Up until 2000, Memphis, Tenn.-based W.A. Soefker & Son Inc. was using Sage Timberline Office accounting software and a separate service management application, which required employees to enter information separately. Not any more.
"Sage Timberline Office's service management is very convenient because everything's so integrated — it's like everything is in one program," says Janice Estes, service office manager at W.A. Soefker. "We've been very glad we converted."
Seamless integration
Sage Timberline Office's Service Management is a single-entry system that allows the seamless transfer of service management information to accounting and vice versa. Expenses, payroll time, accounts payable, accounts receivable, job cost, general ledger, inventory, and purchasing are now part of W.A. Soefker's automated data flow.
Before switching to Sage Timberline Office, W.A. Soefker employees had to enter a technician's time on the work order, then go into payroll where they entered the same information.
"Now we enter our time in Service Management, and it goes directly to payroll with just one entry," Estes says. "It's a time saver and it's more accurate."
Hours of savings
W.A. Soefker has seen dramatic time savings since using Service Management. Estes says the software has cut accounts payable time by at least 50 percent.
The company uses the software to do its billing, which then transfers automatically to accounts receivable. When payments arrive, the software updates Service Management as well as accounts receivable.
"These are things we used to do manually in more than one place, and now it's automatically taken care of. That's a real time saver," Estes says.
From start to finish
W.A. Soefker uses Sage Timberline Office's Service Management for all aspects of running its HVAC service business, Estes says.
"We start out the day with X amount of calls to be dispatched and we go from there," she says. "We use every aspect of it from entering a work order to the purchase orders to the inventory. I don't think there's any part of it we don't use."
Estes says the company has been very pleased since it started using Sage Timberline Office.
"I have seen other products with other service companies I've worked for, and I don't think there's anything out there that can touch it," she says.
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