Feature Definitions

Contact Management

A combined list of customers and vendors.

People associated with Companies.

Example Company and Contact Records

Project Leads and Projects

Leads is a business development tool that can be used by estimating or sales staff to track design or construction opportunities. The Lead # and Title would represent the structure being built not the firm name.

Companies and contacts associated with the Lead should be tagged for the Lead Directory. However, this list would include the prospect and your firm but not subs or suppliers.

User defined stages can be used to track the status of a Lead. This information can then be used in Lead Analytics.

A Project would represent an awarded job and can be created manually or by using the Lead to Project Wizard.

Companies associated with the awarded Project should be tagged for the Project Directory. This list would include the client, architect, your firm, subs and suppliers.

Drawings, Specs and Invitation To Bid (ITB)

The Drawing Log is designed to track Lead or Project plans and revisions. Typically, the actual CAD, PDF, TIFF, or JPEG file is uploaded and linked to the drawing log record.

Specifications are often submitted to contracting firms in an electronic format such as PDF and outline what is required for the project and the quality standards set by the design team. Typically, Specifications are distributed with Drawings since they complement one another.

Commercial GCs and custom home builders often send out ITB emails to subcontractors and suppliers announcing an upcoming job opportunity. Files uploaded in the Drawings and Specifications features can also be linked to the ITB so vendors can make an informed decision if they would like to participate.

Estimating

Estimates have cost line items which can either be added on the fly, imported from an industry standard cost database such as RS Means or from a database that you build. The benefits of using a cost database are consistency in terms of descriptions, units, and pricing and time-savings of not having to enter any information manually. There are five (5) types of database items: Labor Items, Equipment Items, Crews, Work Items, Work Assembly.

One or more Estimates (ex. Base Bid, Rev 1, Rev 2) can be created for Leads and Projects. Estimates consist of sections called Work Breakdown Structures, Cost Line Items, Markups, narrative Scope (ex. Inclusions, Exclusions, Clarifications) and RFP Packages. If the job is awarded, Estimates can be used to setup the job financially: Job Cost Codes, Prime/Client Contract, Budgets, POs and Subcontracts.

Request for Pricing (RFP) Packages are used to request, track, and analyze pricing on items that will be needed for a project. RFP Packages are typically created for each scope of work (eg. concrete, doors, windows, electrical etc.) that is either subcontracted out or where suppliers will need to provide materials. If the project is awarded, the winning bidder for each package can be issued a PO or Subcontract in Corecon's Procurement module.

RFP Packages can be created in the procurement module or within an estimate. Both processes are almost identical but the difference is estimate items must be linked to a package in the latter scenario. It is not uncommon to have 10-20 RFP Packages linked to an estimate which is managed in the Estimate's Bid Management View.

Contract Administration

Job Cost Codes are used to track project financials and are required when entering transaction details (eg. Prime Contract Budgets, Change line items, PO line items, Miscellaneous Expenses, and Timecards etc.). Although Job Cost Codes can be added at any time, it is recommended that these codes be defined during the project setup phase.

A Prime Contract defines the agreement made between your firm and the client. Corecon supports four types of contracts which for Prime Contracts and Subcontracts impacts how invoices are processed. For most companies, there is usually one Prime Contract per project. However, in cases such as a design-build firm, there could be multiple. Within each Prime Contract, one can document the scope of work and enter Original Budgets.

Change Proposal Request (CPR) is for tracking a potential change from inception to acceptance or rejection. Although CPRs can be created for all contract types, they are usually entered for fixed lump sum or unit price contracts. Changes to cost plus contracts are generally documented directly in the Change Order (CO) feature and do not require the CPR process.

When one or more CPRs are approved, they are rolled into an official CO which will then affect Prime Contract budgets.

A Change Order (CO) occurs when there is a change to the original Prime Contract's scope of work. Like CPRs, changes can be initiated by the owner, architect, regulatory agency, or even your own firm such as in the case of adverse field conditions. COs can be documented regardless of contract type: fixed lump sum, cost plus, or unit price. When marked approved, COs will affect budgets for any type of contract.

Progress payments for Prime Contracts are processed in the Prime Contract Invoice feature. For commercial contractors, Prime Contract Invoices are often referred to as an "Application for Payment" and residential contractors use the term "Bank Draw" when a construction loan is needed for the funding source.

Procurement

Anticipated Costs are project expenses that have not been incurred yet but will in the future. For example, project expenses such as electrical/plumbing fixtures or cleanup fees will occur at the final stage of a project and the vendor or items may have not been identified yet. As a result, financial dashboards that compare estimated cost budgets versus commitments would be inaccurate unless Anticipated Costs are updated on a monthly basis.

