The Design Builder's Blog

Financial System Considerations for Remodelers Looking To Break $1Million

Growing a remodeling business past $1Million a year of installed sales comes with new costs and expenses as the number of employees and overhead related activities naturally increase.   Just like estimating the cost of a remodeling project, the business owner will need a practical plan for growing the business and an accurate estimate of the costs related to growing it.   Then just like a remodeling project the business needs a way to measure how well things are actually going against the plan and budget.  

Without the ability to measure as the business grows the owner will experience a lot of financial anxiety.

Here is a list of several important financial system related items the business should put in place before growing past that $1million threshold.  Remember, this is supposed to be what I refer to in the second article in this series of articles as the Take-Off Stage.  Either the business properly prepares to take off and grow profitably or it risks disorganized chaos and lots of frustration attending the Lumberyard School of Hard Knocks.

Create a Financial System Strategy:

Find or create a fast and accurate Estimating System:  

As the business grows and more employees are added to share the workload the owner must be able to delegate tasks he or she probably did them self as they grew the business.  These delegated activities might include things like product selection, product procurement, production management, and even the responsibility for doing the estimating.   The yellow pad estimating method will not be adequate anymore.  A more advanced estimating system using spreadsheets and or industry specific estimating software will be needed and employees will need to be properly trained to use it.  The right system will speed up the estimating process and provide the information the entire team needs to build projects on their own without the need for constant micromanagement by the estimator, salesperson production manager and or the business owner.    

Create and document an Accounting and Bookkeeping System:

Growing your business should be profitable and should not be left to luck or chance.  

Without an accurate financial system in place your business will, unfortunately, be like the majority of other remodeling businesses in our industry.  Over 80% of remodelers have no idea of the true cost of being in business.  These businesses use what is referred to as the WAG method, or "Wild Ass Guess Method” for estimating direct cost and even the markup percentage to use on estimated costs when pricing the jobs they sell.  If that describes you and your business put the things I describe here in this article in place at your business before you seek to take-off past $1Million in remodeling.  Growing your business should be rewarding and profitable.  Entering the unknown without being properly prepared can be costly and may even lead to the demise of your remodeling business.

(Note: This is the sixth article in a series of articles written specifically for remodelers who want to successfully break past doing $1M/year in installed sales. Click here to see a list of all the articles in the series that have been published.)

Correct These Three Remodeling Business Dysfunctions Before You Grow Past $1M

Newton’s Law of Momentum states that “A body in motion tends to stay in motion and tends to continue in the same direction.” Remodelers who downsized their businesses during the recession might want to consider Newton’s law.  

Your remodeling business may be back in motion again now that the economy is improving, but if you continue in the direction it is currently headed will you reach your personal and professional goals? And, if you were already at or had crossed the $1Million per year threshold before you downsized, thinking back, was it really the right path to be on to help you keep growing profitably? If you are not realizing the success you hoped for when you started your remodeling business you might want to consider and address these three indicators of a dysfunctional remodeling business before planning any additional growth.

Dysfunction #1: Constant Crisis

If you wake up every day wondering what fires you or your employees will have to put out you’re probably already deep into constant crisis.   Lack of planning and a lack of standard operating procedures causes constant crisis. Once in constant crisis it can be difficult to get out because addressing each crisis eats up the time your business needs to plan, develop and implement procedures that would have prevented the crisis to begin with.   For example, if you keep underestimating or under pricing your work because you lack a quick and accurate estimating system you will forever be trying to find ways to reduce your production costs to make up for it.   Also, consider it might only be a matter of time before employees, subs and vendors get fed up with constantly having to do and give more because your lack of planning has become a way of doing business, rather than just a phase you’re working through. Maintaining constant crisis often leads to staff and sub contractor turnover. Losing and replacing resources will help keep you in the constant crisis whirlpool as well.

Dysfunction #2: Tolerating Relative Success

If you have convinced yourself that your business isn’t really all that bad when you compare it to other dysfunctional businesses that are worse off than yours, yours will never achieve true success. Being less bad is not good. Rather than judge your business on relative success, you should judge it based on absolute success.   Again this requires planning, but also requires establishing metrics against which you, and anyone else who reads your plan, can measure whether your plan is working and is actually leading you towards predefined success. Keep in mind that being better off than you used to be might not be a great place to be either.   Think of it this way;

Dysfunction #3: Broken Behavior-Consequence Strategy

If your business requires you to do almost everything because if you want it done right you have to do it yourself, your business is dysfunctional but so are you.   If employees or subcontractors can’t or won’t do and or follow through on certain tasks, why are they still there? What sense does it make to establish rules for doing business if you don’t also establish clear and actionable consequences for not following them? For example, why give a salesperson a commission for closing a sale if he or she hasn’t completed all the paperwork required to hand the project off to the production team? Or, if employees don’t get their time cards in on time and or fill them out correctly, why do you pay them on time?

