Construction Imaging will host it's 10th annual user conference on October 18-20 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Construction companies as well as vendors from across North America will be in attendance. This well attended conference will feature a variety of education sessions and will showcase some of the innovative ways that Construction Imaging's products can be integrated with other software, including Resource Commander. 

If you're not familiar with Construction Imaging, they provide Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions to the construction and related industries.  I will be at the conference representing ACS Connect, and hope to see you there. 

This well attended event's promising theme is Integration Magic: Reality of Results. ACS Connect will be exhibiting its Resource Commander solution for the mobile collection of employee time, equipment usage and production tracking. The conference will be held October 19-21 at the Marriott World Center in Orlando, Florida. We have a limited number of floor passes to give away, but they will go fast. Contact Debbie Bradley at (813) 684-6803 to learn more about this exciting conference and secure your free pass.  

The momentum behind mobile computing adoption in construction is clearly visible whether you work in finance, IT or operations. But what is driving this trend, and how might it change the way the industry does business?

A decade ago, large companies strategically deployed mobile solutions that usually focused on solving a singular inefficiency. Think of UPS and FedEx with their electronic signature capture. The device was perfected to do one thing well, and although expensive, it solved a problem of enormous scale.

This guest post is by Victoria Satran, Director of Marketing for Computer Guidance Corporation. Computer Guidance Corporation and ACS Connect have enjoyed a productive partnership for over a decade. For more information about Computer Guidance’s business intelligence solutions and how Computer Guidance customers have leveraged these solutions for their competitive advantage and improved profitability, visit www.computerguidance.com. 

Business Intelligence is an essential tool for a successful business in today’s highly competitive market. While the enterprise resource planning solutions and construction management systems that we have relied on in the past are excellent sources of data, only by transforming that data into information through analysis and presentation does it add value to the bottom line. By creating visibility in to all levels of the organization, Business Intelligence helps to open new channels of communication, drive productivity and increase efficiency.

The Defense Contracting Auditing Agency, or DCAA, is known for its insistence on following the rules. When it comes to a DCAA timesheet, there is certainly no exception. The level of importance associated with DCAA time keeping requirements can't be overstated. The overall goal is quite straightforward, eliminate fraud and waste the to greatest extent possible.

It requires vigilance by management and an effective timekeeping system in to satisfy the DCAA requirements. The reason that employee work hours get so much scrutiny is that there is frequently no reliable paper trail available. In contrast, if a product or service is purchased from an outside organization, there are receipts and documents that can demonstrate the fact that the transaction took place. The same is true of many other types of transactions. When it comes to employee work hours, dependable documentation is just as important.

Last spring I had the privilege of presenting on automation of time collection to a group of construction industry professionals at their user group meeting in Wisconsin. The meeting was hosted by Miron Construction at their headquarters in Neenah, Wisconsin.  It was my first trip to the Badger State and I was impressed not only by its beauty and the friendliness of it people but by the progressiveness of the corporation hosting this meeting. 

The Miron Construction corporate headquarters put the word “green” on the map for me.  Their experience in LEED was evident throughout their building.  From the state of the art meeting room that was a corporate meeting room  by day and a community gathering place by night to the common areas to the open space architecture, everywhere you looked  people were encouraged to communicate and exchange ideas.  

The U.S. Congress had so much fun messing around with taxes in 2010 that state and local governments decided to keep on making changes right into 2011. It’s now well into February and a few final updates are still trickling in, so be patient with your accounting and/or payroll vendors! Fortunately the nice folks in Washington extended certain deadlines to help make up for it, so now you just have to convince your employees to wait that long for their first paycheck of the year (we’re kidding, please don’t try this). 

At the heart of the delay is the fact that many states base their taxes on a percentage of the Federal tax - sort of. When Federal taxes change, states don't necessarily want it to impact their revenues, so they simply change the percentage basis used in the calculation.  The more the Feds monkey with the tax code, the more state legislators must scramble to compensate, and the longer we - as in all of us - wait to see what the new code dictates. 

On February 16, we are pleased to be sponsoring Back to the Future: An Economic Prospective for 2011, the next in CFMA's series of KnowledgeNOW webinars. Presented by noted construction economist Anirban Basu, this informative report will focus on the economy’s nascent economic expansion and its sustainability. 

Special attention will be given to the performance of the global economy, the local and U.S. economies, financial markets, labor markets, real estate and other salient aspects of the economic environment, concluding with an economic outlook for the year to come on both a national and local level. 

Payroll fraud comes in many forms, and is well documented in the Construction industry. In a business where labor is often the largest cost on a project, this problem can really handicap a company's ability to be competitive and profitable. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the average payroll scheme goes undetected for over two years. Even once detected, cases are less likely to be reported and prosecuted in the construction industry, often due to a lack of evidence. 

The two most common types of payroll fraud that occur on the job site are falsified time and phantom employees, both part of the construction time and attendance process.  Over the last decade, more technologies are now available in the field to combat payroll fraud.  While it's possible to prevent certain kinds of fraud altogether, it is often even easier and more cost effective to deter the majority of cases. 

ACS Connect is pleased to announce this joint webinar with Viewpoint Construction Software on November 11.  Paul McCormack from Viewpoint will present an over of the partnership between the two companies, after which Debbie Bradley will provide an overview of how Resource Commander automates the construction time collection process.  David Moore, VP of Finance for Tarlton Corporation, will share his perspective as a user of both Resource Commander and Viewpoint V6.