Premier Construction Software

Avantages

Job Budget control screen and interactive reports on job costs in real time. Implementation team was phenomenal at helping to deal with the challenges of leaving an inferior software.

Inconvénients

The migration from quickbooks was very challenging and time consuming. But that is much more an indictment of quickbooks than it is of Jonas.

Avantages

Before Premier, I had to create six different reports, download them into Excel, and sort and code the data from the 7th to the 10th of every month. Premier makes us more efficient because we’re not spending half our time balancing and ensuring every system has the same information.

The efficiency has increased tenfold. Not only does Premier provide us with the data, but it also makes it easy to understand—it’s not overwhelming. Other programs I’ve used in the past give me the same data but leave me wondering what it means or where it came from. With Premier, everything is clear.

Additionally, it has cut down my workload by 15-25 hours per week, especially during busy periods. I no longer work 10-15 hour days from the 20th to the 7th of each month, thanks to Premier's more efficient process management. No more chasing change orders!

Inconvénients

As of right now I have no cons to report on.

Avantages

It's ability to access accounting and job costing from anywhere you can get an internet connection; and it's ability to manage job costing by project with ease.

Inconvénients

Annual increases in pricing without much notice

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Premier Construction Software 

Logiciel antérieur 

Pourquoi passer à Premier Construction Software

Avantages

Although I do not like the program I have been impressed with the support I receive when needed. Tharani has been an amazing help to me.

Inconvénients

The amount of steps to create anything!

Avantages

I really like the functionality of Premier—it's incredibly intuitive. The look-up features are so handy, and I found myself navigating the software much faster than other systems

We previously used Sage, and it was so cumbersome. Even finding or generating reports was difficult. With Premier, it's much easier - the search functionality makes it simple to look up reports. We’ve been using Premier for almost five years, and we’re still discovering new features—it's amazing how much it can do!

Job costing is particularly important to me. Since we set up each house as a separate job, I’m constantly in there reviewing job costs, as are our project managers. One of my favorite features is how easily I can drill down into details—if I need to check an invoice, I just click, and it takes me right to it. The journal audits are another great tool for tracking where something went, and they’ve been incredibly helpful.

At the end of the day, Premier really is the backbone of our business. It does so much for us, and I think that’s critical in a software partner.

Inconvénients

No cons to advise on about Premier software.

Avantages

Integration between project management and accounting. Also, the interface is very intuitive and appealing.

Inconvénients

We had a very bumpy launch which continues to have repercussions over a year later.

Avantages

When I joined 6 years ago, our company had just six employees—now we’re at 32. Our old systems couldn’t keep up with our growth. We relied on QuickBooks for accounting and Procore for project management, but the two didn’t integrate properly, forcing us into time-consuming manual double entries.
We discovered Premier through a trusted referral. The approval workflows alone have saved us so much time. Instead of emailing invoices back and forth, everything is routed, approved, and updated automatically. I absolutely love this feature.
Having accurate, up-to-date budget information has been transformative for us. Our PMs can see real-time financial updates weekly, instead of waiting weeks for end-of-month reconciliations. This has drastically improved our ability to manage costs, address change orders promptly, and keep clients informed. We also manage a rental property business and having both companies in one system has been a huge convenience.

Inconvénients

One challenge we faced was how overwhelming the implementation process seemed at first. There's definitely a lot to learn, and the initial transition can feel like a big undertaking. However, Premier’s team was incredibly supportive and made the process as smooth as possible, which helped us get up to speed quickly.

Avantages

What Premier does well for us is integrating both the project management system and financial reporting into one platform. In the past, I’ve used systems where finance was handled separately from project accounting. This required uploads between systems that often led to duplicate entries and reconciliation issues. With Premier, I rely heavily on workflows to ensure transactions are sent to the right people for approval. This helps to maintain accuracy without having to review every transaction manually. It also provides more timely financial reporting and stronger controls, allowing my team and I to focus on moving forward instead of constantly fixing past issues. What I appreciate most is that Premier continuously improves its software, especially on the project management side — unlike other platforms I’ve used in my 30 years in construction, which rarely evolve.

Inconvénients

No major concerns with Premier. Once in a while you have a minor issue but the support team is always there to assist and resolve.

Avantages

Premier is by far the most user-friendly construction management software I’ve used. The customizable client-facing forms let us tailor information to our clients' needs, and Premier’s reporting tools—like exporting to Excel—have saved us time and increased our capacity.

Daily bank reconciliations are much easier, and we’ve reduced weekly checks from 150 to just 10 with EFT integration. The compliance features ensure payments aren’t processed until requirements are met, reducing errors and streamlining workflows.

I also really love the job dashboard, which gives our PMs real-time insights into subcontracts, payables, and performance reports. As a result, we can make smarter, data-driven decisions.

Inconvénients

Implementation can be a bit overwhelming as there's much to learn, but the Premier team has been exceptional in assisting us every step of the way.

Avantages

We manage between 500 to 750 employees depending on the season, and before Premier, we were using different systems such as Avantage Pro, Sage 50, and Maestro for accounting and Excel spreadsheets for project management. It wasn’t working well for handling our projects and budgets.

