Effective budget management is critical in the construction industry, where financial oversights can derail projects. Procore is a popular tool for managing construction budgets, but its high costs and complexity leave many smaller teams looking for alternatives. Planyard emerges as the best Procore alternative, offering an intuitive and affordable platform that simplifies financial workflows for construction projects.
Why Budget Management Matters in Construction
Efficient project budget management prevents cost overruns and maximizes project profitability. It involves tracking costs, adjusting forecasts, and managing risks. A robust budget management tool like Planyard streamlines these processes, making it easier for teams to maintain control over financials.
How Procore Budget Management Works
Procore users track the project budget on Procore. Invoices are processed in accounting software like Xero, so users must manually match them to corresponding budget items. After approval, the costs are reflected in Procore.
How Planyard Budget Management Works
Planyard simplifies the workflow by centralizing all processes. Users upload the budget into Planyard and directly manage commitments such as purchase and subcontractor orders in the platform. When invoices arrive, Planyard automatically matches them to the correct purchase orders, updates the budget in real-time, and forwards the information to accounting systems.
"Without a proper system, you are essentially flying blind. You wouldn't know if there was a problem until it was too late, and you wouldn't truly know if you had made a profit until the project was already finished."
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Common Challenges with Procore Financial Processes
- Rigid Budget Structures
- Procore limits users to one cost code per line item since the codes must match the accounting system’s budget codes, reducing flexibility for complex projects.
- Impact: Reduces the flexibility in managing project budgets, especially tracking the variations and change orders.
- Limited Forecasting Flexibility
- Locked budgets make forecasting difficult.
- Impact: Project managers struggle to adapt to scope changes, risking overruns.
- Manual Workflows Despite Automation
- Redundant tasks like reconciling invoices require significant manual effort and navigating multiple systems.
- Impact: Reduces efficiency and increases errors.
- Project Financial Risks are Visualized When It’s Too Late.
- As you track the project costs against the estimates on Procore, you visualize the over-expenditure only when the invoice is processed.
- Complex User Interface
- Designed for large enterprises, Procore overwhelms smaller teams with unnecessary features.
Why Planyard is the Best Procore Alternative
Planyard’s works the way construction professionals work:
- Flexibility: Project budgets, variations, change orders, commitments, and invoices are processed in one system.
- Budget risks are visualized early on: As you manage the project budget and commitments in one system, you see if the committed costs exceed the budget for a single budget item and react well before the invoices arrive.
- Accurate forecasts: Simple red notifications on top of the project budget help quickly revise the budget, automatically updating the project profitability forecast & CVR reports.
- Automation: A single source of data entry with automatic budget updates and invoice processing to accounting systems such as Xero and Quickbooks saves all the stakeholders time.
- Management approval workflows: When management approves invoices, the approver can navigate from the invoice to the relevant purchase order, order payment summary, and budget with one click. Thus, the whole approval process is tightly connected to the portfolio financials.
"The transition from making the decision to getting our first project live in the system took only about one day of work. Even for a large, complex project, we were able to get everything fully set up and operational within that single day."
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Costs and Implementation
Procore Costs: Starting at $15,000 annually, with additional costs for advanced features.
Planyard Costs: Starting at $2,000 annually, covering all essential tools for budget management.
Implementation: Planyard is quick to set up, with most teams fully operational within hours. Its intuitive interface requires minimal training, unlike Procore, which can take months to implement.
What Users Say About Planyard
Construction teams worldwide are switching to Planyard for its affordability and efficiency:
"As our projects grew in both value and complexity, it became clear that we needed a system that provided a better financial overview in one central location. While spreadsheets have their uses, they are simply too limited; as the scale of a project increases, you need a dedicated platform that can handle that level of detail without the constraints of a manual sheet."
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Conclusion: Why Planyard is the Best Procore Alternative
For construction teams seeking a cost-effective and streamlined solution, Planyard is the best Procore alternative. With its focus on simplicity, affordability, and robust financial tools, Planyard enables teams to manage budgets more effectively and avoid costly errors.
Stop overpaying for features you don't use.
Planyard gives you real-time budget tracking, automated invoice matching, and accounting integration – starting at a fraction of Procore's cost.