Work In Progress Reviewer's Comments

Work in Progress by Dedicated Software Solutions is an outstanding program for meeting the needs of most small businesses simply and easily earns our "TopTenREVIEWS Bronze Award." This program, designed for subcontractors and small construction companies, could easily find a niche in medium-sized businesses as well if they are willing to sacrifice some of the power of the estimating program.

Feature Set:  

Work In Progress is a highly integrated, complete construction management system containing nine primary screens: Invoice View, Draws & Deposits View, Checkbook View, Customer Billing & Payments View, Purchase Orders & Budgets, Change Orders, Payroll, Quickest View and Taskmaster View. The program has succeeded in integrating each of these areas of management into one program quite well; its design is so simple that small construction companies and subcontractors that have struggled to stay organized in these areas will sing its praises.

However, the greatest weakness of this program is the estimating section. If you are accustomed to being able to create assemblies and complex formulas easily—such as entering in the length and height of an exterior wall of a house and allowing the program to automatically calculate the number of studs, top & bottom plates, exterior sheeting, insulation, drywall and baseboards off of that one lineal footage dimension—you will be disappointed with Work in Progress. Contractors who take pride in their own ability to make such calculations quickly and accurately without the aid of a software program may not see this as a flaw. If you are in this category, you should enjoy the simplicity of this program.

Invoice View: On this screen you can create vendors, add and track invoices, workers compensation, general liability, social security, or federal ID numbers. You can also track the due date of invoices as well as track by vendor, date, grouped by lot number and then print these out.

Draws & Deposits View: This tool allows you to view draws and deposits, search by lot numbers or job name and post changes to accounts you set up. A running total of all deposits for each specific job will be displayed.

Checkbook View: This screen manages your checking account balance, accounts receivable balance and view individual checks in the check registry. Post your checks manually and print checks or lien waivers.

Customer Billing & Payment View: You may track your billings to customers, create bills or post payments received.

Purchase Orders and Budgets: When you develop your estimate with vendor prices, you can create purchase orders immediately as you enter the prices into the bid so that you can track the current prices that vendors have quoted you.

Change Orders: The change order management tool will allow you to keep organized in the middle of all the changes that go on in any construction job.

Payroll View: After you define your employees you can track their payroll amounts and link them to specific jobs for job costing purposes. You set the default percentages for tax purposes and then these will automatically be calculated along with the quarterly tax calculations. You can also process year-end W2s.

Quickest View: On this screen you may set up an estimate that can be quickly integrated into the other views and tools, such as billing or draws & deposits.

Taskmaster View: After you set up tasks, select your item costs to be incorporated into the bid.

Ease of Use:  

We just jumped right in and started using Work in Progress. From the first screen on through each option, we found this program self explanatory and easy to use and navigate. Work in Progress is well designed, well thought out and progresses logically from screen to screen. The nine view screens merge easily with one another. The average person will find this program easier to use than most estimating programs.

Ease of Installation:  

Work in Progress is simple to install.

Help/Documentation:  

We weren't able to access the help menu in the demo version, but this program is quite simple to use. With a little practice you probably won't need to spend much time in the help section or in the user's manual.

Summary:  

For subcontractors and small construction organizations that are looking for a bare bones estimating program yet want all the software tools necessary to manage and track other aspects of their business in one place, Work In Progress is an excellent option. If used correctly, the software should not only help better organize your company but save on management time; this ultimately helps improve your bottom line.