How a General Contractor Scaled Operations and Simplified Accounting With FOUNDATION®
Gideon Construction is a general contractor based in Valdosta, Georgia, focused on multifamily housing in the Southeast and commercial projects across the wider United States.
Since 2013, Gideon Construction CFO Amanda Nobles has spearheaded the move away from their inefficient and expensive legacy accounting system toward a more sophisticated software designed to handle the nuances of construction accounting.
Generic Software: Overpriced and Insufficient
Because of Gideon Construction’s rapidly expanding business, their accounting platform quickly became a major financial drain without the time savings to offset increased cost.
“With our old system, we were paying for multiple modules per user,” Nobles said. “And we needed to make a change because the business was growing.”
Beyond the high costs, Nobles also found that their accounting software couldn’t handle the dynamic, fast-paced and highly specific paperwork that general contractors deal with daily.
Making even simple administrative updates required jumping through a ton of hoops.
“A lot of basic software doesn’t allow you to have multiple contract templates,” Nobles said. “And you need to contact support every time you change contract or subcontract agreements. It can get costly fast.”
Furthermore, trying to force a nonconstruction platform to manage complex projects left their accounting offices and field managers disconnected.
“There weren’t many software programs that could do what we needed, which was connect our project management with our accounting software,” Nobles said.
FOUNDATION’s job costing reporting is a game changer.
Amanda Nobles
CFO
Gideon Construction
FOUNDATION for the Save
Nobles didn’t have to look far.
“FOUNDATION was essentially the first construction-specific accounting software I came across that I really liked because it was so easy to use,” Nobles said. “And I didn’t have to look further.”
It had everything they needed to support their workflows right out of the box, while offering financial relief compared to their old system.
“The biggest return on investment for us from using FOUNDATION has been affordability,” Nobles said. “The fact that I can bring more people into FOUNDATION without skyrocketing prices has been wonderful.”
For a company adding users as it grows, that cost predictability mattered as much as the savings themselves.
And instead of relying on third-party support lines to adjust daily operations, FOUNDATION handed total control over to Gideon Construction.
“With FOUNDATION, I’m able to go in and make changes as needed to our templates and contracts for commercial or multi-family use,” Nobles said. “I don’t have to contact support to make those changes, which is very nice.”
With FOUNDATION, Gideon Construction’s entire team, from project managers to accountants, could collaborate more effectively while significantly reducing errors.
Accounting and Project Management: One-Stop Shop
On top of customizability at an affordable cost, FOUNDATION eliminated the painful, manual project management data entry that used to slow accounting operations down.
“FOUNDATION’s import feature is a game changer,” Nobles said. “We went from spending a couple hours keying data between systems to only 30 minutes.”
By integrating with Gideon’s project management software, Procore®, FOUNDATION could pull real-time field data, functioning as a “one-stop shop” for Gideon Construction’s administrative workflows.
This allows the company to protect its bottom line and respond to field demands in real-time.
“FOUNDATION helps us make decisions quickly,” Nobles said. “When it comes to talking to the clients about adjustments to job costs, change orders and RFCs, FOUNDATION allows us to make those decisions within 15 to 20 minutes.”
Affordable Software Built for Scaling Operations
For Gideon Construction, software costs are no longer a concern. And as they continue to take on massive commercial projects nationwide, they finally have a system that can scale with them.
“I think FOUNDATION is making those leaps and bounds a lot quicker than I’m seeing other software companies do,” Nobles said.
For Gideon’s team, that pace, paired with simplicity, is what makes the difference.
“FOUNDATION’s ease of use makes it stand out compared to other software,” Nobles said. “It works so seamlessly and is user-friendly.”
Share Article
Keep up on current news in the construction industry. Subscribe to free eNews!