Technology Consultation and Discovery

These estimates help size the work. Complete what you know.

Use one recent job or project as an example and describe its path from bid, staffing and time capture through invoicing, cash collection and profitability. Use an anonymized job reference and customer/site type; omit customer names and confidential contract details.

Start here if you want to focus on the decisions and handoffs that matter most.

Describe the organization at a high level. Use entity labels or types, states and responsible roles where names or ownership details are confidential.

1. List each legal entity using a label or type if confidential: state, active or dormant status, and service lines (for example scaffolding, insulation, coatings and blasting, fireproofing, tank services, fire and hole watch, welding and pipefitting, marine fabrication).
2. Which entities share craft employees, and how is shared labor charged between them today?
3. Which entities own the equipment, scaffold and fleet, and which ones use them?
4. Which entity holds the contractor license, the bonds and the insurance certificates in each state?
5. What would any planned restructuring change (for example a merger, a new entity or a holding company), and when?
6. Offices, yards and shops: location, what each does, headcount, who runs it.
7. Of the states where your organization is licensed, which had payroll in the last 12 months, and which have work planned?
8. Banking: one bank or several, and by entity?
9. Fiscal year, and one chart of accounts or several?
10. Do customers contract with one entity or several? Which entity invoices which plant?
11. Any entity outside the United States, or any plan for one?

1. Headcount today by craft and classification (helper, journeyman, foreman, general foreman), and by entity.
2. Peak and trough headcount over the last two years, and which turnarounds drove the peaks.
3. Turnarounds per year: how many, how long, peak crew size, and how far ahead you know about them.
4. Hires per month in a normal month and in a turnaround month. Rehires as a share of hires.
5. Separations per month and the main reasons.
6. Active jobs at any one time, jobs opened per year, average job length, by service line.
7. Master service agreements in force, and work orders or T&M tickets issued under them per month.
8. Bids per month and win rate; current backlog by service line.
9. Active customers and plant sites, and how many have their own invoice format, portal or training rules.
10. Invoices per month by type: T&M, unit rate, lump sum, cost plus.
11. Purchase orders per month and total spend; active vendors; share of spend that is equipment rental.
12. Timesheets per week: number of foreman or crew sheets and number of lines.
13. Payroll: employees paid per cycle, states per run, garnishments active, off-cycle payments per month.
14. Equipment: owned units, rented units, scaffold on hand (pieces or tonnage), small tools and consumables stock.

For each system your organization uses, such as ERP, accounting, payroll, HR, estimating, project controls, safety and training trackers, dispatch tools or other important applications, answer the following. Use system names and responsible roles; do not provide login details.

1. What is it used for, by whom, and how many users?
2. Who administers it, and is it hosted by the vendor or by your organization?
3. Contract end date and notice period.
4. Can it export its data, and in what form? Is there an API?
5. What does it do well that must not be lost?
6. What are the known gaps and the workarounds, including spreadsheets?
7. What feeds it and what it feeds today, by file, email or manual re-entry?

1. How are employees, jobs, cost codes, vendors and customers created today, and by whom?
2. What are the ID schemes for employees, jobs and cost codes, and do they match across your current ERP system, payroll system and field records?
3. How many duplicate or inactive records would you guess are in each list?
4. Who should own each list going forward?

1. Identity: Microsoft 365, Google, or something else? Is single sign-on in use anywhere?
2. Field devices: company phones, personal phones, tablets? Can crews use phones inside the plants, or are devices restricted at some sites?
3. Connectivity at yards and sites.
4. Describe your SharePoint or other collaboration and email setup at a high level.
5. Who is IT: in-house, outsourced, or both?
6. Security rules that apply: password rules, MFA, data retention, anything customers impose.
7. Your existing cloud account, if any: quotas, support plan and the role responsible for account ownership and access administration. Do not provide access keys or credentials.

