily create AIA billings, unit billings, and time and materials billings. Transfer posted labor costs and vendor purchases into Work Orders or Invoices.
• Contract and Change Orders: Define contract lines with quick contract value setup and create automated change orders using data from the master job card.
• Payroll Integration: Integrate with multiple payment solutions for easy payment management including Business Central Payroll Solutions and popular, third-party outsourced solutions.
• Union Payroll: Automate calculations, ensuring compliance with labor agreements, and manage deductions, while also providing a centralized platform for accurate and efficient processing.

The Extra Dimension: Business Central’s Integration with Microsoft’s Ecosystem

Another aspect of Business Central that makes it so powerful is the way that its integration with Microsoft’s larger ecosystem extends its capabilities in transformative ways.

By tapping into other Microsoft applications that you already have access to, it can save time, labor, and money to help your team accomplish dramatically more with substantially less resources. The following are just a few examples.

Data Manipulation

Business Central allows you to click on ERP data to open it directly in Excel, make changes, and then seamlessly write your data back to the ERP. This saves team members the time-consuming and cumbersome process of having to export and reimport the data.

Real-Time Collaboration

Business Central’s integration with Microsoft Teams allows team members to easily share ERP data through Teams’ chat channel, and surface that information within the Teams app so that users don’t have to spend time toggling back and forth between their ERP and Teams.

Document Management

Business Central taps into Microsoft Word to give you the ability to edit core ERP documents using Word — whereas other ERP systems might require the assistance of a programmer to say, edit the layout of an invoice, Business Central’s integration makes it easy and painless.

Customer Interaction

Business Central helps facilitate customer communications through its integration with Microsoft Outlook. If a customer emails you looking for a copy of an invoice, for example, team members can tap into the ERP to locate and access the invoice without having to leave Outlook.

AI-Powered Insights

A game-changer in Business Central’s integration with the Microsoft ecosystem is the addition of AI-powered tools like Microsoft Copilot. For example, Copilot can analyze financial data trends to flag potential cash flow issues or recommend optimized budgeting strategies, bringing unparalleled efficiency and insights to your organization. This allows you to do more with less effort and make smarter, data-driven decisions faster.

Superior Reporting with Power BI

One of the biggest rewards Business Central delivers is the way it enables superior data analysis and reporting through its access to the customizable dashboards in Power BI, now further enhanced by AI-powered tools like Microsoft Copilot. Copilot not only helps visualize data but also provides predictive analytics, offering actionable insights to improve forecasting, resource planning, and decision-making.

Power BI puts real-time data at your fingertips and allows you to harness it for quicker and more effectively realized visualization that turns your data into actionable insights—enabling better understanding, more accurate forecasting, and smarter decision-making.

Cost and Efficiency Benefits

A final advantage of Business Central that shouldn’t be underestimated is its straightforward, accounting-friendly cost model. Unlike some other ERPs, like Sage Intacct or Acumatica, there are no consumption-based charges—just predictable monthly costs.

This helps protect you against unanticipated shocks to your budget, as well as the counterproductive feeling that you have to carefully police usage in order to stay within arbitrary constraints, which can lead to team members not being able to get the most out of the tools you’re paying for.

That’s on top of the fact that Business Central’s cloud capabilities can help you reduce or eliminate the costs, labor, and physical footprint required to run on-premises systems.

Another important trap that Business Central helps you avoid is falling into technical debt—the ever-increasing cost of bringing your systems up to date when you’ve allowed them to gradually fall behind. Closing that gap can cause real financial pain if you let it get out of control, and then you wind up hobbled by obsolete tools and inadequate resources when you most need to be competitive.

Business Central solves that problem with its evergreen approach, delivering automatic updates that make sure your software and tools are always up to date.

Want to Learn More?

Want to learn more about how Sikich can be the right tech partner for your construction organization and help build its capabilities to reach new heights with Business Central and AI-powered tools like Copilot? Schedule a personalized consultation or demo today to explore tailored solutions for your needs.