Owning and running a remodeling business requires leadership

Without proper and adequate leadership from the owner a business can quickly and easily become dysfunctional. If any or all of these indicators are happening at your business it’s time to step back and away from your situation long enough to develop an “outside view”. You should definitely do this before you allow your business to pass $1Million in installed sales.

Perhaps consider these words of wisdom I found on a bumper sticker:

“The minds that created our problems are not likely the ones who can help us solve them.”

If you can’t or won’t eliminate the reasons for dysfunction, find someone else who can.

(Note: This is the fifth article in a series of articles written specifically for remodelers who want to successfully break past doing $1M/year in installed sales. Click here to see a list of all the articles in the series that have been published.

Five Remodeling Business Myths That Get In The Way Of Growing Your Business Past $1M

There are many remodeling business myths that seem to have become truths for way too many remodelers. That’s too bad. Believing those myths may be holding them back from being able to grow their businesses. Allowing these myths to remain in place will definitely prevent remodelers from successfully growing their businesses past the $1 Million installed sales threshold.

Schema leads us to believe what we experience as true

In an April 2010 Remodeling magazine article I defined and discussed schema. We all have our own schema. Schema is our way of interpreting things and information based on our past experiences.   Without previous experience with something one cannot have schema in that area. We can also have a limited schema about certain subjects if our experience in those subjects is limited. With limited schema our definition of what is true may also be compromised. In other words, if you have schema, but it is limited, you may end up believing something to be true, even though it is a myth.

I suggest the video below makes my point

Here are five remodeling business myths that are easily debunked with some schema

If you don’t do marketing to expose how your business is different you will be perceived by consumers as being the same as most other contractors. That puts you into price competition to get jobs. Check out these two articles and try what is suggested to gain some new schema on this topic: Generic Contractors Are Fading Away, Brand Names Are Shining and Why Some Contractors Can Raise Their Prices But Most Others Can’t

Myth #2: Home owners won’t pay for estimates:

Most contractors say they can’t charge for estimates in their market place because all the other contractors do them for free. First, that is not true, many contractors successfully charge for estimates. Second, remember your mother: “If all the other kids jump off the bridge on the way to school does that mean you should jump off too? Maybe learning some ways to do it and them giving them a try could change your perspective about charging for estimates. This article can help get you started: Tips For Contractors On Ball Park Pricing and Charging For Estimates

Myth #3: Contractors have to wait until each phase of work has been completed before getting paid for each phase:

Again, will you jump off the bridge, too? Will Delta Airlines let you pay after you land?   Completing remodeling services without being paid for them before you do them is in my opinion foolish, and a huge risk for most remodelers.   It instantly creates cash flow challenges in a business where cash is king. Breaking $1M without good cash flow might be the death of your business. Here is how you can create payment schedules that keep you ahead of your customer: Payment Schedules That Create And Protect Cash Flow

Myth#4: There are no good employees out there to hire:

Finding good employees is tough and doing it well requires a well thought out recruiting process. However most remodelers get bad employees because they don’t establish well thought out job descriptions before seeking to hire. When that is the case the job description is often being created during the interview, perhaps by the candidate. Check out this article published in JLC magazine for some help in this area: One Simple But Powerful Tip For Hiring The Right Employees 

Myth #5: If I give my employees too much training they will leave and start a business of their own and become my competition:

I personally found just the opposite happens. If you don’t give them enough insight and schema regarding what it takes to own, run, lead and finance a business they will leave to start their own. In addition to the training offer them leadership positions at your business, along with a good performance based compensation package. Doing so will make it more likely they will stay. These two articles will offer you some options to address this myth. The first was published in Remodeling magazine: Shared Responsibility: Advantages of Creating a Team of Leaders and Helping Employees to Think Like Owners

(Note: This is the fourth article in a series of articles written specifically for remodelers who want to successfully break past doing $1M/year in installed sales.  Click here to see a list of all the articles in the series that have been published.)

What Should You Do To Improve Your Remodeling Business In 2015?

