Civil and structural engineering, construction and project management services company Jeffares & Green has taken full control of its financial management and results consolidation with a SAP Business One financial software solution, supplied and implemented by Pretoria-based SAP software specialist 4most.
“Our solution focused on simplifying and speeding up the management of financials and the consolidation of results from 12 legal entities within Jeffares & Green that frequently conduct inter-group transfers,” said Eugene Olivier, business development director of 4most.
Desre Guerini, financial manager at Jeffares & Green, said the company was taking six to eight weeks to complete its monthly reports. “By switching to the SAP Business One solution, we were able to reduce that time by half.” She stressed that ease of use was a major factor selecting the SAP solution.
“The very nature of our business and our corporate structure presents many accounting steps and obstacles that are unique to Jeffares & Green. Our financial information was in multiple locations, and time and expense data were maintained separately, so the consolidation process entailed many manual steps and sometimes mistakes were made that caused us to overlook items in our billing.”
Guerini added that Jeffares & Green wanted more than just another accounting package. “We wanted a solution that would help us with other aspects of our business, such as project management, payroll integration and human resources, in other words, complete enterprise resource planning.”
Several vendors were evaluated and SAP Business One was selected for its functionality in financials and for ease of use. Guerini said SAP Business One presented a clear, stable roadmap for the company.
4most, J&G's selected implementation partner, installed SAP Business One, as well as Enprise Job Costing, an add-on solution that helps companies like J&G prepare customer quotes and manage time, staff, and other resources on a job-by-job basis. The solution was tailored to J&G specifics while avoiding the extensive customisation that had become so problematic with the previous solution.
“Our projects tend to be very large, which makes them difficult to manage from a costing perspective,” Guerini says. “The new solution makes it easier for our project managers to stay within budget. Their work-in-progress reports are more reliable and accurate.”
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