Outside the Box - Contracting

Outside the Box - Contracting

Blog: February 4, 2021

So, you have been using FinishLine or another punch list system for a long time and you think you’re using it to the best potential. What if you could use an inspection tool to accomplish more on and off the job site, while saving time and money along the way?

Take a look at a few of the examples below from the first installment of Rob's "outside the box" thinking blog series by the CTO of FinishLine Software and see if it may help you or stir some creative juices.

Contracting: There are many points to cover here and some may not be relevant to your particular use of the software.

GMP/Cost Plus/Pay by Quantity – have you ever had a project that was a pay by quantity? We had one at the Luxor Hotel Casino in Las Vegas for a large remediation project of all the rooms. The GC negotiated a “pay-by-quantity” scenario with the owner, MGM Resorts Design Development (MRDD). We helped them use a punch to keep track of all the item quantities with FinishLine.

First, we developed a punch Checklist of all pay-by-quantity items and then we placed a punch with that checklist at every door of the hotel room. As the owner, GC and subs entered and worked on the room, several of those in leadership would open the checklist and add their quantities to the list. We also developed a mechanism for them where the owner MRDD had final validation / approval of the quantity of items.

When a floor was complete, we would simply run a report and export to Excel that aggregated all the like quantities. Once the Excel was ready, we also ran a quick macro marrying up the quantities with the agreed upon unit price and voila we had a document the GC could invoice with and a validation the owner could pay with.

Take a look at this sample checklist:

Pay by Quantity Checklist

How’s that for out of the box? Here's two other concepts to mull over...

Too Busy to Get Started - Do you have so many projects already underway that it seems impossible to get FinishLine started because you're too far along? Well the short answer is that it’s never too late to use FinishLine even if punch has already started. So, you say, but the GC is using Procore already. And we say, Great because FinishLine plugs right into Procore and publishes your results to the Procore Project. Not to mention the fact that FinishLine runs circles around the Procore Punch tool.

Roadblock Central - So, you say that we can never seem to get anyone to use FinishLine. No problem. Make sure your contracts REQUIRE the use of FinishLine by the AOR, GC, Subs, Vendors or by anyone else you contractually engage. You can do this in two ways, paying for their usage in addition to requiring its use and/or requiring them to also use it and pay for it. With our new per user/per month pricing its literally cheaper than a monthly cell phone bill to engage and ensure you are getting the biggest advantage of a near real-time, coordinated e-punch.

There is so much more to FinishLine than just punch, which will save you time keeping track of items no matter where you are on the project timeline and will make it easier to get everyone on the same page.