Request for Pricing (RFP) Packages are used to request, track, and analyze pricing on items that will be needed for a project. RFP Packages are typically created for each scope of work (eg. concrete, doors, windows, electrical etc.) that is either subcontracted out or where suppliers will need to provide materials. Each package's winning bidder can be issued a PO or Subcontract. As mentioned above, RFP Packages can be created in the procurement module or within an estimate. Both processes are almost identical but the difference is estimate items must be linked to a package in the latter scenario.

• POs --> Bills or Bills (without POs)
• Subcontracts --> SCOs --> Subcontract Invoices
• Employee Miscellaneous Expenses (for everything else)

Once the Prime Contract has been established, materials and services are procured using Purchase Orders (POs) and/or Subcontracts. In general, POs are easier to use than Subcontracts since they do not have Retainage (aka Holdbacks) or change orders. Vendor invoices for PO items are processed using the 'PO to Bill Wizard'.

After a Purchase Order (PO) has been issued to a vendor and the goods/services have been delivered, the supplier's invoice is processed in the Bills feature using the 'PO to Bill Wizard'. Bills can be created manually as well such as in cases where no PO has been issued.

Once a Prime Contract has been setup and marked approved, Purchase Orders (PO) and Subcontracts are available to procure goods and services. Both of these types of financial transactions are shown as committed costs in Corecon's Project Analytics Dashboards. The difference between Subcontracts and Purchase Orders is that for Subcontracts you can document revisions to the scope of work through Subcontract Change Orders (SCO) and Subcontract Invoices can have retention (holdbacks). Like Prime Contracts, there are four types of contracts available: fixed lump sum, cost plus with or without a guaranteed maximum price, and unit price.

The purpose of a Subcontract Change Order (SCO) is to modify the original Subcontract due to a changed condition and work scope. Approved SCOs can be created manually or from CPRs and will impact the revised Subcontract amount and time. Typically, SCOs are created for fixed lump sum or unit price Subcontracts.

Sub Invoices or similar to Prime Invoices but for Subcontracts. For example, the Sub Invoice data entry process changes depending on the Subcontract type and these transactions can have retainage or holdbacks.

HR, Time and Expenses

Employees can be entered as contacts under your company profile in the Contact Management module or in HR. However, the latter is recommended since the employee form in HR includes additional fields and tables such as education, licenses and payroll rates.

Payroll Items are required for establishing employee cost and billing rates and are typically identical to those listed in the accounting system. Some examples are ST - Straight Time, OT - Overtime, DT - Double Time, and TT - Travel Time.

Payroll rates are setup in the employee profile form for each Payroll Item listed and consist of base cost rate, burden cost rate, and billable rate. The latter rate only applies to cost plus Prime Invoices where expenses and timecards can be imported.

Labor Timecards can be entered on a daily or weekly basis. Like all other financial transactions, each timecard must reference a Project, Prime Contract and Job Cost Code. Approved Timecards are then exported to an accounting system using a CoreconLink utility or to a CSV or Excel file to be processed by a 3rd party payroll company.

Equipment Items can be used for estimating purposes and timecards. For the latter, Run-time (RT), Idle Time (IT) and Down Time (DT) rates can be setup per project and equipment item.

Similar to Labor Timecards, Equipment Timecards can be entered on a daily or weekly basis but would be applicable only to owned equipment. Rental equipment is costed out via the PO/Bill process.

Employee Miscellaneous Expenses are for recording project expenditures when a standard Purchase Order (PO) or Subcontract is not feasible. For example, a Miscellaneous Expense would be documented when an employee purchases fuel for his/her truck using a credit card. Like Bills and Sub Invoices, Employee Miscellaneous Expenses are categorized as Cost To Date transactions and can be exported to an accounting system using a CoreconLink utility.

Job Cost Dashboards

Budgeted Costs are derived from the detailed cost estimate prepared at the start of the project. Budgeted Costs may include the current best estimate of costs based on progress and any changes since the original cost budget was formed. Budgeted Costs may include an itemized summary of estimated or intended expenditures for a given period-of-time. In other terms, the total sum of money allocated for a specific project. Budgeted Costs can also be considered a formal statement of estimated expenses based on future plans and objectives.

In Corecon, Cost Budgets do not include markups (e.g. fee) and will be compared to actual costs such as POs, Subcontracts, and Timecards. Since Corecon includes five built-in resource types (materials, labor, equipment, sub and other), cost budgets can be entered for each resource and Job Cost Code. The cost code's total budget will be the sum of the five resource budgets.

Anticipated Costs are project expenses that have not been incurred yet but will in the future. For example, project expenses such as light/plumbing fixtures or cleanup fees will occur at the final stage of a project and the vendor or items may have not been identified yet. As a result, financial dashboards that compare estimated cost budgets versus commitments would show over inflated budgets unless Anticipated Costs are documented.

