Plowman Craven

One of Europe’s most innovative and dependable mesurement providers

Company Overview

Plowman Craven Founded in 1964, Plowman Craven boasts forty years of experience within the field of Geomatics. Since their inception they have continuously built their reputation through hard work and reliable performance, enabling them to become one of the most respected Geomatics companies in Europe.

Frank Plowman and Ron Craven based their vision on quality and service, and today, Plowman Craven retain that same vision, with all clients expecting and receiving a high standard of quality and service. To Plowman Craven, the business of measuring is a passion.

PCA’s professional approach to measurement and consistent investment in new and developing technologies enables it to refine and enhance it’s techniques in order to offer clients the very best service. Using a variety of advanced electronic instrumentation, PCA provide printed and digital data management, photogrammetry, aerial surveys, land surveys, advanced three-dimensional modelling, CAD, GPS and other crucial services, all of which are supplied to the most stringent specification and accuracy. Continuously adopting new technology, PCA invest heavily in staff and equipment to get the job done.

Smaller Beginnings

For several years, the company relied upon a solution that joined together Sage Line 50 for financial accounting with a bespoke package for time recording, billing and customer relationship management.Whilst this combination had worked previously, the company was experiencing significant growth and Managing Director, Simon Barnes, was keen to introduce a system that could deal with both an increased number of users, projects and transactions, and at the same time facilitate new and more efficient ways of working.These new ways of working would include better project management and costing, improved time recording, and more flexible arrangements for the presentation of Requests for Payment and VAT handling.

The existing Sage-based system was beginning to strain at the seams; even without the weight of transactions it was now being asked to process, it would never offer the extended range of functions and facilities that Simon knew the business would need as it continued to grow.

“We wanted to take advantage of the same leading edge technology in our accounting and operational systems as we employ in our client work” says Simon. “We had enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with our accountants – who are also specialists in Access Accounting’s award-winning software.When we were looking for a supplier for our new system they were a natural choice.”

Working the PCA Way

PCA focuses on getting the most out of its skilled and motivated workforce.To achieve this, the system had to provide a costing interface to allow resources to be selected for putative projects, and costs models produced to support estimates provided to clients.

Once a project is won, PCA closely measure the performance of resources against the estimate, and are able to respond quickly to any changes requested by the client during the project. In fact,Access Dimensions provides not only performance monitoring within a project, but also reports on trends across projects – grouped for example by client, portfolio, survey team or client market sector.This allows managers at PCA to continually improve their estimating techniques, and closely review which combinations of resource, project type and market yield the best returns.This information also feeds into PCA’s marketing efforts, focusing the spend where it will do the most good.As a service orientated business, the capture and recharge of time is an essential element to effective project management.

Using Access Dimensions, PCA were able to roll-out a web-based timesheet system to its fee earning staff, and simplify procedures for managing work-inprogress and billing.Whereas previously there would be an inevitable delay between time being expended on a project and then recorded in core systems, time recording became instantaneous with real-time information available to project managers.This allows the progress of a project to budget to be followed dynamically and any issues to be identified early.The money-making process – converting time expended to work in progress, to a request for payment and cash received – has also been shortened.

The timesheet system also provides facilities for recording overtime, non-chargeable hours such as holidays and training, and expense claim management, both for purchases and mileage.All the information required to drive human resource and payroll software systems is also made available for electronic integration.

The financials team within the business have benefited from Dimensions’ ability to integrate seamlessly with Microsoft Excel. This assists in the production of management accounts, and combining this with exception reporting, allows management to focus on those projects that need attention rather than become swamped with information. For example, identifying projects where resources ‘belonging’ to one team have worked on another project and making the necessary adjustments in the monthly management pack has become a largely automatic process.

From a billing perspective,Access Dimensions deals effortlessly with the complex billing mechanism that is necessary in PCA’s field of operations. It caters for Requests for Payment and the associated management of VAT, automating a function that was previously complex and labour intensive.

Reflection

Simon reflects on the project:“We always expected a new system to provide efficiency savings; Dimensions has provided the platform for these and more. What we didn’t expect (but were delighted to find) was that by centralising data, the interchange of information throughout the company has also improved, aiding cohesiveness and pushing our client service level even higher.”

Benefits

Extensive Reporting - on trends across projects enables managers to make more accurate estimates
Web-based timesheet system - gives real-time information to project managers allowing project expenditure to be closely monitored
Seamless integration with MS Excel - assists the production of management accounts
Automated requests for payment - and the associated management of VAT eliminates complex and labour intensive task