Does your roofing paperwork take up a lot of your time? Many roofing contractors find the process of creating, organizing, and managing documents to be one of the most time-consuming parts of their workday—especially because they’re focused on making sure these documents are as accurate as possible. Speeding up the documentation process might add more time back into your day, but it might also lead to errors that you want to avoid.
To help contractors save time on their roofing documents while also improving accuracy, AccuLynx developed a document management feature called SmartDocs for our software. Here are a few ways that SmartDocs can make the documentation process faster, simpler, and more accurate.
4 Ways to Use SmartDocs for Faster, More Accurate Roofing Documents
Roofing Document Tip #1: Create and store digital templates of your most used documents
Every roofing business has its own way of creating documents and its own style for estimates, change orders, contracts, proposals, and more. But if you’re creating them from scratch every time, it can add unnecessary work to your day. Many roofing contractors save themselves time by building templates that reflect the things they generally include in each type of document. This way, they can easily create a document without having to build something brand new every time.
AccuLynx helps you take the convenience of templates even further. In SmartDocs, you can set up your document templates electronically and store them in the AccuLynx system. This makes it easier for everyone on your teams to access the templates, whether they’re in the office or not. Electronic templates are simple to create, so you can save multiple templates for each type of document—for instance, a contract template for each one of your trades. When you’re ready to build a document, all you have to do is select the template that fits your needs and start filling in the unique customer information. And since it’s easy to see when a template was added to AccuLynx and update the system with new templates as needed, everyone at your company can have confidence they’re using the most up-to-date template to create their documents.
Roofing Document Tip #2: Autofill customer information from the rest of AccuLynx
Entering data multiple times can take up a significant chunk of your day—and lead to unintentional errors. In order to improve your accuracy and speed up the documentation process, it’s important to reduce the number of times you have to enter the same data.
SmartDocs virtually eliminates the need to do double (or multiple) data entry with the “smart fields” feature. This feature lets you fill in job information automatically from the AccuLynx job file, including name and address, estimate and contract totals, and more. All you have to do is add these “smart fields” to your existing templates, and every time you create a new document from a template, the unique customer information will be added instantly. This few minutes of setup saves you hours of data entry and ensures that the information in all your documents is accurate and up to date.
Roofing Document Tip #3: Send documents for digital review and signature
Driving around to collect signatures and setting up meetings with homeowners to review documents can be another drain on your already busy schedule. In addition, your customers and prospects are now accustomed to conducting most of their activities digitally, and may prefer electronic review over meeting with you in person. Having the capacity to send your documents for digital review and signature will free up time and help you provide convenient, high-quality service to your customers.
SmartDocs includes e-signature functionality so you can provide your customers with the option of reviewing and signing on their own time. When a document is complete, you’ll be prompted to send that document to the customer or prospect for review via email. You can send documents directly from the AccuLynx platform—no need to open another email client. The homeowner can review these documents on their own time and approve them with a legally binding e-signature, then send them back to your roofing company. They’ll automatically receive their own electronic copy of the document for their records. SmartDocs makes the approval process simple and convenient for both you and the homeowner, as well as reducing the number of visits you need to make to the job site.
Roofing Document Tip #4: Track your documents and get notified of changes
Do you know where your documents are at any given moment? Having the ability to track your documents as they’re changed, reviewed, and approved will help you stay on top of updates to your jobs, reduce the time you spend searching for documents, and minimize the risk of losing important information.
With SmartDocs, any changes to your documents are logged in the AccuLynx job file, helping you keep track of updates more easily. You can review the history of your documents and see what still needs to be approved or sent out. And when a document is signed, approved, or returned to the job file, you’ll automatically get a notification in AccuLynx. Not only does this keep you from wasting time digging through file folders or making phone calls to find out if a document has been approved, it also helps you move your projects forward more efficiently. With the instant notification when a document is signed, you can get started more quickly on the next phase of your job instead of waiting around for an update.
Read: Offload Your Roofing Business Paperwork with SmartDocs by AccuLynx
Roofing Documents Made Easy
SmartDocs gives you peace of mind that all your important roofing documents are safe and secure while making document management simple and efficient. When you use this feature to create digital templates, pull in job information automatically, get electronic signatures, and track changes and approvals, you can speed up the documentation process significantly without compromising accuracy. For more information about SmartDocs, you can watch a quick demo.