Generally, Anticipated Expenses is a master list of items that have NOT been recorded in the following features.

• Purchase Orders (PO)
• Subcontracts
• Subcontract Change Orders (SCOs)
• Labor Timecards
• Equipment Timecards
• Employee Miscellaneous Expenses

Committed Cost are the cost control measure that include the agreed or incurred price between the Contractor and the Vendor. The primary Committed Costs include Subcontracts, Subcontract Change Orders (SCO), Purchase Orders and Anticipated Costs. In Corecon Committed Costs also include booked costs such as approved vendor bills not from PO?s, approved miscellaneous expenses, labor timecards, and equipment time cards.

Corecon Committed Cost Transactions:

• Approved Purchase Orders (PO)
• Approved Bills that did NOT originate from POs
• Approved Subcontracts
• Approved Subcontract Change Orders (SCOs)
• Approved Labor Timecards
• Approved Equipment Timecards
• Approved Employee Miscellaneous Expenses
• Anticipated Costs

Actual Cost is the total cost incurred for the actual work completed to date. Simply put, it is the amount of money you have spent to date. The Actual Cost may include the amounts paid for a service, goods, materials, labor, equipment, etc. In Corecon, actual costs are recorded when incurred. In other terms, Actual Costs are an expenditure required to produce or sell a product or service, or get an asset ready for normal use.

Corecon Actual Cost or Cost To Date Transactions:

• Approved Purchase Orders (PO)
• Approved Bills that did NOT originate from POs
• Approved Subcontracts
• Approved Subcontract Change Orders (SCOs)
• Approved Labor Timecards
• Approved Equipment Timecards
• Approved Employee Miscellaneous Expenses
• Anticipated Costs

Markup % = Profit / Cost

Profit Margin % = Profit / Sell

Correspondence

No matter how smoothly a job may be running, Issues do come up so proper documentation and correspondence is key to minimizing risks and delays. Naturally, some Project Issues will be minor in nature and are resolved quickly but others may be critical and lead to changes. Thus, Issues should be created and tracked as events progress since often times this information is used as backup material when presenting a CPR or CO.

With exception for RFIs and Submittals, basic project correspondence such as Letters, Faxes, Notes, and Phone Conversations should be documented in the Journals feature. Like other correspondence features, Journals can have reminder and due dates which appear as alerts in the system.

Request For Information (RFI) is used to document questions and responses from project team members that are critical in nature which may or may not impact the schedule or budget. An example RFI would be a contractor emailing the architect a question about the interpretation of a construction drawing detail or a note in the specifications. This email would include a hyperlink to Corecon's TeamLink Portal allowing the external team member to respond in a secure manner.

Submittals are items documented in project specifications that need to be provided to the project owner or architect for review and approval. Some examples of submittals are shop drawings, engineering data, material samples, test results, and product literature/manuals. Certain submittals such as product manuals are often used later by the client for operational purposes.

In the construction industry, a Transmittal is a form of communication document being sent from one party to another conveying an action to be taken on an item or group of items. Transmittals often act as a cover sheet when mailing information via Fedex, USPS or some other carrier and will list the contents of the package.

Documentation

In today's environment, builders and contractors need to manage risk and one of the tools they should require of their superintendents or project managers is to implement Daily Logs. This is especially important if a dispute arises. Documenting on a daily basis activities, progress milestones, manpower, major deliveries, equipment and weather/site conditions can be valuable information. Daily Logs can also be reviewed in a claim or legal proceeding by an opposing party so it is important information is recorded accurately.

The Meeting Minutes feature is used to document discussion items for project meetings. Examples of such meetings are owner and subcontractor meetings. Information such as meeting date, location, purpose, attendees, new issues, and old issues can all be tracked.

As the project progresses, major milestone photos should be taken at periodic intervals to provide a high level overview of the job status. Thus, photos should not be uploaded to this feature on a daily basis. However, one could do this using the Daily Log feature.

A Work Order (WO) can be used in a variety of ways by the project staff. For example, WOs can be used as a daily communication tool for field crews outlining what needs to be performed or it can be used to document work directives by the owner. In either scenario, both estimated and actual costs can be tracked and later copied to a CO, SCO or Prime Contract Invoice depending on the contract type (e.g. fixed lump sum, cost plus, unit price).

Scheduling

Like Estimates, Corecon can track multiple Schedules for any given project. Examples where there could be multiple schedules is design and construction phases or if the project has multiple structures being built.

Calendars will display due dates (alerts) for time-sensitive information so team members can follow-up. Lead and Project records that are marked closed will not appear in Calendars or the Alerts listing.