IndustriesConstruction
The site knows what happened. The office finds out on Friday.
Things happen on a site all day. Material goes out of the store. A change is agreed standing in the mud. A machine sits idle on the wrong job. None of it reaches the office until somebody carries a sheet of paper back at the end of the week, and by then half of it is somebody's memory.
We build the system that closes that gap. Every site runs from one place, so you can see what is happening on each of them today, what it has cost so far and how far along it really is. The valuation at month end is put together from records made while the work was being done.
You know what the project was budgeted at. Do you know what it has cost you this week?
What usually breaks
Not a list of features missing. A list of the places the work actually falls over, in this sector, in this market.
- 01
You bill for less work than you did
At month end somebody works out how much was completed so the client can be invoiced. If it was not written down while it was happening, that number comes from memory, and memory is always low. The difference is work you paid for and never charged anybody for.
- 02
Changes are agreed on site and never written down
Everybody remembers a different figure and a different date. Whoever wrote it down at the time wins the argument, and usually that is not you.
- 03
Material leaves the store and nobody knows which job used it
It goes out to a site, not to a job. So when one part of the work eats twice the cement it should, nothing shows it until the whole project is over budget.
- 04
Machines are billed to nothing
An excavator sits on a site for three weeks. Which project paid for that is a question nobody can answer, so every project's numbers are slightly wrong.
- 05
Subcontractor claims arrive with nothing to check them against
The claim says what was done. You have nothing of your own that says the same, so you pay it on trust or you argue about it for a month.
- 06
Retention sits in one person's spreadsheet
Held, released, defects period, expiry. It is real money owed to you and it lives in a file on somebody's laptop.
- 07
Progress is a number somebody feels
Reported up the chain, believed, and then contradicted by the next site visit.
What we build
Construction is one of the sectors where we have a system we can describe module by module. These are the parts of it; most clients start with two or three.
- 01
Every site on one screen
All your projects in one place: what happened on each of them today, what each has cost so far and how far along it is. That single view is the thing most contractors are missing.
- 02
Projects and bills of quantities
Budget against actual, item by item and section by section, so an overrun shows up at the line that caused it.
- 03
Materials and stores
Requisition, order, goods received, issue to a job, stock by store and reconciliation, so what was used sits against the work it went into.
- 04
Variations and instructions
Raised, valued, approved and recorded on the day, with the trail behind them. This one item pays for a system more often than anything else on this list.
- 05
Billing the client, and the money they hold back
Built from what was actually recorded during the month, with retention tracked all the way to the date it is due back to you.
- 06
Subcontractors
Who you have hired, what each one has done, what they are asking to be paid for it and what you have actually paid. Money you hold back from them is tracked the same way as the money your client holds back from you.
- 07
Plant and equipment
Where each machine is, hours run, fuel, servicing and cost per project, so the machine lands on the job that used it.
- 08
Payment requests and approvals
Every payment out of the company raised as a request, with a spending limit, a named approver and a record at the end of it. The chain that runs over WhatsApp today, running as a process.
What it has to live with
Nothing here runs on its own. These are the systems your business already answers to, and a system that ignores them is a system somebody has to work around.
- 01
WhatsApp
Requests raised and approvals given from the app everybody on the job already has. No new app on a foreman's phone, and nothing to teach anybody.
- 02
Paying your suppliers
Approved payments sent out together, in one action, instead of one transfer at a time. The record of who approved what stays attached to the payment.
- 03
AI on the paperwork
Supplier invoices and delivery notes read, so the numbers come off them without somebody reading each one by hand. And answers found in your own project records when somebody asks.
What changes
The reason to do any of it, in the language of the person signing for it.
- Every site visible from one screen, today, without ringing anybody
- A valuation you can defend line by line, built from what was recorded while it happened
- Changes given a value and an approval on the day they are agreed
- Material issued against a work item, so overuse shows up while you can still act on it
- Machine cost landing on the project that used it
- Retention visible and reclaimed on time, because the date came to you
- Progress reported from records
- A prequalification pack you export in a morning
Where this usually starts
Most companies in this sector begin with one of these and add the rest later.
- Business systems (ERP)One system your company runs on, built around the way it already works.
- Mobile appsFor the people doing the work away from a desk, and the office that needs to see it.
- WhatsApp business systemsYour business operated from the app your staff and customers already use.
- Data analysis and reportingThe patterns your day-to-day numbers hide, and what to do about each one.
Questions you probably have
The ones we are actually asked, answered the way we answer them on a call.
- Our people are not technical.
- They do not need to be. We take what your team already does on paper and make the same steps digital, in the same order, using the same words they use now. There is nothing new to learn, so there is nothing to resist. We are a Tanzanian company building for Tanzanian companies, and we know how the work is actually done here.
- What part of this saves the most money?
- Payment requests. Every payment out of the company goes through the system, so nothing leaves without a request, an approver and a record. That alone cuts overspending and closes the gaps where money goes missing. You can also see how long approvals are taking and where they stall, and when something is ordered you can check it against what actually arrived. This is the part clients come back to us about.
- How long before we see anything working?
- The system is already built. You are configuring it for your projects and your people, not waiting for it to be written, so you see it working in your business almost straight away.
- We already use an accounting package. Do we drop it?
- No. Your ledger stays where it is. What is missing is the layer above it: what was done, by whom, against which item, at what cost. That is what feeds the accounts, and running two sets of books is how you end up trusting neither.
- Can it run several projects at once?
- Yes, and that is usually the point. One project can be managed on paper by somebody diligent. Three at once, sharing plant, stores and labour, cannot, and that is normally when a contractor comes to us.
- What about our data, and our clients' data?
- Labedan is a Registered Data Processor with the Personal Data Protection Commission of Tanzania, so it is handled under a legal framework with obligations attached.