Road surfacing company covers more ground with Greentree
The lack of a coherent job costing process in an old DOS-based system necessitated several experts in laying asphalt and other specialised road coatings at Roadways to seek deliverance via a new Business Management Suite. Salvation came in the form of Greentree’s fully integrated modular solution...
Roadways has been manufacturing asphalt and applying bituminous road surfacing to Tasmanian roads since 1969 and recently grew the business with the acquisition of Tasmania’s largest road marking company, Zaganite Specialised Coatings in 2003.
CEO Phil Sidney says that Roadways needed an integrated system with a substantial job costing capability that would effectively replace the numerous Excel spreadsheets the business had been running for many years. Since a core business activity was job costing, he says Roadways were very impressed that a customer quote can be easily converted into a job from within Greentree’s CRM module.
In addition to CRM, the seal of approval was given to Greentree's Financials, Job Cost, Payroll, Inventory and Transaction Analysis modules, which were all recently deployed. These modules provide a seamlessly integrated solution, supplying Roadways with all the right answers to questions.
Roadways are now able exploit the level ground and focus its expertise on its core business of road surfacing. Sidney says Greentree CRM enables quotes to easily convert into a job – with no re-keying of data. This means Roadways can create a complete audit trail of a quote from initiation to completion with flags to follow-up at various times during the process.
Previously, quotes were created in a spreadsheet with no system prompt at various milestones and if a quote was accepted, the data needed to be re-keyed into the old system. If a quote wasn’t accepted no one really knew why. Sidney says that being able to track customer transactions from CRM is “immensely helpful.”
The seamless integration between Greentree’s modules means only a single entry of data is required which can be ‘viewed’ from anywhere within the system. It also means that organisations only need to purchase the modules they need and whilst Sidney concedes Roadways aren’t using Greentree to anywhere near its potential, he says they’re “improving and realising its immense capability everyday.”
Flexible reporting tracks machine usage
Roadways are Tasmania’s only licensed operator of the Sharpe’s Multipaver asphalt paving system and have many other specialised machines used for various roading projects. The tracking of hours of usage and scheduling of maintenance of each machine is crucial since machine failure can cost thousands, if not ten’s of thousand’s of dollars in down-time. Sidney says Greentree’s reporting process has been super-important to this aspect of the business.
“Greentree’s reporting capability now fully informs management,” he says, “and this translates into better decision making when it comes to quoting and estimating future jobs – previously, we weren’t getting the full picture about costs or machine hours.”
Previously, machine usage was tracked manually in a spreadsheet but this is now automatically tracked via several of Greentree’s integrated modules. Most important is the tracking and reporting of labour and materials against a customer’s job which was a process predisposed to error and omission of hidden and forgotten costs. Now, every cost associated with a job is entered into the system once and updated in all relevant reporting systems, which means all costs are accurately reflected in the actual job cost. Roadways are thus able to fully optimise the use and application of materials used to surface roads and apply line markings.
The road ahead
The local Greentree business partner implemented and customised Greentree to meet Roadway’s specific needs and Sidney says Greentree has met the company’s need for a Business Management System with a strong job costing capability and Roadways will grow with Greentree into the future.
For more information
www.greentree.com/customers/profiles/roadways.cfm
Greentree
Graham Hill, Channel Manager
Email: graham.hill@greentree.com
Phone: 1800 000 737
Fax: 1800 090 487
Web: www.greentree.com
7/11/8_ex
At a Glance
Roadways needed to eliminate reliance on spreadsheets to run the business and move to an integrated and consistent job cost process. Management needed to be confident that the decisions they were making were based on a complete view of all job related costs.
Solution
Greentree Financials plus Job Costing, Inventory, Payroll and Transaction Analysis.
Result
Roadways now have a repeatable and accurate job costing process which captures all job related costs in an integrated environment. Management can now view reports which inform the decision making process and are looking forward to continuing to discover the functionality of Greentree well into the future.
Further Reading
To read more about this solution provider visit their online exhbit in the CRM Pavilion
