Lee Masonry, a Nashville, Tenn.-based specialty contractor specializing in stonework, needed new accounting software to replace discontinued software.
After the company initially chose a product designed for the masonry industry, it soon realized its customization capabilities and ease-of-use presented more problems than they bargained for. Ultimately, according to President Robert Lee, it turned to Sage Timberline Office.
Consultants add custom-like solutions
A Sage Timberline Office consultant was able to customize a mock-up to Lee Masonry's specifications, something Lee was never able to do with the previous software. In particular, he wanted to be able to track productivity by the number of pieces of stone each mason would set per day, rather than the more common method of tracking productivity by crew.
"It really wasn't that big a deal to get it to do what we wanted it to do," Lee says. "Our Sage Timberline Office consultant was able to get it working exactly the way we wanted even before the purchase."
"I think the consultants are one of Sage Timberline Office's strong points. In a small company like ours, I couldn't tell the office manager to stop everything to build a new system. He doesn't have that kind of time. Implementation was more than smooth. The consultant kept us moving," Lee adds.
Timesheets to production reports
Once Sage Timberline Office was in place, Lee Masonry had its foremen start filing timesheets online, cutting out the need for the accounting staff to hand-enter the data. Once the payroll data is filed, it can be uploaded directly into Sage Timberline Office, cutting the amount of processing time from two days to a single morning, Lee says.
Under the old system, he says, it took nearly a week to get the payroll done.
"If you started on a Monday with the timesheets turned in, we wouldn't get our checks printed until Wednesday afternoon — and that didn't include having the production information ready," Lee says. "Now you walk in and you've often got it done by Monday afternoon. It's all uploaded, and you have all your production numbers and all your live numbers ready to print out.
"Timberline has been a Godsend."
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