Premier stood out to me because it’s so user-friendly. That was my number one priority when deciding on a platform. The tools, like the Job Dashboard, job forecasting, and budget controls, have been very helpful for our projet and finance teams. Before this, we didn’t have the right processes to track our job costing or controlling our budgets, but now we have the tools to do that.

The on-site training was amazing—the team took their time and made sure we really understood how to use the system. Overall, the experience has been great, and we’re excited to move away from outdated methods and improve how we manage our projects and finances.

Inconvénients

We’re big on customization, so we’ve made a few requests for small tweaks to reports and similar enhancements. While not everything has been immediately possible, Premier has been super helpful in building custom reports through ODATA, which has worked out really well for us.

Avantages

We really love the ability to automate several functions of the project management duties. Before, we were keeping a variety of spreadsheets updated manually to track certain functions, sometimes touching the same information multiple times. Now, we input the data into Premier once, and we're able to report on the financial data, for example, multiple ways with just a few clicks.

Inconvénients

We'd like to see them enhance their accounting system specialties, such as partnering with a payroll processing company and an employee expense tracking solution (such as Concur) to streamline both payroll and tracking of credit card expenses. Having these functions automated as part of the Premier package would really help out!

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Premier Construction Software 

Logiciel antérieur 

Pourquoi passer à Premier Construction Software

Avantages

I like most about Jonas Premier is that they are always developing new improvements and are always working with their clients to make sure they get the most out of the software with fast response to questions and willingness to set up 30+ minute meetings with a specialist to address any concerns at no cost.

Inconvénients

Adding a feature to notify internal mangers of pending approvals would be a great benefit.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Premier Construction Software

Avantages

The accounting features are amazing! As PM with over 10 years of experience, it’s the best accounting software I’ve ever used. I have all the information in one system and can run any report you can think of!

Inconvénients

Field Management Tools need updating. Having the ability to access more from the mobile version. The addition of a photo tool will complete the software as a go to one platform.

Avantages

The automated flow of data between project management and accounting is amazing.

Inconvénients

Payroll could be improved. Need to be able record total hours for salaried employees and spread evenly across distribution.

Avantages

The ease of use, it is a very simple software to understand and utilize.

Inconvénients

The training of new employees to fully understand the software is not the easiest but the premier team is always available to aid in that aspect.

Avantages

Centralized communication between accounting and project management.

Inconvénients

The print has to be too small to fit the whole screen across my monitor.

Avantages

User set up, customization, and support.

Inconvénients

Clunky features, hard to manage and keep consistency large scale.

Avantages

To prioritize the pros of this software as compared to the traditional out of the box type softwares in its category, I have to say the overwhelming advantage of Jonas is the people who handle your transition into the implementation of this software tool to your company or companies.
I mean, who cares how extensive and exhaustive the features are if you don't have a personalized team to help you get up and running.
I personally don't quite understand how they are able to offer this type of personalized customer service for each client. They learn your business and how to best organize it and even tailor the software to meet your needs. I've never experienced this before. They listen to what you need and then come back with modifications or a different approach to continually streamline your day to day operation. You are assigned a team from the beginning, actual human beings that you interact with on a first name basis. They are on top of things, and that's really comforting for someone who is a habitual procrastinator.
They make your daily tasks a breeze with minimal effort.
I like that it is an online application. I can access it from any device. Really handy when looking up stuff on a phone while I'm on site - a suppllier invoice, contract, plan, sketch, etc...
The user interface is very simple, everything is right there on one screen and not buried under a hidden tree of drop-down menus.
You can create your on short list of favorites on the fly.
The document manager is like having your own unlimited DropBox portal but with the advantage that the search capabilities are infinitely more powerful and logical, as the software stores all of your documents that you upload, attach or link for you to find through multiple queries as opposed to DropBox where if you forget the name of the file, good luck finding it.
Very handy in my business as a builder is the tracking of subcontractor compliances that can be set up to block payment or at least warn on payment of a sub if he's late on a particular compliance. This was a real problem before. Who has time to constantly check and harass these guys for compliances. Just don't pay them and see how quick they email you that compliance .

Inconvénients

Only complaint is that the software initially seems to be more set up for sub-contractors rather than general contractors and developers. I also buy land and build independantly so the accounting is quite a bit different as I have to capitalize expenses and revenue at completion of projects and jobs if I want to maintain a positive cash flow.
The consequence of this is that the customer service team has to re-adjust to first understand the very different accounting that I need to have in place and from that point make adjustments and tailor the software so it suits my needs.

Avantages

1. Full service software
Jonas is a full service software that includes original estimates, subcontract creation, change orders, progress billing, T&M billing, RFIs, data management, and much more. Everything is included under one roof so instead of having to bounce back and forth between multiple programs we can access almost everything we need in one place.

2. 6 weeks of amazing training!
The training and implementation aspect of this software was excellent. The team is friendly, professional, helpful, and always willing to answer questions (and I asked a TON of questions) and help us figure out how to make Jonas work for our company. I really appreciated that they helped train us in best practices and showed us ways to improve upon our current processes. We loved having people to hold our hands and guide us through the process.

