What paper costs

Nobody’s measured on how long your LEM sits. You pay for it.

Eight things that really happened, told by our founder: twenty years in the field and on the owner’s side of the table, signing the LEMs and the permits himself. Owners, sites and names left out. Press play.

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The life of one LEM

$15,000 of finished work. Two ways it goes.

On paper

Day 0Job done. Special equipment rented just for it.
Day 14First signature, after two weeks of chasing. One line needs changing.
Day 18The approver leaves on four weeks’ vacation. No out-of-office.
Day 46Signed. The invoice can finally go out.

With Scoreline

Day 0The client’s rep flags the one line from his phone. You fix it in the LEM.
Day 1Signed again in a minute. The invoice drafts from the signed LEM.

46 days that $15,000 sat unbilled on paper.

1 with Scoreline.

From story 5 below. Your client’s own approval steps still apply; the signed LEM just reaches them weeks sooner.

Getting it signed

The signature is the bottleneck. Every time.

Two weeks, a hundred LEMs

0:28

“I used to be on the owner’s side. One year I went on holidays and forgot to hand off my approvals. I came back two weeks later to over a hundred LEMs sitting in Fieldglass, waiting on me. Finished work. Nobody could bill it. And the contractor’s payroll still went out every two weeks. We didn’t lose a thing. The contractor carried all of it.”

What it cost100 LEMs × ~$2,500 = ~$250,000 of finished work that couldn’t be invoiced for two weeks. Payroll went out anyway.

What changesThe contractor sees on day two who each LEM is waiting on, and goes to the backup. Not in week three.

Book a meeting to get a signature

0:19

“A field supervisor on the owner’s side covers a huge area. The odds of them crossing paths with you during the day? Not great. You end up almost booking meetings, just to get your LEMs signed.”

What it cost2 hours a week chasing × $45/h × 52 = ~$4,700 a year, for each person doing the chasing.

What changesThe LEM goes to their phone. They check the hours and sign wherever they are, in about a minute.

The drive

0:22

“Contractors drive thirty minutes or more out to site, just to get one LEM signed. They get there, and find out he’s off. That’s an hour of a foreman’s day, and a truck, gone. Then you do it again tomorrow.”

What it costOne wasted trip a week × (1 hour of a foreman ~$65 + truck ~$40) × 52 = ~$5,500 a year.

What changesThe LEM goes to him. If he’s off, it waits on his phone, or it goes to whoever’s covering.

The $15,000 LEM

0:26

“One line on a LEM needed changing. It took two weeks to get the first signature. Then the approver went on vacation for four weeks. No out-of-office on. That LEM was over fifteen thousand dollars, and we’d rented special equipment just for that job.”

What it cost$15,000+ outstanding for six weeks, with the rental already paid out.

What changesThe client flags the one line, you fix it in the LEM, and they sign again from their phone. Nobody’s opened it in a couple of days? You know, and it goes to whoever’s covering.

The Safety & LEM crew app: the LEM writes itself from the FLRA, and the client signs it on site or by link.

Getting it paid

Signed isn’t paid. Not even close.

Nobody’s measured on it

0:25

“Here’s the part nobody says out loud. The owner company has no reason to rush. They’re not measured on signed LEMs against work complete. The longer a LEM sits, the better it is for them. The accountability’s there when they need it. Not when you need a signature.”

What it cost$4 million a year billed ÷ 365 = ~$11,000 of work waiting for every day a LEM sits.

What changesSigning takes a minute, from anywhere, and you can see every LEM that’s still waiting on a signature.

The approver who wasn’t there anymore

0:24

“Our invoices went to the wrong approver. Then he got fired. Now someone has to re-route every one of them to a new person, who has to review and approve invoices for work they know nothing about. That can take months.”

What it costMonths on every invoice in the pile, while someone new learns work they never saw.

What changesEvery invoice carries its signed LEMs: the crew, the hours, the equipment, who signed and when. Whoever picks it up sees the whole story in minutes.

