ConstructionOnline vs DASH: Which is a better fit?

Tina N.: Hi, my name is Tina and I'm a director's assistant. I work for a small company with about, I would say five to 50 employees, and my rating for Dash would be a three out of five. What we had before was we really used Excel and just basic data entry processing with Microsoft Word. I would say Word or Excel, all the Microsoft Suite. That was a lot of extra work, like double entries all the time, having to enter data 2, 3, 4 times even. So that became very, I would say, heavy on us administratively. And so then when we transferred to Dash, obviously it was a system that was all in one, so we were able to get a lot more done in an efficient manner in that way. Some of the big reasons were, as mentioned, it would avoid some double entry of data or entering data multiple times. Also, we like the fact that it's synced directly with our accounting system. If we were doing invoices in Dash or entering costs in Dash, that would sync with QuickBooks and vice versa. So that was super, super new and great for us because we didn't have that option before. Another thing that was great was that we were able to enter dates and notes in Dash that would sync with XactAnalysis, which is obviously a big program used by insurance companies. So that was also another plus. Instead of having to enter notes 2, 3, 4 times, we could do it once, it would be transferred over. And, XactAnalysis. also spoke to Dash, which was also a real plus. I would say it was quite difficult because we were just not used to such a new program. It was advanced technology for the time, so it was very difficult for people that were used to working with paper files, physical files, and having a transfer over to everything being digital and online. That was a bit difficult, was getting everybody on board, especially the project managers. I would say it was quite a long process, I would say definitely six months to a year before everybody got fully comfortable with the program. And also, there was a lot of little glitches with the program that were also difficult to work with. Unfortunately, like with every program, there's good things and bad things, and so because of that it made it difficult sometimes with completing tasks and so on in the program. I would say if you're transferring from a more old school type of way of working, which is a lot of, like I said, multiple entries in Excel or whatever other program you're using, I would say it's definitely a step up. It will definitely help you to be more efficient in a lot of ways, like budgeting and dashboards and stuff where you could see really the big picture in the company. So administratively, I think it's definitely a step up. However, be prepared to have, I would say, a long process of integration with the employees, and patience. And also, some small things where that the program constantly crashed. I mean, that was at the time I was using it, and maybe it's improved now. But there were a lot of online issues and the program crashing and so on, which slowed us down sometimes. Also, if you're not working in real time with Dash, especially with dates, you have to be careful because it could transfer the wrong data into XactAnalysis, which was an issue for us often. So that would be my only advice, but definitely a step up. If you're using physical files or something like a more old school way of working, it's definitely an improvement.