1. For an active job today, how do you know cost to date against contract value or expected billings, and how old is that number when you see it?
2. How do field labor hours become job cost today: from the foreman's sheet to your payroll and ERP systems, who keys what, and how many days does it take?
3. How is labor burden (payroll taxes, workers' comp, per diem, benefits) loaded onto job cost, and does it vary by state or by craft?
4. How do materials, equipment, scaffold and subcontract costs reach the job, and with what lag?
5. Do you keep a work-in-progress schedule with over and under billings, and how often is it updated?
6. How is expected revenue set and updated: contract value, approved change orders, unit rates, estimate at completion?
7. Do you see margin by service line (scaffolding, insulation, coatings, fireproofing, tank services) as well as by job?
8. How many jobs run at once, and how many would you want to see on one screen?
9. How current does job margin need to be: live, same day, weekly? What would you do differently if it were live?
10. When a job starts losing money, who finds out, how, and how long after?

1. Bid to award: how are estimates built, who approves the bid, and how does an award become a job number with cost codes?
2. Contract types: MSA with plant rate sheets, T&M work orders, unit rate, lump sum. Roughly what share of revenue is each?
3. Mobilization: how are crews, equipment and scaffold scheduled to a site, and who owns the dispatch board?
4. Daily T&M tickets: does the customer representative sign them in the field, and how does a signed ticket become an invoice line?
5. Change orders and extra-work authorizations: how are they raised, priced, approved and added to the budget?
6. Monitoring: who reviews progress, cost to complete and estimate at completion, and how often?
7. Backcharges and disputed items from customers: how often, and how are they resolved?
8. Closeout: final billing, retainage release, demobilization, equipment and scaffold return, warranty, lessons learned. What has to happen, and who does it?
9. Where do job costs end up after closeout, and who posts that today?
10. How long does a job stay open after the work ends, and why?

1. How does a request for hands start (a foreman, a project manager, a customer call), and who approves it? Is there a budget or job check?
2. Where do craft candidates come from: rehires, referrals, job boards, staffing agencies? What works for scaffold builders, insulators, painters and welders?
3. Onboarding steps and documents: I-9, E-Verify, drug and alcohol program, background check, policies, PPE issue. Which are paper?
4. Plant badging and site orientation: lead times by plant, who schedules them, who pays for the hours.
5. Site training and access rules by plant (Basic Plus, plant-specific orientations, TWIC for marine work): where tracked, who checks before dispatch?
6. How often is a worker turned away at a gate, and why?
7. Craft classifications and pay rates: who sets the rate at hire, and how are promotions from helper to journeyman handled?
8. Per diem and travel: who qualifies, how is it decided, and where is it recorded?
9. Days from "we need six hands" to six hands badged and on site, normal and turnaround.

1. How is time captured today, by site: foreman crew sheets, individual sheets, photo, app, kiosk?
2. How are a crew's hours split across jobs, cost codes and sites within a day?
3. Who approves time, and when? Where are corrections made?
4. Pay rules: overtime and double time by state, turnaround schedules (7-12s), shift premiums, holidays, per diem, travel, the Monday split.
5. Multi-state: which states ran payroll in the last 12 months, which have reciprocity, which have local taxes, and how often does one worker cross states inside a pay period?
6. State unemployment, workers' comp codes by craft and state, and state-specific rules you already know about.
7. Payroll cadence and cutoffs, and what happens when a sheet is late.
8. Garnishments, child support, retro pay, off-cycle checks: how many a month?
9. Certified payroll and prevailing-wage jobs: how are those hours flagged and reported?
10. What does your current payroll provider file for you today, and what does Finance file?
11. Hours per cycle the office spends keying, checking and fixing time.

1. Where do billing rates live (MSA rate sheets by plant, craft and classification), who maintains them, who approves a change, and how does a change reach the biller?
2. T&M billing: how do signed daily tickets, hours and per diem become an invoice, and what backup does each plant require?
3. Unit-rate billing (scaffold by component or square foot, insulation by linear foot, coatings by area): how are quantities measured, verified and billed?
4. Lump-sum jobs: pay applications, schedule of values, retainage. Who prepares them?
5. Equipment, scaffold rental, consumables and small tools on invoices: how are they priced and marked up?
6. Customer formats, PO and line limits, and portals, by plant.
7. How many invoices come back, and for what reasons?
8. Days from period end to invoice, and from invoice to cash, by customer.
9. Retainage, approved but unbilled change orders, and unbilled work: how are they tracked?