Field to Paid: the signed LEM becomes the invoice, and “Where’s my money” shows who has every one.

Keeping people safe

The paperwork that keeps people safe shouldn’t cost a shift.

Ten minutes of rain

0:33

“Clear day, middle of a turnaround. Then the rain poured in, and in a substation, that isn’t safe. Permits pulled. Full stand-down. Ten minutes later, sunny again. Over a hundred workers had to redo their FLRAs and permits. Two hours to get set up again.”

What it cost100 workers × 2 hours × ~$100/h = ~$20,000 for ten minutes of rain.

What changesThe permits are still the owner’s call. But nobody rewrites the FLRA from scratch: it’s already on the foreman’s phone. Update what changed, the crew reviews it, and you’re back to work.

Supper in town

0:34

“A permit in tailings didn’t get signed off. The pumphouse was being decommissioned, twenty kilometres from the office. Protocol said search, so an operator drove out. Nobody there. On his way back, a storm rolled in. He couldn’t see, got stranded, and had to be rescued. All because the person on that permit was in town, eating supper, and never signed off.”

What it costNo dollar figure for this one. A man stranded in a storm.

What changesThe crew signs off together at the end of the day, on the foreman’s phone. A permit still open at quitting time shows up in the office, with a name beside it. One phone call. Nobody drives into a storm.

The crew app: FLRAs, JHAs and permits on the foreman’s phone, with end-of-day sign-off. Works with no signal.

Your numbers

Now put in your week. Keep it honest.

The dollar figures above are examples. Change these to match your crews and your office and see what the paperwork costs you in a year.

Where the hours go, each week

The foreman’s evening paperworkTimesheets, the LEM, the FLRA typed up after supper4.5 hThe LEM writes itself from the FLRA
Chasing signatures and timesheetsThe rep on days off, the timesheet still in a truck3 hSigned at the tailgate, or by link the same day
Re-keying LEMs into invoicesThe same hours, typed a second and third time8 hThe signed LEM becomes the invoice
Chasing payment, reconciling the bankWhy doesn’t the account look the way it should?2 hEvery invoice at its owner stage, and who has it
The owner’s weekend catch-upNext week’s crews, planned on Sunday night4 hNext week built from ready work, on one board

Bars come from the numbers below. Change them to match your week.

The field Tradespeople in the field Paperwork saved, minutes a day each Working days a year

The office Office hours saved a week Re-keying LEMs, building invoices Chasing LEM signatures and timesheets, hours a week Chasing payment and reconciling, hours a week Jobs a year Calls and resent files saved, minutes a job Dispatch and planning hours saved a week Weeks worked a year

Loaded hourly rates and cash (for the dollar value)

Rates and cash Tradesperson, loaded $/h Office, loaded $/h Dispatcher or planner, loaded $/h Billed a year ($) Invoices out sooner by (days) Line of credit rate (%)

Your time back, a year

1,056hours

26work weeks given back at 40 hours a week
54weekends back for the owner and the office their hours, at two 8-hour days a weekend
4evenings back for each tradesperson at 3 hours an evening

Field: 198 h; 18 people × 220 days × 3 min ÷ 60
Office and chasing: 666 h; (8 + 3 + 2) h × 48 weeks + 500 jobs × 5 min ÷ 60
Dispatch and planning: 192 h; 4 h × 48 weeks

Then, in dollars $75,769

198 h × $95 + 666 h × $55 + 192 h × $85 + $3,000,000 × 7% × 7 days ÷ 365 (cash sooner)

An estimate from your own inputs, not results we’ve measured. The defaults are deliberately low. We swap in your numbers at the first meeting.

Next step

Tell us yours.

Every contractor has a story like these. Call and tell us yours, and we’ll show you what changes on your own LEMs, your own rates and your own clients.

Book a 30-minute look Call 780-792-1928 See the prices

Phone780-792-1928 Call
Emailinfo@scorelinepartners.ca

Fort McMurray, Alberta · serving contractors across Canada