Last month I had this “brilliant” idea to replace the railing on my apartment balcony. Should’ve been a simple weekend project, right? Wrong. Three weeks later, I’m drowning in receipts from four different suppliers, trying to figure out which contractor invoice goes where, which got me thinking about how broken construction job costing must be.
If a tiny balcony project could turn into such chaos, I started thinking – how do actual construction companies handle this stuff with million-dollar projects? Turns out, they’re struggling just as much as I was.
Construction Job Costing is Broken
Here’s the brutal truth: construction job costing isn’t just messy – it’s hurting the profitability. Reports from various organizations, including the Construction Management Association of America, LinkedIn, and McKinsey & Company, all cite that a high percentage (~70%) of construction projects exceed their initial budgets.
Picture this daily scenario: You’re working on five projects, processing over 2,000 documents monthly – receipts, invoices, change orders, permits. Every single one needs correct project coding. Miss one invoice? Your profit margin just took a hit worth thousands.
The reason for “Why Everything Falls Apart” is that while other industries went digital, construction drowns in paper. Workers stuff receipts in toolboxes, invoices pile up in trailers, important documents are left on job sites. In addition to this, manual data entry kills productivity, even when paperwork reaches the office, someone manually types everything into accounting software: 1) Takes forever; 2) Error-prone; 3) Expensive.
It’s not too Late to Fix
By the time costs get entered, projects are already weeks over budget. You’re playing catch-up instead of managing proactively. But now this issue is getting a solution: Instead of manually sorting paperwork, AI handles this automatically.
How Veryfi Fixes This Chaos
Instant Data Capture: After just taking the picture with your phone, Veryfi’s OCR extracts vendor, amount, date, tax info, line items in under 3 seconds.
Smart Job Coding: AI learns your coding standards and does it automatically and this significantly reduces manual coding.
Real-Time Visibility: You can now see costs as they happen instead of waiting weeks.
Fraud Prevention: Veryfi’s Fraud Detection catches duplicate receipts and sketchy submissions before they hit your books.
Easy Integration: It connects directly with QuickBooks, Sage, Procore. No double data entry.
Stop Fighting the Same Battles
Construction job costing doesn’t have to be chaotic. Companies using AI document processing are already cutting administrative costs, winning more bids with accurate data and increasing profits without extra back-office staff. You can be ahead of this or keep fighting documentation battles while competitors pull ahead. AI-powered document processing isn’t some futuristic concept anymore – it’s here, it works, and early adopters are already reaping massive benefits. Companies implementing these solutions are seeing huge reductions in administrative overhead, catching fraud before it hits their books, and gaining real-time visibility that transforms how they manage projects. Meanwhile, competitors stuck in the paper-based past are bleeding profits and losing bids because they can’t accurately track their true costs.
The question isn’t whether this technology will transform construction job costing – that transformation is already happening. The real question is simple: Will your company be among the winners who embrace this change early, or will you keep fighting the same documentation battles while your competitors pull ahead?