1. Direct versus indirect buying: what is bought for a specific job (insulation, coatings, abrasives, scaffold components, consumables) and what for the company (fuel, PPE, shop supplies, services)? Who buys each?
2. How does a purchase start (a foreman, a project manager, the yard), who approves it, and at what amounts? Is there a purchase request before the PO?
3. Is the PO written before or after the buy? How often after?
4. Job-site deliveries: who receives at a remote site or inside a plant, and how do you confirm what arrived?
5. Materials moved between jobs or yards: how often, how is the cost transferred, and who tracks it?
6. Freight: who picks which yard ships, who prices the shipping, and how often is freight a surprise on the job?
7. Equipment and scaffold rental: how are on-rent and off-rent dates tracked, and how often is something returned late or lost?
8. Subcontractors: onboarding, insurance checks, pay applications, lien waivers, retainage.
9. Vendor invoices that can't be matched to a PO or a receipt: how many, and what happens to them?

1. How are suppliers and subcontractors chosen and approved today? Is there an approved list?
2. Is anyone rated on price, delivery, quality or safety, and where is that kept?
3. Which suppliers or subs are on customer-approved lists or need certifications?
4. How often does a supplier problem reach a job: late, wrong, or non-compliant?

1. How are office, yard and shop costs collected today, and are any of them spread to jobs?
2. Is there an internal rate per equipment class, and is it charged to jobs?
3. Labor burden: one rate, by craft, by state, or by entity?
4. Does anyone compare budgeted overhead to actual by department?

1. Scaffold inventory: how are components tagged or counted, tracked between yards and sites, and charged to jobs? How is loss handled?
2. Blast pots, compressors, welding machines, lifts and trucks: how are they assigned to jobs and charged out, if at all?
3. Small tools and consumables: how are they issued to crews and charged to jobs?
4. Do the yards hold stock that is issued to jobs (insulation, coatings, abrasives), and is any of it counted?
5. Fleet: how many vehicles, who drives them, and where are DOT and maintenance records kept?
6. Maintenance and inspection records for scaffold, rigging and lifting gear: where, and who keeps them?

1. Recruiting sources today: rehire lists, referrals, job boards, staffing agencies, postings through your current payroll or HR system? What works for craft hiring?
2. How do you keep good hands between jobs, and how do you bring them back for the next turnaround?
3. Performance and goals: who gets a review today, how, and on what cycle? Salaried only, or foremen and craft too?
4. Pay bands by craft and classification: do they exist on paper, and who owns them?

1. Which tools would stay in use alongside a new system: estimating, project controls, safety and training trackers, telematics? What do they hold that a report needs?
2. The reports and dashboards you and your managers want: job margin, WIP, backlog, labor and overtime, equipment use, safety (TRIR, near misses). How fresh does each need to be: live, daily, weekly?
3. Budgeting today: who builds the annual budget, in what tool, and how often is it reforecast?
4. Capital planning: scaffold, equipment, vehicles, yards. Who decides, and against what plan?
5. Operating cost planning by department or entity: does it exist, and who owns it?

Describe requirements and the responsible teams at a high level. Tax, legal and regulatory requirements must be reviewed by your qualified advisers. Grahall uses these answers to scope business and system requirements; it does not provide legal, accounting or tax advice.

1. Certified payroll: which jobs require it (Davis-Bacon or state prevailing wage), which forms, how often, who prepares it today?
2. Any union agreements, fringe requirements or project labor agreements?
3. Site training and access by plant: the required courses (Basic Plus, plant orientations, confined space, scaffold user and competent person, respirator fit), renewal cycles, and who tracks expirations today.
4. Port and marine work: TWIC and other credentials, and who holds them.
5. Contractor prequalification: ISNetworld, Avetta, customer safety and quality audits. What do they ask for and how often?
6. Safety records: OSHA logs, TRIR and DART, incident reports, JSAs. Where are they kept, and who reports them to customers?
7. Welder, NDT and inspector qualifications (ASME Section IX, AWS, NCCER): where are the records, and who audits them?
8. DOT records for the fleet, and insurance certificates to customers.
9. Tax filings by state: who files today (your payroll provider or Finance), and which filings?
10. 1099s, sales and use tax on materials and rentals, and any exposure you are unsure about.
11. Customer invoice formats, portals (Ariba, Coupa and similar) and e-invoicing requirements, by plant.
12. Audits faced in the last two years: financial, workers' comp, customer, state. What was hard to produce?
13. Records retention rules your organization follows.

