Construction is an industry of caution, where care and calculation can take precedence over speed – but that doesn’t mean that the rebate management side of the business needs to move at a snail’s pace.
Unfortunately, construction rebates face many of the same obstacles and delays as rebates in other industries. Siloed data, ambiguity over agreements, misaligned goals, slow signoff processes, communication delays – the list goes on and on. What’s worse is that many teams are losing valuable time every day managing complex deals by hand on error-prone systems. Any resulting errors or mistakes arising from this process only increase its duration, requiring teams to spend hours searching through spreadsheets to find the single cell where things went wrong.
With a capable rebate management software, you can streamline and automate many of your most time-consuming and troublesome processes while maintaining a sense of caution and care. However, choosing the right rebate management software for your construction rebates can feel like a challenge.
When evaluating and choosing a software to manage your construction rebates, look out for the following must-have features:
Approval Workflows
The signoff process is one where a sense of caution is essential but can also become a frequent source of costly delays at a critical stage of the deal. Ambiguities, miscommunications and lengthy manual processes only serve to lengthen this notoriously slow procedure.
However, if your rebate management solution features automated approval workflows, you can speed things up with streamlined processes and communications while maintaining a consistent and reliable approval structure that your company can trust.
Automated Calculations and Reporting
Performing calculations and synthesizing data into accurate reports are two of the most critical yet time-consuming responsibilities that construction rebate managers must undertake. Let’s face it: when it comes to complex calculations, we simply are not as fast or accurate as computers. With automated calculations and reporting features, these tasks are reduced to the click of a button.
Automating your calculations and reports doesn’t just save time. The accuracy of the system’s calculations can afford you greater confidence in your data than reports generated by hand. By removing the potential for human error altogether, your team avoids many frustrating hours spent resolving them.
Collaborator Portal & Partner Dashboard
As the supply chain evolves, collaboration is becoming an even more critical part of many construction businesses’ trading strategies. However, many teams lack systems to support an increased level of collaboration, causing delays and miscommunications that waste valuable time.
Some rebate management software, such as the Enable platform, features a dedicated space for collaboration – this means no more siloed data or hard to find agreements. With the Collaborator Portal and Partner Dashboard, you can share data and collaborate on deals directly with your trading partners, saving you untold time aligning disparate systems and siloed data sets over email.
Reliable Forecasting
Analyzing current and historic data to make educated projections about the future is a big responsibility for finance teams, one that all-too-often lacks the support of processes or systems to streamline it.
In fact, this process can be taken out of human hands almost entirely by implementing an automated rebate management software with capable forecasting features. Instead of your construction rebate team spending hours drawing up projections, you can get reliable forecasts based on accurate data at the click of a button, giving the time back to your team to focus on what they do best.
Activity Log & Audit Trail
The process of manual rebate management in construction is rife with sudden changes, opaque decision-making, siloed information and miscommunications. Agreements can change quickly, and for some team members involved in the deal, the source and timing of those changes may not always be clear.
One feature that is essential to maintaining alignment across teams and trading partners is the Activity Log. The activity log ensures that everyone can follow the progress of a deal and stay on the same page. For cautious teams that value transparency and open collaboration, an activity log is a must-have addition to your rebate management process.
This feature can also be a valuable asset in the event of an audit. When auditors go digging through your records, you want your paper trail and all its details to be crystal clear, as any ambiguity or confusion can only serve to lengthen the proceedings and the resulting disruption to your operations. The Activity Log and Audit Trail helps you keep track of the information you’re looking for when you need it the most.
Streamlining Construction Rebate Management
When it comes to cutting down on inefficiency in construction rebate management, the solution is simpler than you might think: choosing the right software to tackle the tasks that your team no longer needs to handle on their own. Implementing a comprehensive solution such as the Enable platform can save your team time, effort and even lost revenue. When it comes to your rebates, don’t settle for less – support your construction rebate team and make the most of your deals with a capable software.
The construction industry is facing many challenges amidst a changing supply chain. Learn how rebate management is supporting suppliers across the industry in our blog, Top 5 Reasons the Construction Industry Needs Supplier Rebate Management.
