Masonry Magazine April 1979 Page. 8
PRIME-MOVER POWERED BUGGIES AND MASON TENDERS
SAVE A LOT OF LABOR WITHOUT COSTING A LOT OF MONEY.
If too much of your labor payroll is spent in handling materials by brute force, add a little Prime-Mover horsepower. It can triple your labor output for placing concrete, moving and lifting brick or block, speed things up in handling almost any bulk material.
At modest cost, you can put together a Prime-Mover team or fleet of machines that will give dependable service for a long, long time.
Just look around any job site. Some of the older Prime-Mover models you see may have been on the job for twenty years. Send for brochures and spec sheets. It can save you real money.
CONTRACT SURETY BONDING
continued
piled into an informative audit report prepared by a qualified CPA. This should solve the major problem which bonding companies have with analyzing a contractor's statement, namely the lack of pertinent information on his work in progress.
Surety companies who are approached for bonding would also like to know something about the contractor's business practices, what his trade payment record is, does he pay his bills on time? The bonding company will check your reputation with architects you've worked for, your suppliers, your subcontractors.
Continuity Plans Are Important
Your bonding company will also be very interested in your company continuity plans. Many of us feel we will live forever. But should a company principal die, surety underwriters want to know who will complete jobs in progress, how will good superintendents be retained, who has the administrative background to continue operation of the company, and how stock buy-outs and possible estate taxes will be handled.
The establishment of bank credit is also most important to the contracting company that wishes to make itself attractive to a bonding company. Companies that have not experienced a great need for bank credit often assume that if they have a need for financing in the future, they will be able to get bank credit easily on terms acceptable to both them and their surety company. This is often not the case. And the time to establish credit is before you need to borrow. You should establish in advance your line of credit and determine the bank's security requirements.
In effect, a contractor makes his company eligible for bonding in much the same way. He builds up a track record of successfully completed jobs of ever increasing size, he provides for retention of earnings to support future growth, he establishes a reputation in the construction industry. In short, he demonstrates the "three C's" of suretyship.
Minority contractors have experienced particular difficulty in obtaining bonds, often because they lack an established track record in the construction business. In recent years, many federal government projects have set aside a certain percentage of work for minority contractors in an effort to stimulate minority participation in the industry. but much of this work requires bonding. A recently established non-profit organization, the Minority Contractors Assistance Project, has been funded by five major life insurance companies to help qualified minority contractors land the federal projects set aside for minority firms.
The Working Relationship
Once the contractor has established bonding capacity with a surety company, it is essential that the two parties maintain good communications so that a cooperative, working relationship can exist. If this is not done, problems usually arise and dissatisfaction may develop among both parties.
Timing is often a problem in the contractor/surety relationship. Far too often, a contractor will wait until the last minute to notify the surety company that he wants to bid on a major new contract. Many bonds are declined simply because an underwriter does not have enough time to properly analyze and verify information submitted. This can lead to a strain in the relationship.
Another problem area involves the contractor's obligation to periodically provide status reports on the progress of bonded jobs to the surety company. Such reports not only enable the surety company to respond effectively