1. Your three main pain points: for each, what happens, how often, who feels it, and what it costs in hours, days or dollars.
2. Your best guess at what the leaks cost your organization in a year: unbilled hours, stale rates, late invoices, lost scaffold and tools, idle equipment, overtime nobody saw coming. Nobody will hold you to it.
3. Which numbers would you want on your phone every morning?
4. What has to be true in 18 months for this to have been worth it?
5. Growth plans: which service lines, which plants or regions, which states, how much headcount. When?
6. What must not change: customer relationships, pay practices, how foremen run their crews, anything the field will not accept?
7. The last system change at your organization: what went well, what didn't, and why?
8. When a process and a piece of software disagree, which one do you expect to bend?
9. Which roles or teams inside your organization support this, which have concerns, and why?

1. Which roles are on the prioritization committee, which role chairs it, and how does it decide: vote, consensus, your call?
2. What will the committee weigh, and roughly in what order: cost, risk, time to go live, change the field can absorb, fit with existing work and systems, vendor independence?
3. What would make the committee say no?
4. Budget cycle: when is next year's budget set, and who approves spend at what thresholds?
5. Preference for subscription (operating cost) or purchase (capital)?
6. Turnaround seasons and any other blackout dates.
7. Your target decision window: is it a date, a meeting, or a board approval?
8. Has your organization talked to SAP, an SAP reseller, or a construction-package vendor already? Seen any demos?
9. Any requirement on where data lives, or who may access it? Anything customers impose?
10. Contracting preferences: fixed fee per wave, milestone payments, exit rights.

Identify responsible roles or teams and their availability. Personal names are not needed.

1. Which role will be the executive sponsor?
2. A program manager on your organization's side: who, and can that person give half their time?
3. Process owners for finance, projects, buying, billing, HR, payroll and equipment: responsible roles and hours per week they could give.
4. Super users: one role per office, per major site and per business line. Which roles could cover these needs?
5. Which IT role is responsible for accounts, single sign-on and any cloud account?
6. Languages in the field: what share of craft workers need Spanish? Any other languages?
7. When are these people least available (close weeks, turnaround weeks, vacations)?
8. Can your organization turn around a sign-off in five business days? If not, what is realistic?
9. Who signs contracts, and how long does that take?

Use this as a preparation checklist. Please keep the records with your organization; discuss a secure exchange with Grahall before sharing files. No documents are required to request the free consultation.

• Entity org chart with ownership, and the state license list
• Office, yard and shop list with headcount
• Chart of accounts per entity; last consolidated financials, summary level
• Headcount by entity, craft and classification, with a two-year monthly trend
• Job list with open and close dates
• Invoice register, last 12 months
• PO register and vendor list, last 12 months
• Equipment list with owned and rented flags; scaffold on hand
• System list with contract end dates and owners
• Sample exports: employee, job, cost code, vendor and customer lists
• The spreadsheets people can't work without, with owner and purpose
• One foreman's crew sheet and one signed T&M ticket
• One rejected invoice with the reason; one invoice with its backup
• One PO; one onboarding packet
• MSA rate sheets for two plants
• Site training matrix for one plant
• Last month's rejected invoices with reasons
• Payroll calendar and any written pay rules
• Current WIP schedule, if kept
• One certified payroll report as filed
• Last ISNetworld or customer audit request list
• List of state filings and who files each
• One customer's invoice spec or portal requirements
• Committee role list; budget calendar; turnaround calendar for 18 months
• Any vendor proposals or demo notes already received
• Proposed owner-role list with availability; super-user roles by office and site