A construction ERP should understand how a building project actually runs. That means a bill of quantities you can plan against, material requests that start on site, stock that moves between locations, labour and overhead in the cost, and approvals that match who is allowed to decide what. A generic ERP often has no place for these ideas, so check each one before you commit.
BOQ and BOM handling
A BOQ, or bill of quantities, lists the work and quantities in a project. A BOM, or bill of materials, lists the materials that work needs. Both drive your budget.
- Can you bring an existing BOQ in, rather than retype it?
- Does the BOQ turn into tasks you can assign and track?
- Can you revise the BOQ and keep the history of what changed?
- Can you plan materials from it?
Ask to see a real BOQ, not a demo with three lines.
Procurement and stock across sites
Materials are bought centrally and used in many places. The system has to follow them.
- Can a site supervisor raise a material or purchase request?
- Who checks and approves it before it becomes a purchase order?
- Can stock move from one site to another, with the move recorded?
- Can site staff confirm that materials physically arrived?
If stock records do not match what is on site, the numbers that follow are guesses.
Labour and overhead costing
Materials are only part of the cost. Labour and overheads can move a project from profit to loss without anyone noticing.
- Is labour part of the project cost, not a separate spreadsheet?
- Can overheads be allocated to projects?
- Can you compare planned cost with actual cost and see the variance?
- Can you see which materials are running over plan before the stock is gone?
Approvals and roles
Construction firms usually split work between a project owner, an office team and people on site. The software should reflect that.
- Different roles see different tasks.
- Material and purchase requests need approval from the right person.
- There is a record of who did what, and when.
Ask what a site supervisor sees on a phone-sized screen. If the answer is “everything”, it will not be used.
Getting people to use it
Software only helps if site teams enter data on time. Ask how much training each role needs, and whether the tasks on screen match the way your supervisors already think about the day. Try it with a single project first, and listen to what the people on site say.
Reports management will read
Look for a dashboard and a schedule view that a busy owner can read in minutes. Planned against actual, by project, is the view that matters most. Also ask how documents such as drawings and approvals are stored.
Fit for your size
A small contractor and a developer with many sites need different things. Be honest about how many projects you run at once, how many people raise requests, and how much structure your team will accept. A tool that is too heavy will be ignored on site, and one that is too light will leave the office team in spreadsheets again. Start with the workflow that hurts most, such as material requests or stock transfers, and check the system handles it well before looking at extras.
Questions to ask any vendor
- Is it built for construction, or adapted from something else?
- How do you handle tax-ready billing? Ask your accountant what you need.
- What is included in each edition, and what costs extra?
- Can we try it on a real project first?
Where Teapot Techies fits
VisWoX is our ready-made ERP for construction firms. It covers BOQ and BOM planning, inventory, procurement and site-to-site stock transfers, labour and overhead costing, planned against actual cost tracking, and roles for contract admin, backoffice and site supervisor. If your needs are different, we also set up Odoo for other trades and sectors. See our industries and Odoo implementation pages.