It’s that time of the year when many forward thinking Remodeling Contractors contemplate and commit to the strategic business improvements they will make in the New Year.  If you want to grow your business and or make more money in 2015 having a plan to help you get there will make it much more likely to happen.  

If you already know what changes you need to make assembling your plan will probably be easy.  But if you aren't confident about what to do you might just invest your time and money in the wrong areas.   

Here are three important considerations to take into account before you commit to a plan:

First, make sure you work on the right areas in your business.

This may seem obvious but unless you already have a lot of business training and experience will you be sure you are working on the right things and in the right order?  For example it might not make sense to work on your sales skills if you’re  to not confident you will be properly marking-up your estimates cover your new overhead costs as you grow.  By making this mistake you might just be buying jobs instead of selling them and the growth could put you out of business.

Second, work to get your business in balance. 

To help clarify what I mean by this suggestion ask yourself if your business has systems or a system.  If you have systems maybe each system is working OK on its own, but by looking at it that way each might not be contributing as much to the overall success of your business as they could.  On the other hand if you work to balance the advancement of each of your business systems in the right order they could better unite together to form a system that produces far greater results.  Think of it like the cross pollenization of plants where, working together in balance, one plus one can equal three.  But, sticking with the plant analogy, if you only water and fertilize half of your crop the weak plants will not be contributing as much pollen as the healthy ones and the overall harvest at the end of the growing season will have suffered.

Third, recognize your own weaknesses as the business' leader and commit to a plan of self improvement. 

For example if you add employees so you can get out of the field will your personal management and mentoring skills be adequate for the task at hand?   If you end up being a micromanager instead of a leader you may end up holding back inspired employees who want to grow.  If that happens you could lose them as well as the investments you made in attracting them in the first place.  Remember, most employees don't leave because they are not happy with the company they work for; most employees leave because of the boss they work under.

Do a business assessment before you commit to changes

Creating a solid plan for what you will do to grow your business is not easy for most remodeling business owners.  Depending on your business experience it may actually be impossible to do.  To help you assess where your weak areas are and what things you should work on you can download my free Remodeling Business Assessment Worksheet.   By filling it out, it can help you see where your business is out of balance.  In the example to the right the business is producing work faster than it is selling it, probably due to a lack of sales staff.  With this information the business owner will have a much better idea regarding what areas to work on to help get the business in balance and grow it.  

If you download and fill out the Business Assessment Worksheet please share some comments here about your experience using it and what it might be indicating to you.   I bet what you share can be very valuable for other business owners.

Once you have your business in balance you will be closer to having a “system” instead of “systems”. 

Breaking Past $1M in Remodeling: Getting Ready To Do It

(Note: This is the third article in a series of articles written specifically for remodelers who want to successfully break past doing $1M/year in installed sales. Click here to see a list of all the article in the series that have been published so far.)

In a previous article I discussed how important it is that a remodeler decides whether he or she wants to remain a contractor or become a construction business owner before passing the $1 Million threshold in remodeling. Again, either choice can be a good one, but if you want to keep growing your business and offer growth opportunities to great employees, you need to become a construction business owner.

In yet another article I stressed the point that putting off that decision can lead you and your business from controlled chaos into disorganized chaos. The disorganized chaos happens because the labor intensive and disparate systems being used that got the business to $1M are no longer adequate to handle the increase in activities that come with the additional growth and inherent risk.  You can read my article titled "Invest In Your Remodeling Business Now Or Pay Forever" for more on this topic.

Before you decide to become a construction business owner

Becoming a construction business owner can be very rewarding for many reasons.   It’s also not a very easy thing to do successfully. It will take time, money, patience, vision, leadership skills and diligence.   Before you make the jump check out the business owner considerations and the business goals below. These are the kinds of things you will need to work on to help get yourself and your business on the path to successfully break past $1M and increase profits at the same time you grow.

Remember, growing your business faster than your systems can handle is the most common reason for construction business failure.

Business Owner Considerations during the Take-Off Stage:

• Owners should seek to put a more refined structure in place for the purpose of better, faster, and more accurate information. This is a critical step towards the owner’s ability to evolve away from the micromanagement of employees.
• The owner should develop measurement milestones and incremental check points relative to a achieving a refined long term vision for the business.
• The owner must learn to recognize, adapt to and take advantage of changes in the market place, because a lot of changes will happen over the time it takes to grow the business.
• The owner should seek to add mid level management employees as soon as possible assuming earned gross profit and/or reserve funds can support the required overhead.
• The owner must focus on implementing critical and timely business adjustments identified by business reports, trends and the opportunities brought to light due to an advancing schema.

