Today Rhumbix is excited to announce that Time & Materials (T&M) tags can now be  automated using our Field Intelligence Platform. Foremen can document T&M work from the field using the same simple interface developed for timekeeping. Combine photos, attachments, and pricing information to ensure a comprehensive record of all T&M work.

With T&M tracking, Rhumbix is tackling yet another field-based workflow ripe for digitization. Today, paper is still the medium most subcontractors use to track work they complete  that is outside their contracted scope. Paper T&M tickets are generated on carbon copy sheets and handed off to general contractors and owners for processing. While this sounds easy, the problems caused by a simple slip of paper can be a real headache for everyone.

• Duplicate data entry: Both the subcontractor and general contractor are required to enter the data from paper T&M tickets into systems for pricing and administration. This is the very definition of duplicate effort.
• Tickets are lost, misplaced, or delayed: We’ve heard horror stories of the ‘explosion of pink slips’ from the recesses of a long-departed superintendent’s drawer, documenting tens of thousands of dollars of unknown T&M scope.
• Subcontractors don’t get paid: Multiple handoffs involved in T&M tracking often result in subcontractors not getting paid for the valuable work that they do until months after the event.

What’s more, the inefficiencies of the current T&M process can have a significant impact on the cost efficiency of subcontractors, for whom the costs of working capital and borrowing are disproportionately high relative to contractors and owners. We often hear of subcontractors failing to recover sizeable amounts of work executed on a T&M basis.

Rhumbix’s automated T&M tags solves these problems and delivers three key benefits to subcontractors, general contractors and owners:

• Immediate visibility to all T&M costs:  As soon as a foreman enters a new T&M ticket using Rhumbix, it is accessible to all project stakeholders. Owners, architects and construction managers will know the moment T&M work is identified and be able to make any necessary adjustments or approvals immediately.
• No more lost T&M tickets: Digitization removes the risk of lost or delayed T&M costs surprising cost-sensitive owners at the end of a job and protects subcontractors from the commercial impacts of getting paid late, or, not at all.
• Automated evaluation of cost: By rolling up all T&M costs in a single system, project stakeholders have the ability to see, at-a-glance, the total value of T&M risk incurred by a subcontractor on a project.

Immediate visibility and transparency to T&M costs means subcontractors are compensated for their work in a timely manner general contractors and owners have the most accurate, up-to-date view of project budgets, solving the key challenges of today’s manual, paper-based process.

We’re excited for this next step in partnering with our customers to digitize their field data and move the industry forward. To learn more about T&M tracking with Rhumbix and schedule a demo, visit our website.