Clerk Of The WorksInsurers & Adjusters

DryingWe’ve been listening and responding to our customers since version 1 was released ten years ago. During this time we’ve learned how the benefits of Clerk of the Works and T&M accrue to both the contractor and the insurer helping to turn a terrible loss into a timely restoration that’s fair to all parties.

In our training classes we constantly hear of examples where the contractor, even after being directed by the adjuster to use unit cost pricing, chose to document a project using both methods. The adjuster was then presented with both estimates often showing T&M as considerably, and in many cases dramatically, less than its unit pricing counterpart. So why would the contractor be inclined to bring this to your attention? With Clerk of the Works, they know their margins and are assured every job will be profitable. They’re learning that earning a fair profit while saving the insurer money will assure them of receiving more jobs down the road. They’re learning that it’s not one overly-inflated job that will make their year but rather it’s having you favor them with many, fair profit margin jobs that will provide their business with consistency and growth. If you have yet to have a contractor promote how Clerk of the Works and T&M can be a Win / Win, we suspect that day will come very soon.

Clerk of the Works® and T&M – A Win for All Parties

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One of the most recent enhancements to COW allows the contractor to quickly present an accurate NTE using square footage, a worker productivity factor, and the time frame in which the job needs to be completed. For any given phase of a job, they simply log the size of the area, the required time frame, and a per worker productivity factor, and COW does the rest based on supervisor to worker ratios.

On water losses COW helps the user compute the equipment requirements as well.

After evaluating a loss, the contractor can quickly and easily develop a NTE based on the size of the job and accurate gross profit projections. They can spend less time calculating the numbers and concentrate on developing the scope of work. The result… You are presented with a timely and accurate estimate that’s fair to both the contractor and the insured backed by a scope detailing both party’s responsibilities.

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The same estimating tools used to create the estimate can also be used by you to evaluate any proposal. You too, can enter the labor and equipment requirements from the proposal into the Clerk of the Works estimating worksheets, or simply add the required quantities manually. This allows you to quickly evaluate any proposal to ensure it’s based on gross profit projections that are fair and reasonable.

Using Clerk of the Works, our customers are able to provide you with accurate reports of yesterday’s events, the resources used, the current day’s requirements, and the daily burn rate for each day until the job is completed ~ often by mid morning. On large jobs this is accomplished by using multiple clerks each documenting a specific phase of the job. The master clerk then collects the individual job files daily and merges them together allowing him to run all daily reports on the job as a whole or by any of the individual phases.

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Over the past ten years our customers continually encountered different labor calculation requirements. As a result, whether there’s a holiday involved, a shift spans two days, or whether overtime for general labor needs to be calculated differently then other categories, Clerk of the Works accomplishes the task flawlessly and accurately.

In 2013, after the floods in Calgary, a client was weeks into a job when they learned of a special overtime law unique to Canada. They called and asked for assistance and by that evening we created an update that allowed them to present their invoice which adhered to the unique Canadian labor law.

Years ago, an auditor working one of our clients’ jobs discovered some workers were being billed for hours on two different phases of a job on the same date and time. Our client called and expressed the need to ensure this didn’t happen even in the event where data was entered incorrectly. He was very proud of his company’s reputation for complete documentation and billing integrity and understood this as a key factor in being favored with more jobs in the future. Immediately, an option was added to Clerk of the Works allowing a self-audit of labor that highlighted such data entry errors.

Did you ever have a question during an audit that the contractor couldn’t immediately answer because the backup documentation wasn’t readily available? Each and every line item on a T&M invoice must have the proper backup documentation – and Clerk of the Works makes it available with the click of the mouse. In our training classes, we highly encourage a “Once and Done” documentation process. Everything from Worker Sign In sheets to worksheets of the equipment and materials used, to the receipt for a case of water from WalMart can be immediately scanned into Clerk of the Works and quickly accessed at any time.

One of the many utilities in Clerk of the Works automatically compares line item pricing to a predefined price list and highlights any inconsistencies. Additionally, if any item is re-negotiated, the change can be made immediately.

Conclusion

T&M on medium and large losses has become the preferred estimating and billing method due to its cost savings, its fair gross profit approach, and the full disclosure accountability that backs up every line item on the invoice. It is a great honor that the program we’ve put ten years of work into, has helped bring these advantages to light.

Contractors are quickly learning that a fair profit on many jobs is much better than a large profit on just one. They have come to understand that an unsubstantiated charge on an invoice reflects poorly on their business and that ultimately you decide how many “chances” they get to prove their worth.

Our product and company started by simply seeing and filling a need. I believe our exponential growth and the respect we’ve earned in the industry is attributable to listening and responding to our customers needs while providing customer service that’s unheard of in the software industry.

Clerk of the Works already has many audit features to make the job of determining who is worthy of your business much easier. But I am eager to listen and determine how COW can further fulfill the needs of the adjuster and insurer. Should you have and questions whatsoever, please give us a call. And should we be favored with your business or a recommendation to a contractor, be assured we will strive to meet and exceed your expectations.

We continue to build lasting relationships based on three important principles ~ value, integrity, and trust. We are honored to produce a program that encourages these shared principles by requiring total transparency and accountability the results of which benefit everyone involved in restoring the clients property in a timely manner. I now look forward to the opportunity to build a relationship with your company based on these same values.