Goals during the Take-Off Stage:

• Develop the ability to track business activities without relying on the hard drive capacity of the owner’s CPU (brain and memory).
• Start the process of developing written job descriptions for how business should be happening.
• Increased use of standard repeatable methods and create supporting documentation and forms.
• Give salespeople the support they need to support sales less on their own, sell more and keep them selling profitably.
• Develop standard contracts and agreements, reviewed by legal counsel to protect the business.
• The ability to collect supporting data company wide electronically.
• The ability to manipulate and interpret the data.
• Add and ramp up a full time sales person to relieve the owner of some sales volume, allowing the owner to concentrate on other high level activities.
• Train and allow lead carpenters to be owners of their projects and managers in the field.
• Identify a production manager candidate, preferably from within the existing lead carpenters.
• Mentor the production manger candidate into a full time role.
• Accumulate cash reserves adequate to finance your ability to grow into the next stage.

Breaking Past $1M in Remodeling: Typical Characteristics of the “Take-Off Stage”

(Note: This is the second article in a series of articles written specifically for remodelers who want to successfully break past doing $1M/year in installed sales. Click here to see a list of all the articles in the seriesthat have been published.)

Every remodeling business and its owner are different from other remodeling businesses and their owners. This is because remodeling businesses are typically not designed, they just happen.  As a result, both the business and the owner evolve forward based on and limited by the skills and knowledge the owner brings to the business.  

Successful growth of the business depends on the owner

Hard working entrepreneurs have what it takes to get the business going, but most entrepreneurs lack the business skills, practical experience and insight to successfully grow a remodeling business past $1Million. This doesn’t necessarily mean they shouldn’t do it or they should replace themselves as the business leader.  It does however typically require they get the outside assistance and guidance needed to help make the required changes happen.

This stage of business growth is what I refer to as the “Take-Off Stage” for a remodeling business because either the business takes off successfully, or it doesn’t.  Another way of looking at it might be either the business owner commits to doing it and doing it right, or accepts the status quo of accidental and unplanned growth.

In this article, from a high level perspective, I want to share some typical characteristics of a remodeling business on the doorstep of the Take-Off Stage.  If your business has already started on and or put these items in place your business is at that critical point where you must decide to remain a contractor or become a construction business owner.  Putting off the decision can lead you and your business from controlled chaos into what I call disorganized chaos; where discovering and dealing with fires everyday overwhelms the business owner and prevents proactive business growth activities.

Typical Characteristics of Take-Off Stage

• Produced volume somewhere between about $750K to $1.2 Million of installed sales. Note: Volume can range because for example if your markup is really low (10%) you might be installing as much work as a remodeler using a very high markup (75%)
• Through experience an advanced schema has developed in both the owner and a few key employees. As a result:

• Computer and software use has increased dramatically, but consists of segregated off the shelf solutions.
• The owner is working many hours, performing multiple job descriptions and for the most part is just keeping up with day to day activities.
• The owner realizes what he he/she is currently doing will not take the business to the next level.

(Note: This is the seventh article in a series of articles written specifically for remodelers who want to successfully break past doing $1M/year in installed sales. Click here to see a list of all the articles in the series that have been published.)

As a remodeling business seeks to grow past the $1million a year threshold things can very difficult for most business owners.  Taking the jump can even be fatal for the business. I call it the “Take-Off Stage” because either the business takes off successfully, or it doesn’t.

The typical challenges most owners experience during this transition include having the right skills to make the jump successfully and getting it done quickly enough.  The growth has to happen quickly enough so the increased volume produces the gross profit needed to cover the additional related overhead expenses required to first make the jump and to sustain it.

At the doorstep of approximately $1M remodelers must make a decision

Will they remain contractors or will they become construction business owners? 

Either is a good choice, but being a construction business owner is much more involved.  It can also be much more profitable.

 It’s the best time to introduce the structural and behavioral changes the business and the owner will both need to make.  

 

Growing past the $1M mark without putting significant changes into place is a huge risk

The reason most small businesses fail is not because they are not profitable, but rather because they grow faster than the business can successfully implement the systems needed to manage that growth.

 
Want help making the $1M Jump?

