CC Jul-Aug 2020

CASEstudy
Solid Groundwork
Laying in a solid accounting system like EasyBuild is as beneficial to a civil engineering company as
laying good groundworks, as T & W Civil Engineering have discovered
In a year beset with problems and
hardship for many, there are thanks to
be said for a major underlying trend -
the predominance of sunny weather,
without which the socially distanced
queues outside Tescos and the
emergence of a love for the outdoors in
any shape or form would have been
unbearable. It is to be hoped the good
weather continues as the construction
industry gets back into its stride once
more, and the UK Government throws
money at infrastructure and increased
house building to revitalise the economy.
One of the potential beneficiaries of a
return to untrammelled construction is
T & W Civil Engineering, a Northants
based company, formed in 1994, which
has been providing groundworks and civil
engineering services to clients in the
private housing sector for over 25 years.
Having expanded into other areas such as
Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Cambridge
and Bicester since its launch, the company
prides itself on the strong relationships it
builds with its clients based on the quality
of delivery, excellent customer service, and
its commitment to ensuring all workers go
home safely each day. T & W's clients
include Barratt Homes, David Wilson
Group, Persimmon Homes, Redrow and
Lioncourt, with a focus on developments
that are likely to have upwards of 250 units
across the various phases, and is currently
engaged on 18 active sites with 3 more
expected to start in the next couple of
months. These include a recently won
£5.5m infrastructure project in Rugby and
a £6.5m groundworks and infrastructure
package in Wellingborough.
PRIOR TO EASYBUILD
Before implementing EasyBuild T & W
used Sage 50 for its accounting software, a
very basic package that was adequate
when the company started out but became
less suitable as the business grew,
particularly over the last five years. The
company also had a separate, purposebuilt
procurement system.
Adam Burchnall, the Finance Director at
T & W, explained the challenges that the
company had to overcome. "There was no
real-time information," he said, "and it
wasn't possible to get an accurate view of
costs until the end of the month once all
invoices had been received, due to
accruals not being made when we placed
orders. We couldn't drill down into costs
either, because orders were placed in a
different system with only the final invoice
being loaded into Sage. It was only
possible to get a high-level view of where
the costs, such as materials and
consumables totals, were being incurred."
With nominal codes being chosen at point
of invoice, rather than being linked to the
product ordered, there was a greater risk of
inconsistent postings between accounts
payable clerks. The result was a lack of
visibility for the commercial team -
surveyors would only get a view of site
performance based on a month end report
and to drill down into any of the cost
categories would be a manual and
laborious process for finance. Invoice
matching was also a problem. With orders
being placed in a different system they
couldn't be automatically linked in Sage,
and the accounts payable team would
have to cross-check with the separate
system prior to loading in Sage - using two
screens side by side.
The processing of Accruals and monthend
adjustments, without the ability to run
reports on open orders, was particularly
challenging - all of which slowed down the
system, and the volume of transactions
going through Sage 50 and the loading
and refreshing of new screens caused the
system to crash repeatedly.
Finally, the problems associated with the
ageing solution was exacerbated by its
(non-existent) document management. You
couldn't attach files/documents to
transactions in Sage, meaning that the
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July/August 2020