Phil McLachlan is IT Director at Chico Electric. He sat down with Jonas Construction Software to share how the company moved off an underutilized ERP and a mountain of spreadsheets, and why, after implementing multiple ERPs in his career, he ranks the Jonas implementation/support experience first.
The Problem
Phil joined Chico Electric and found a familiar situation: software on the shelf, work happening elsewhere. The company had an ERP, but the business did not run on it. Specifically:
- The existing ERP sat largely unutilized
- A big percentage of what the company did lived on spreadsheets
- Duplication ran throughout the operation, with the same data entered in multiple places
- Producing job costing reports for the executive team took close to a week
For a contractor serving energy-intensive agricultural operations, where customers schedule around peak rates and expect fast answers, that lag carried a real cost. The company needed everything to be way more efficient.
The Strategy
Chico Electric moved its operation onto Jonas. Key elements of the rollout included:
- Consolidating spreadsheet-based processes into one integrated platform
- Bringing job costing into Jonas so executive reporting runs from live data
- Implementing document management, with documents attached directly to transactions
- Configuring every module so that cost and operational data flowed together
The team at Chico leaned on Jonas support throughout implementation and beyond in order to get the most out of their investment.
The Results
Executive Reporting in a Couple of Clicks
As Phil puts it: “The job costing has taken us from a week to produce reports for the executive team to a couple clicks to get that information.”
Faster Answers for Customers
With documents attached directly to transactions, response time has increased significantly when a customer calls with a question. It has really helped the team serve customers better.
An End to Duplication
Consolidating spreadsheet processes onto one platform removed the duplicate entry that ran through the company’s daily work.
Top Tier Support
The support is Phil’s favourite thing about Jonas. In his words: “I’ve implemented multiple ERPs over the years and have
"An ERP can either work or not work, and a lot of that is based on the implementation. And Jonas has had the best implementation process of any of the other ERPs I've worked with."
About Jonas Construction Software
Jonas Construction Software offers integrated construction software solutions tailored to the needs of the construction industry, particularly mechanical and specialty contractors.
With a commitment to building software focused on accounting automation, enterprise efficiency, and superior cost reporting, Jonas’ comprehensive suite of solutions includes automated accounting and payroll, project management, service management, and supporting integrated operations. To learn more about how Jonas can help your service and construction business enhance cash flow predictability and maximize profits, request a demo today.