If you what help here is what I am setting up to help you.  Over the next two weeks or so I will be publishing blog topics specifically written to help remodelers who want to grow past $1Million a year.  In the next article I will share the typical characteristics of the Take-Off Stage.   After that article I will share some important considerations for the business owner and a list of goals the business and the owner should consider committing to and working on to get ready for the growth. 

Then, following those articles I will post a series of articles.  Each article will specifically discuss one of the seven business systems I have identified as critical to the successful and profitable growth of a remodeling business.  Again each one will be written for the purpose of helping remodelers with what they will need to consider and put in place to help them break $1M profitably.

The list of systems to be discussed will include:

1. Financial
2. Marketing
3. Design
4. Sales
5. Production
6. Personnel
7. Communications.

If you haven’t already done so subscribe to my blog so you won’t miss a single article.

Invest In Your Remodeling Business Now, Or Pay Forever

The New Year is here again. For many it’s a time to plan and make commitments for the changes and improvements needed to make the coming year better than the last.  Then there are the remodelers who say they and their companies are too busy working to take the time to remodel their own businesses. What they may not know is that if they don’t invest now to either train employees or restructure their businesses, they will be paying for not doing so for a long time to come.

What am I referring to?

• I'm talking about proactively taking a look at how efficiently you run your company in order to get better returns on your investment of time, money and focus.
• I am talking about assessing your company's cost effectiveness and taking into account if employees are properly trained to do their jobs so you don’t have to micromanage them.
• I’m also talking about creating the ability to actually be “present” when you sit down to have dinner with your family or attend your child’s soccer game.

You can invest now to train managers or employees and to rework structural shortcomings within your business.  Or you can pay forever by running a shoddy show that won't give you the financial returns that it takes to stay in business and retire before your body eventually gives out.

If you don't do it now, how much profit will you possibly lose until you do set a plan into action?  If you don’t do it now how much will your procrastination cost you over the coming years you are in business; including the compounded interest you could have earned each year towards your eventual retirement? 

I know many remodelers who have no retirement funds at all.  How about you?

Don’t forget about lost opportunities

By sticking with the status quo many business owners are also missing out on opportunities they could have concentrated on if they were not constantly dealing with and fixing the same problems over and over again. For example, at a recent workshop for remodeling business owners I broke the attendees out into several groups and asked them to assess their business’ current status. One group of eight remodelers agreed their production slippage problems hurt them financially at a cost of at least 10% of total volume each year.

I then asked them to reference that in the point of view of being a $1 million/year company. They agreed this 10 percent production slippage loss would equal a $100,000 deficit each year. Would you want that to happen or keep happening at your business?

Here is a tough question to ponder

Does your spouse or significant other know you have such opportunities to make and keep more money?   Or, are you hiding that fact from them and others so you don’t have to recognize and address the shortcomings of your business and or your business acumen?

It's up to you. You can pay now, or you can pay forever.

How to Update Your State Unemployment Rate in QuickBooks for 2015

For those of you running payroll through QuickBooks, it’s important to be sure that you start creating paychecks in 2015 using the correct state unemployment rate.  Although QuickBooks is capable of correcting miscalculated numbers if you accidentally neglect to update the rate prior to running payroll in the new year, it’s cleaner to be sure it’s correct right from the start.

Why is this important?

Because this rate is specific to your company rather than being a state-wide rate, QuickBooks is unable to automatically correct this rate via a payroll download. That’s why you need to make the adjustment manually.

You should soon (or may have already) received notification from your state department of labor. In some states, this form can be somewhat confusing since there are multiple figures. Often, clients aren’t sure which rate to use or where to enter it in QuickBooks.

Where to enter in QuickBook

1. Click Lists ⇒ Payroll Item List.
2. Scroll down the list to find and select your state unemployment item. QuickBooks usually names it using the 2-letter state abbreviation followed by Unemployment Company (as in ME – Unemployment Company).
3. Double-click to edit and click Next twice to bring you to the Company tax rates screen.
4. If you make the change prior to 1/1/15, you will see your 2014 rates by quarter and will need to enter the new rate in the box at the bottom called Year 2015     For 1/1 – 3/31. If you wait until after 1/1/15 (but before creating any 2015 paychecks), you will be able to enter the rate into the fields for the four quarters.
5. Click Next until you get to the screen with Finish on it. Click Finish and you’re done.

What to enter in QuickBooks

Use the rate you received from the state. Be careful since states that have multiple taxes that are “grouped” may report the individual taxes and then the total amount. If QuickBooks calculates the taxes separately, you must enter the tax rate for unemployment without accidentally entering a rate that reflects a combined rate for unemployment and something else.

