We have discovered from talking to many customers the information kept in existing manual systems today for contractors can vary from simple spreadsheets through to purpose built databases.
One of the big problems with spreadsheets and hand made database systems is consistency of information and keeping the information up to date. We have watched several customers recently struggle a little with existing information within their business as they try and get all the information they have in multiple systems prepared into a format to import into our contractor management system to centralise everything into one solution and I thought I would share some of the recent examples.
2 big issues with the data included
- Three names for one company, first name was missing the PTY LTD, second name was a shortened company name and the third name included the PTY LTD
- Dates – we found many dates had expired.
Dirty Data
In the first example above contractors were listed against each of the three companies depending on who entered the initial information, the data base had three company names and contractors against each company name – what a nightmare for reporting.
Expiry dates not updated
In the second example we found spreadsheets that had expired inductions more than 12 months out of date, licence expiry dates had expired and insurance expiry dates were also out of date.
It is not a case of people not caring, these companies really do care about what they are doing, the problem is if you have to go and check a spreadsheet every week to look at every expiry date that may come up you are seriously wasting a lot of time every week.
Today’s easy to use contractor management systems will not only centralise all your contractor data they will alert you to the expiration of licences, insurances, inductions and much more.