Roberts Glass executives used to wait months for aggregate financial data. Once deployed, Acumatica Construction Edition provided real-time financial information.
“We’ve torn down the silos we had with the client-server solution, so now we have access in one view of the data,” Hamilton says. “We’re now able to see where we are cost-wise with our existing construction projects; we’re able to look at the profitability of each project, look at the customer base and understand where we are most successful.”
Besides, all project managers have visibility into what the company has completed year-to-date, what types of projects they are managing, and what’s in the pipeline.
ExakTime Provides Instant Time and Expense
The seamless integration with ExakTime allows time and rates to be pulled into Acumatica Construction Edition, giving them real-time visibility into exact labor costs for every project.
“The information was manually input before and arrived six months down the road and was very inaccurate,” Hamilton says. Roberts Glass often ran into problems with ADP Time and Attendance because Sage and ADP weren’t on the same page when it came to customer names. When employees entered an address into ADP, the associated name that popped up often was not the same as Sage’s internal customer name, he explains.
“There were a lot of manual interventions,” Hamilton says.
“Now we have the ability to enter the jobs in Acumatica Construction Edition with a job name based on what customers called it, and employees in the field can select the right job with one click,” he adds. “ExakTime also has GPS features so it can recognize where an address is and search on it to find the job.”
ExakTime then looks in Acumatica Construction Edition to match it with the right job. “It really has increased our accuracy, what hours were worked and where employees were working,” Hamilton says. That information is delivered in real-time, which means they can see how profitable a project is instantly, not six months later.
Gaining Mobile Field Access
Hamilton’s next task is to provide field access for project managers working on a job site through Acumatica’s mobile app. That’s something they never had before.
“Our glazers may spend a half-day, or a crew may work for six or seven months on a project and travel directly to the job site each day,” Hamilton says. Because they had to rely on phone communication, some items were incorrectly communicated, some tasks were inadvertently redone, or worse, employees arrived at a job site without knowing the current status of the project.
With Acumatica Construction Edition, employees will be armed with an iPad with field notes for specific projects. They will have access to architectural drawings, any attachments, and any other information. “Before, assumptions were made, mistakes were made and it was time-consuming to try to figure out what needed to be done to complete a job,” Hamilton says.
Accounting Team Reduces Interruptions
Acumatica Construction Edition has freed up some of Roberts Glass’s controller’s time because she no longer has to look up information for others and convey that over the phone to remote workers. Previously, a lot of financial information was saved on her computer, and access was restricted.
Now, using Acumatica Construction Edition, which provides the ability to set varying levels of access and security, employees have direct access to information pertinent to their jobs. “We have dashboards, and some have their own personal dashboards where they can look at KPIs, revenue, projects we’ve bid on – all the information our controller no longer has to pull for them,” Hamilton says. “Our controller is a lot more productive without having those interruptions.”
At the same time, “employees are more productive because they have instant access to the information they need. They don’t have to call headquarters or waste time searching for the right information.” shared Hamilton.
Strong Foundation for Growth
Acumatica Construction Edition was easy to learn and provides a strong foundation to help Roberts Glass continue to grow.
“What we’re trying to do is maximize our margins and profits by making sure we’re working on projects as efficiently as possible,” Hamilton says. “Acumatica Construction Edition has helped us grow in terms of revenue because we’re much more efficient at managing projects.”
Having data instantly available allows executives and employees to make data-driven decisions, whether in the office or at a job site. “First thing every morning, I can see what our case-load is like, what’s in our backlog, what are our active projects, and see from an executive-level key indicators of the health of the business,” Hamilton says. “I don’t have to wait until the end of the month or two or three months after that to have clean labor data to learn the profitability of a job. With Acumatica Construction Edition, all of us have that data in real-time.”
While Roberts Glass has no immediate plans to expand through acquisitions, “I’m confident that if we find a business we want to acquire, we can get them going quickly with Acumatica’s cloud-based system.”
AcumatiCares
