How an Electrical Engineering & Construction Company Powered Up with Business Central

Construction is the kind of industry where specialized knowledge is of vital strategic importance. Not just for your own internal team, but for your partners, as well—who can add more value when they have a thorough understanding of the challenges, working processes, and opportunities that differentiate your business.

To use a medical analogy, there’s a reason why a specialist can catch and treat problems that your primary care physician might miss. It’s not that your regular doctor isn’t competent or paying attention, but when it comes to, say, eye problems, there’s no substitute for the extra years of study that an ophthalmologist devotes to learning the components and complexities of the body’s visual system.

The same holds true for construction firms when it’s time to choose a partner for a cloud-based ERP implementation. A construction-savvy technology partner can tap into a deep understanding of the pain points their clients face—and the potential opportunities ahead—to set them up with the most valuable tools, strategies, and customizations that will help them make a big leap forward.

For example, let’s look at a case study of an electrical engineering and construction client Sikich worked with to help them realize the transformative power of a cloud-based ERP system that was customized to their needs.

Looking to Power Up to the Cloud

The client is an electrical engineering and construction company headquartered in the U.S. Southwest, with multiple subsidiaries and more than a decade of expertise in designing, installing, and maintaining electrical infrastructure in various cities—coupled with a track record of safety, dependability, and satisfied customers.

As part of their commitment to continuous improvement, the client had already begun a journey toward a more robust ERP system. Working with another partner, they’d gotten as far as setting up a basic implementation of Microsoft Dynamics NAV (the predecessor to Microsoft Business Central).

Unfortunately, that tech partner had little understanding or familiarity with the construction industry, leading them to overlook core concepts related to Percentage of Completion accounting and WIP accrual methodologies.

Short Circuits: The Challenges and Pain Points of Life Before Business Central

The construction business demands careful monitoring and management to keep things on the rails and avoid costly delays and budget overruns. That means keeping a close eye on labor and materials as initiating change orders when scope is altered.

There also needs to be close alignment between the field and the office, so that everyone is working together toward the same goals. Smooth collaboration and coordination with subcontractors are vital for staying on track.

Meeting timelines and deadlines depends on having access to effective scheduling features and tools. And the ability to forecast costs, quote jobs accurately, and identify potential problems ahead of time can make or break the success of a project, as well.

To achieve that, you need a solid handle on concepts like job costing, progress billing, revenue recognition, and WIP accruals related to over/under billing, as well as lien management.

Trying to explain the importance of those concepts to consultants who aren’t familiar with them can sometimes feel like you’re speaking a foreign language. But they’re mission critical. Working with a partner who only has generalized knowledge can lead to inaccurate implementations and inefficient processes.

Unfortunately, that’s the situation the client found themselves in. They were dealing with a vendor who didn’t speak the lingo, and couldn’t identify ways to solve the issues and obstacles that were holding them back.

The Switch: Making the Move to a Construction-Specific ERP with Business Central

The turnaround came when the client found its way to Sikich. We drew on our long experience of working closely with construction firms to begin guiding them toward more effective solutions—eventually helping the client plan, implement, and fine-tune Business Central. Business Central has powerful features and tools helpful to construction firms.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is one of the best cloud-based ERP solutions for construction firms, as recognized by Forbes Advisor. Probably its biggest single advantage is that Business Central doesn’t function in isolation: It’s part of the larger Microsoft ecosystem. When integrated with Project Pro, a third-party solution specifically designed for construction companies, Business Central truly excels.

Before the Business Central implementation, the client was exporting data out of their ERP into Excel, and doing time-consuming tasks like revenue recognition, profitability analysis, job profitability on a manual basis, which meant it took them weeks to close the books every month.

But Business Central’s native integration with Excel makes it possible to simply click on a button in the ERP to open the data in Excel, edit as needed, and hit save, at which point the application writes it back to the ERP.

This streamlined process, among other conveniences, saved the client so much time that it took their month-end process from weeks to a matter of days. It allowed them to run reports faster, while drawing on the functionality of Power BI for analysis and forecasting.

In addition, Business Central provides access to real-time collaboration through Microsoft Teams. It allows seamless document management via Microsoft Word, making it possible to do things like easily edit the layout of an invoice on the fly (which might require the assistance of a programmer to accomplish with other ERP systems).

The company can also use Outlook for easier customer communications. If a customer emails you looking for a copy of an invoice, for example, Outlook can tap into the ERP to locate and access the invoice without leaving Outlook.

In a thousand little ways, integrations like these can speed up working processes and boost productivity.

Plugging In: Connecting to Construction-Specific Features

Crucially for constructions firms, Business Central provides dedicated project management tools. Some of the features that Business Central offers for construction firms include:

• Job Quotes & Material Planning: Monitor resources and compile data with job quote reports and requisition worksheets.
• Job Costing: Manage jobs to increase efficiency with budgets and contracts, job projections, and tracking of costs and billings, as well as CRM integration.
• Job Progress Billings: Monitor job costs and payments with progress billing calculations, versions, and reports.
• Subcontractor Management: Supervise subcontractors’ budgets and tasks with granular tracking and reporting features. Generate progress and final lien waivers with job, vendor, and payment information referenced.
• Job Resource Scheduling: If the company needs it, they can manage project timelines using Business Central’s visual job scheduler to set up, track, and view project schedules.

In this case, the client also needed some customizations and enhancements, some of which were driven by the requirements of their private equity firm owner. In particular, they needed the ability to perform specific complex calculations related to their WIP and revenue recognition reports. Sikich was able to set up the necessary customization to take the headaches out of this process.

The Payoff: Electrifying Results

In addition to the construction-specific features, the migration to the cloud allowed the client to save thousands per month on on-premise hardware and reduce demands on their IT staff, while increasing the accessibility and up-to-the-minute accuracy of data for its team members. It eased the stress and burdens of security, backups, and performance monitoring. It also helped them eliminate technical debt by keeping their software and tools automatically up to date.

But most important, Business Central allowed the client to manage complex project milestones and tasks more efficiently thanks to benefits like:

• Improved scalability and visibility across projects and departments
• Improved data accuracy
• Streamlined month-end close
• Reduced reporting time

Nearly two years after the migration to Business Central, rewards like these have been substantial enough to power the company up to a whole new level of efficiency. And since the implementation, they’ve acquired another company, which they’re currently introducing to the advantages of Business Central’s construction tools.

Want to learn more about how Sikich can help your construction organization power up with a cloud-based ERP like Business Central? Reach out to us today.