Imagine the roller coaster ride that Richard Benson was on. First, this snow and ice contractor was riding high and seemingly hit pay dirt when the mid-Atlantic region was pummeled with approximately four feet of snow in February 2010. He and his crews worked around-the-clock for nearly two weeks and enlisted the services of 28 subcontractors to provide snow-removal services for the City of Baltimore, Maryland. Then he submitted his invoice and was at the lowest of lows when his bill was rejected.
A story in the Daily Record business newspaper summed up his experience: “Michael Elder, special chief solicitor in the Baltimore City Law Department, said Benson’s claims were rejected because he failed to turn in complete bills and invoices for his work.” Ugh.
As the city was scrambling to provide enough manpower and machinery to undertake the massive snow removal effort, things were apparently in complete disarray, which is not surprising in the midst of such an emergency. Mr. Benson claimed that he was given verbal approval by the Department of Transportation to begin work at a specified rate. The city claimed his invoice was not properly documented.
I will not pick sides on this one, because I don’t know the details of what actually transpired. But I do know that if the contractor were using business management software, such as Asset™, which is geared specifically toward snow and ice professionals, then this case would be much different.
In a situation like this, a company using Asset would have been able to easily – and very quickly – prepare a proposal and email it to the city for approval. Once they were approved, the work would be scheduled in the system and work orders would be dispatched to the crews, including subcontractors. At the end of each day, the information could be entered into the system either manually or automatically through an electronic device, and invoices could be automatically prepared with all pertinent information, such as, date, time, service performed, cost, location of completed work, and whatever else each jurisdiction would require. The invoices could then be reviewed and emailed with the push of a button. How easy is that?
On top of the invoicing, payroll would have all been handled and detailed job costing would have been possible. Finally, future slip and fall liability would be minimized because the contractors would have detailed records of which locations they had cleared. In short, a single tool like Asset that would allow you to have all of this information at your fingertips is what gives some owners the ability to sleep at night during a big event, knowing that not only is the snow being taken care of, but so is the business.
If you would like to read the full article, just drop me a note at jody@include.com and I can send it to you.