Example: In Maine we have an additional Competitive Skills Scholarship Fund (CSSF) tax that is reported and paid along with unemployment. The rate update form in Maine provides the information broken out as follows:

• 2015  Final Unemployment Contribution Rate
• 2015 CSSF Assessment Rate
• Total Combined Assessment Rate for 2015

Because QuickBooks already tracks the CSSF rate separately, if your company were in Maine, you would need to enter the 2015 Final Unemployment Contribution Rate, not the Total Combined Assessment Rate.

For example, for 2015 my rates are as follows:

• 2015  Final Unemployment Contribution Rate = 1.54%
• 2015 CSSF Assessment Rate = .06%
• Total Combined Assessment Rate for 2015 = 1.60%

I will be using the 1.54% rate.

I hope that helps!

Software Expert Offers Advice For Owners Seeking Contractor Business Software

I recently did an interview with Forrest Burnson, the research expert at Software Advice, a company that reviews remodeling software and connect buyers with software vendors.  Here are my questions and Forest’s answers.   I hope you find them helpful.

Question #1:

Lots of contractors I work with and others I speak to are looking for an all-in-one solution for their residential remodeling businesses.   So far they and I have not found one that is really “All-in-one”.   Are there any true “All-in-one” systems out there for the $2M and less remodeling contractor?  If not, why not and what can business owners do?
 
Answer:
It's true that traditionally, there haven't been many "all-in-one" systems targeted toward small home building/remodeling firms. However in recent years we have seen a number of offerings pop up for this industry segment, and the older legacy vendors are also starting to target smaller firms. Now, the issue is whether these newer, cheaper offerings will have longevity in the market. There's always the chance of acquisition or the vendor going under, which might be a good argument to stick with systems that offer subscription pricing as opposed to a significant upfront investment.
 

Question #2:

Can you offer some advice and guidance to business owners who want to look into and qualify the appropriateness of software for their business needs?  Maybe offer a best way to get started?
 

Answer:
Well, I do have to plug our service here at Software Advice—we offer free phone consultations to prospective software buyers to help them find the best system for their needs. Always, always, always demo a system before making the commitment—and get people on your team to demo it too, if they're going to be working with it.

Question #3:

Many old school business owners are hesitant to consider cloud based programs, citing their concerns for access and security.   Can you offer some pro/con advice for business owners trying to decide between using desktop and cloud applications?

 
Answer:
While both offer their advantages and disadvantages, the trend is definitely toward the cloud. In the construction industry especially, there are so many benefits to the cloud—mobile access, more streamlined collaborative processes, typically better document control, etc. I do think there is a misconception that the cloud is not as secure—if the proper procedures are being followed, it's no more risky than a traditional on-premise system. That said, it can take more diligence to ensure that a cloud system is as close to 100 percent secure as possible (no system will ever be 100 percent secure). Lastly, in terms of cost, cloud systems will generally be cheaper in the long-run as you will have to invest less in hardware. 

Choosing the Right Tools and Technology for Your Construction Company

Question #4:

My experience shows that almost every remodeling business owner reinvents the wheel of doing business; therefore every one of them has a different business model to support.  This can make it difficult to find a software to support how they already do business.  Plus, setting up the software to support the business can be challenging because most owners of smaller businesses couldn’t explain in a logical order how they do business, it just happens.  Can you offer your thoughts on this reality as it relates to choosing software and getting help setting it up so it is actually ready to use?
 
Answer:
The way you describe how small businesses operate is pretty spot-on—there's going to be a certain 'method to their madness' as they grow, with ad-hoc solutions becoming their modus operandi. So there is a little give-and-take; no matter what, you will have to conform some of your business processes to jive with the software system you've deployed. That said, some of the more complex systems can be quite flexible, and the vendor will typically work with the client to customize the system to fit their needs. Those systems tend to be costlier, so again, it's a give-and-take situation.

Researcher Bio: Forrest Burnson is a Market Research Associate at Software Advice, where he covers the construction, inventory management and supply chain markets. He graduated in 2011 from the University of the South with a degree in political science and French studies. In 2013, he graduated from the University of Texas with a master’s degree in journalism. During his second year of graduate school, Forrest was a fellow for News21.
Prior to joining Software Advice, he was a writer and researcher for Global Water Intelligence. He has also written for a number of other outlets, including the Texas Tribune, the Austin Business Journal, Market News International and the Austin American-Statesman.