Project Management Tool for Flippers?

Question

Hey BP'ers!

Any flippers/rehabbers here have experience with an online project management tool? If so, which one did you use and why or why didn't you like it? I'm looking for one for my team. Right now we are using Excel sheets to track and manage projects, and it feels like an insane way of doing things!

Sasha

David Robertson · Answer

Hey Sasha,

Here is a list of tools that I think are important to help manage flips/rehabs.

• Repair Estimation/Budgeting - Ability to create detailed Scopes of Work & repair costs budgets
• Budget Tracking - Ability to track your actual expenses against your initial budget
• Scheduling - Ability to create a project plan & track project progress
• Checklists/To Dos - Ability to track daily to-dos and checklists of items that need to be completed
• Calendars - Ideally all of your Schedules & To-Dos feed into a Calendar that you can use to manage all of your projects in one location.
• Document Management - Place to store project documents and photos

Here are some Project Management tools that you might consider:

• Trello/Zoho Projects/Basecamp  - General project management software that includes tasks, Gantt scheduling, calendars, project forums, document storage & team collaboration tools
• BuilderTrend / Co-Construct - These tools are built specifically for custom homebuilders/remodelers and have a lot of functionality.  The biggest flaw is there is a steep learning curve and a lot of the functionality is built for communicating with clients (homeowners), which isn't really applicable for flipping houses.
• Smartsheet/AirTable - Provide spreadsheet style platforms with additional functionalities for uploading documents/images, assigning tasks, calendar, images, etc...

It sounds like you are sick of spreadsheets, but I developed a pretty crazy spreadsheet for managing projects which I am now transitioning into a web-based project management application as well.

Sasha Josephs · Answer

@David Robertson Thank you for your thoughtful reply, this is really helpful. One of the challenges we are faced with is project reconciliation, so in other words, matching up our department's expenses (housing development), with accounting's records of our expenses. We currently use Intacct for our accounting needs/paying contractors and invoicing funders. I'm curious to know if your system could integrate with Intacct.

Dutch Langley · Answer

We use Builder Trend for all of our renovation and rehab projects.  Took a while to learn...but it allows me to run multiple projects at a time...large or small.  I even use it to pay most of our subs online.  I can access all info about the project either from my cell, tablet, laptop.

Sasha Josephs · Answer

@David Robertson Got it, thank you for the info!

David Robertson · Answer

I don't think you are alone with this problem either...I use to work for a large Commercial Construction company that used Sage (Intacct) for Accounting, and they struggled with the same thing.

Their Accounting department used Sage to manage their books and their Project Managers used ProCore to manage & track their budgets, which didn't integrate or connect, so Project Managers would enter expenses into ProCore & the Accountants would cut checks and enter Invoices using Sage.   I left several years ago, so never sure if they quite figured it out!

David Robertson · Answer

Hi Sasha,

We do not currently support an integration with Intacct or Quickbooks, but that is something we will be considering further down the line.

Right now we have job costing, estimating, budgeting & tracking for projects so you can track expenses against your budget and forecast budget overages, but it is not meant to be a full blown accounting system.

I understand you probably want to avoid double data entry & make sure your project books match your accounting books, which is tough when you have a separate Project Management software from your Accounting software.

In the near term we are planning on adding Export to CSV so at the very least you can export your data and import the data into Quickbooks to avoid double entry.  You can also track by Account to see how much you've spent in particular accounts for account reconciliation.

You may want to look at BuliderTrend or Co-Construct because I believe they have a Quickbooks integration, but I'm not sure how good it actually works?  🤷

Jay Zaidi · Answer

Try GMinutes Easy to use Project and task management tool. It allow you to add services provider and track cost and their work. You can print out task list and give to the contractor or handyman.

It’s free for 1 year if you signup before 3/31/2019  gminutes.com

Jay Zaidi · Answer

Try free signup at www.gminutes.com

Project Management Tool for Flippers?

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