Water Restoration Software: Seamlessly Manage Water Damage Jobs

Whether a minor disaster like burst piping or a major disaster like a river flooding its banks, structures threatened with water damage require quick action and careful management. Getting equipment onsite as soon as possible is imperative, otherwise the cost of restoring a building to its original state will climb astronomically. But equipment is only part of the equation when it comes to water restoration. Software that can help restore homes and businesses that experience water-related damage has become an important tool for many restorers.

For companies involved in water restoration, software can help streamline often expensive, inefficient, and inconsistent processes. Meanwhile, many of these efforts are often inadequate when trying to deal with damage done by water. Restoration software offers a means for contractors to augment efficiency, increase accuracy, enhance communications, ensure compliance, and provide new growth opportunities. For contractors looking for a better means to deal with structures damaged by water, restoration software guides the way.

Streamlining Processes with Water Restoration Software

Any restoration company worth its salt understands that water doesn’t just cause damage to structures. Damage can also result from deficient remediation after the initial disaster. In other words, if water damage isn’t handled expediently, it can cause even more ruin. Ceilings, floors, and walls damaged by water can collapse if not dealt with expediently. Mold, disease, vermin, and other factors can lead to health risks for occupants and even those in surrounding areas. Contractors with the right skill sets and experience can restore a building damaged by water, but restoration software makes these efforts more efficient and effective.

Benefits of Using Water Restoration Software

Monitoring the drying process is an integral part of water restoration. Software makes this task easier by measuring and reporting moisture levels, creating a more efficient process. It frees up personnel and time that can be better utilized elsewhere, which is why savvy restorers are increasingly looking towards technology for managing restoration of water-damaged structures. 

Water restoration software offers the following benefits: 

• Augmented efficiency: By automating many elements involved in structural water restoration, software makes such things as making work orders, scheduling projects, and sending out invoices more efficient, which saves contractors both time and money while offering better quality service to customers.
• Increased accuracy: Modern water restoration software includes moisture mapping applications that allow a more accurate view of what parts of a building require the most urgent attention; of course, this meticulousness also extends to office staff and project managers through the provision of more accurate invoices and estimates that in turn improve customer satisfaction.
• Enhanced communications: Regardless of what causes the damage, restoration software helps improve communications both internally within a company and externally with other stakeholders; software that includes automating status updates, remote scheduling online, secure messaging, and other communication features helps keep everyone involved in a project informed about the progress.
• Better compliance: Complying with industry standards and municipal regulations requires careful documentation, for which water restoration software can help immensely via tools that can document damage, map structural moisture, and track equipment, among other capabilities.
• New opportunities: For contractors that perform water damage restorations, software can also help them grow their businesses; by streamlining processes, restorers can take advantage of automated marketing and lead generation to increase sales, while also improving customer relationships to produce more referrals.

Automation, analytics, and digital documentation are three general areas where water restoration software can aid restorers.   

Automated Job Tracking & Scheduling

Even with technological advancements, many restoration contractors still keep track of details using pen and paper to take notes, collect contact information, and record other relevant information. This practice is inefficient and insecure compared to modern digital means for tracking and scheduling projects. Automation can make this process much easier, assisting with an array of different tasks that involve both field teams and office staff while aiding communication between the two.

Water restoration software allows project managers to swiftly collect and store customer contact information while enabling others to track every job detail. Scheduling appointments and arranging project deadlines works better when the appropriate software solution is in place. As any experienced contractor knows, projects often don’t go as planned, with constantly changing schedules that make shifting scarce resources around more difficult. Digital calendars can help, but incorporating these capabilities into a larger restoration software platform can simplify handling changes.

For those involved in a water restoration, software helps:  

• Automate workflow seamlessly by providing a singular platform for scheduling, tracking time on the job, equipment availability, and other aspects necessary to move a project forward.
• Automatically record times and dates of any changes to a project, job modifications, completed projects, or other alterations to schedules.
• Gather project-related information more quickly while also enabling more reliable data entry.
• Provide resources when and where they’re needed, along with any relevant notes about how they should be used.
• Synchronize schedules of field teams, insurance assessors, subcontractors, and other involved parties.
• With storage of information that’s collated to ensure easy accessibility while also allowing scheduling changes to be made more quickly and communicated to all stakeholders.

Modern restoration software is also easily available from mobile devices so that authorized employees can access information on scheduling or tracking of projects when needed. This completely eliminates the need for a project manager in the field to check in with clerical staff or return to the office to perform administrative tasks, as the information is already at their fingertips and can be done from anywhere. Additionally, the ease with which information about a job can be recorded aids with reporting and other analyses.

Real-Time Reporting and Analytics

Data is an important aspect of any water restoration. Software analytics are ideal for analyzing this data, allowing smaller restoration companies countless benefits that previously only bigger businesses could afford. When dealing with damage from water, restoration software can help gather onsite data so that field teams can do their jobs more efficiently. The best water restoration software will allow field technicians to gather information like moisture mapping readings, enabling others involved in the job to check readings and points where water infiltration is most concerning, along with other measurements. This, in turn, can guide techs on where to place drying equipment in real-time.

For water restorations, software tools can aid with:

• Capturing images during inspections, in turn, allows these to be attached and shared in detailed reports for homeowners, insurance companies, and other stakeholders.
• Easily incorporating photos within reports after water damage inspections.
• Generating reports based on water damage inspections that can be shared in various configurations, such as document file, PDF, rich text, web link or other file formats.
• Utilizing apps from a mobile device to efficiently assess what’s needed to restore a water-damaged structure.

Equipping field teams with the right tools for any water restoration job is important. Software apps that support these efforts help project managers better evaluate the project, ensuring that the right equipment and teams get to where they’re needed quickly.

Digital Documentation

Properly documenting both damage and the work involved in a project is essential for a contractor to get fully paid for any water restoration. Software helps restorers do so more effectively. Not having proper documentation of work done to mitigate water damage runs the risk of invoices being unpaid and future work being denied by insurers. Without modern technology, recording the necessary data to get paid can become a real headache, so having the capabilities to both evaluate a job and share information with other stakeholders seamlessly allows for a more efficient operation.

A good water restoration software platform should record:

• All types of information about a job can, in turn, be readily shared via communication tools.
• Contents of a building with water damage, including inventories and what was packed out.
• Floors plans that can accurately identify problem areas.
• Forms like contracts in digital format, along with the ability to sign these via e-signature and send these on to keep a record of work authorizations.
• Logs that note drying times and equipment used to deal with excessive moisture.
• Notes, photos, and video footage of any water damage.

Documentation that isn’t done correctly can also create red flags that delay payment. Capturing this data for all water mitigation activities for which a contractor bills means fewer headaches for a restoration company’s accounting staff.  

How to Get Started with Water Restoration Software

When approaching any building that requires water restoration, software like Albi offers an ideal platform for making the most of it, providing tools to automate scheduling, evaluate reports, and document important information. Albi can be easily customized to meet a company’s specific needs. It allows effortless integration with small business and restoration-related software like Company Cam, Encircle, QuickBooks Online, Zapier, and a host of other apps. Additionally, Albi’s developers continue to add integrations to improve its ability to help contractors restore buildings damaged by water. Restoration software like Albi – a platform made for and by restorers – is becoming one of the most adaptable tools for contractors and project managers within the industry. To learn more about Albi and its capabilities, book a free demo today!