3. Organization
I really love the flow of the software and how well it organizes our jobs in an easy to use system. It's quite robust and takes time to learn, but once we're up and running I know we will be so grateful to be able to perform so many operations with the click of a button. No more hunting down important info in emails, printed documents, or computer files. We'll be able to access so much information in a short amount of time.

Inconvénients

Learning anything new takes time and effort. There was definitely a lot to learn but Jonas emails us all of the training videos so we can access them at any time and there's a ton of support once we Go Live. We're a small team, so it felt like a lot of work, but that's normal with any new software implementation. If you have a small amount of employees, you'll really need to manage your work hours well so you can continue running your business and handle all of the training and implementation. We did it, and you can too!

Avantages

I especially like that there seems to be a function for everything I could imagine or want. Most of it I haven't begun to use yet but slowly I am learning more of it. The Premier help team is critically important in helping me learn the skills I want and need when I want them.

I also really like how Premier won't allow information to be entered without all the required information. Makes it very easy to not miss critical details.

Inconvénients

I found the learning curve steep, especially with respect to how the program "thinks". The trickiest part was understanding how information flows through the system.

Avantages

Easy account set up, Chart of Accounts, Vendors, Entering AP, AR, Estimated Budget, Change Orders, Cost to the Budget, payroll are all easy to enter. Bank Reconciliation for Bank, Several Companies, Credit Card reconciliation. Cost hits a job or GL Account and easily reviewed by Great reports and Job Dashboard. you can see a snapshot of the job and see reports from the dashboard. Compliance can be tracked for Insurance or missing documents. Subcontracts can bill thru Jonas for Easy tracking. All Reports Trial Balance, Balance sheet, Income Statement, Financial statement, many more reports etc, AP, AR, 1099 Tracking, Pay on line or ACH re-occurring payments, Jonas has been easy to use and if I can not resolve I email Jonas Help and they get right back to me and set up a teams teaming or Zoom and we resolve.

Inconvénients

There are a few features we are waiting for Jonas to add which are Lien waiver Tracking.

Avantages

Jonas Premier has surpassed our expectations. Premier has reduced the overall time we spend on accounting procedures every month, allowing us to focus more of our attention on our customers needs, estimating, and selling jobs. There are many reports to make sure we stay on top of our AP and AR. Although we haven't started to use the Subcontract portion of the software yet, we are hopeful that it will streamline our subcontract agreement process. The Accounts Payable section is extremely easy to use, and with the Jonas Premier add-in for Excel, entering new information is a breeze.

Inconvénients

There are still a few small things that need to be worked out, mostly ease of use features. Sometimes it can be a bit difficult to remember to post your work; for example, we pay bi-weekly, timecards must be posted each week, and then again at the end of the pay period. So, for a two week time period, I have entered and posted timecards on two occasions, but then after the second week is posted, you have to post the whole payroll period in a separate location.

Avantages

Speed, versatility, customer support, and friendly staff. When work/construction was scarce for our company, you took the time to help us come up with a payment plan. The reporting is amazing! You have made a lot of changes in regards to being “user friendly” AKA the ability to delete. Keep this going! Pending AP Invoice Report is also a great addition. I am grateful for your monthly webinars followed by the taped session to refer back to. Dashboard is fresh…love it!

Inconvénients

On reporting such as the financial statement report we see -#’s different then we are accustom to. When the number is negative it shows in positive and when positive it shows in negative (with bracket). Can that be reversed? Since the new update I have posted some items and they don’t show up on other tabs unless I logout and back in (even after refresh) this has happened 3 times. When a change order is rejected its unable to be modified. I would like more opportunity to drill down into reports.

Avantages

1 - The Premier Team is absolutely top notch and amazing! We had some pretty strong requests with getting the software to match our needs, and this team has always come through!
2 - The integrationof the software is great! Coming from an antiquated system along with EXCEL, we were due for a system with all the information in one place. During the training process, seeing how it works was impressive, however, seeing our own information in Premier, and the ease of pulling up needed info has been even more impressive! Solely due to our busy schedule, we are still in the process of uploading all the information, and we are excited to see how Premier will continue to impress our whole team. I do have to say, my team was a bit intimidated when watching the webinars and seeing the system in action, but now, just uploading the information and being active in Premier, hands on, it is much less intimidating than we thought! Having the Premier Team available to answer questions is a plus!

Inconvénients

I haven't found anything at this point.

Avantages

I like the job dashboard, and was surprised to learn I can create a company budget which will be really useful for corporate to prepare and compare against budgets without having to utilize the project modules

Inconvénients

The program really needs a report to summarize revenue by client and the number of projects or even number of transactions. I would really like to see year over year, revenue by client, what the average revenue is per project and how many projects or transactions happen. Is this an active client, a big one with lot's of little jobs or a few big ones, etc. The same could apply for vendors. Employee reports could be improved. It is difficult to quickly see rolled up time for an employee or series of employee per projects with hour and dollar value totals. Project labour reports could be improved with getting total hours without having to export to excell