CONSTRUCTION Accounting ARTICLE -
E-permitting Saves Contractor Time, Money and Mileage
Target Audience: Construction Industry Professionals, Contractors, Financial Advisors, Building Department Employees
As his business grew, a paving contractor found himself juggling multiple projects. Although he welcomed the added business, each new job meant putting work on hold to drive to City Hall and obtain a permit. He couldn’t help but think about the valuable time and money he was wasting.
When the contractor joked about how many times he’d had to drive down to City Hall, his financial advisor suggested he try e-permitting. The advisor went on to explain how e-permitting allows local building departments to accept permit applications, review plans, schedule inspections, and calculate and collect fees electronically.
For contractors, e-permitting speeds transmission and reduces or eliminates paper documents and the accompanying photocopying and filing they require. For the building departments, it can streamline work flow, reduce backlogs, improve record keeping and improve financial tracking.
The advisor warned, however, that many local governments are still developing Web-based systems to facilitate e-permitting. Although it may seem that any online system that accepts e-mailed documents or includes an application for uploading large documents will do, municipalities still must decide whether to include forms that allow contractors to complete and submit applications entirely online and whether inspectors will be able to pull up information from the field.
In some communities, including Las Vegas and Green Bay, Wis., city departments have built their own in-house systems. Other communities are upgrading their initial in-house systems with off-the-shelf applications such as Oracle.
On his advisor’s recommendation, the contractor checked with the building departments with which he does most of his business to see whether they offered e-permitting. Indeed, many of them did and were able to suggest ways he could make his systems more compatible with theirs.
Ultimately, the contractor was able to set up his own e-permitting system and procedures. And he’s finding that he can put more of his time into growing his construction business and less of it filling out forms and dropping them off at City Hall.
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