Software to control field workers’ schedules and re-deploy them

A&K Lievesley Electrical Contractors commenced operation in 2000, specialising in domestic and commercial electrical installations and maintenance. Like most small trade business owners, Tony Lievesley started out as a sole contractor keeping track of all the bookkeeping using a ledger book late into the nights and over weekends.

The company quickly outgrew that very manual system, which facilitated the move to a proper accounting software system - MYOB. To control field workers’ schedules, they incorporated multiple excel spreadsheets and various calendars to track jobs and staff. With further expansion still, the company decided it needed to move away from manual administrative processes to a dedicated service management system that would help gain better control of their administration-centric service business. Having been in the electrical industry for many years, the owners had been aware of simPRO, and after their evaluations, they chose to deploy simPRO Software into the business.

A&K, which manages 12 staff and over 100 jobs a week, can now quickly track all of its electricians utilising in-built mapping and easily reschedule jobs in order to give priority to emergency jobs. This has been the single largest benefit of switching to simPRO, says owner Kate Lievesley. The A&K admin employees are now able to give customers the service they need while reducing the amount of time spent on the phone tracking field workers and redeploying them.

Improving customer service has proved to be an incredible benefit of implementing simPRO, said Lievesley. “Part of the simPRO program allows the customers to access their own data and they absolutely love it. They don’t have to call anymore and see where we’re up to with jobs, they can just log in themselves and see,” she added. The Client Management Portal (a web-based portal that A&K clients use to view details of jobs and invoices related to them) gives customers visibility over the status of the scheduled jobs at their fingertips, freeing up an administrator’s time in the office.

Other key advantages A&K gained with simPRO were simplified invoicing and the ability to email directly from the system. A&K understands the advantages of professional, itemised invoices and has earned itself more business just by using this feature in simPRO. In addition, simPRO integrates directly to the accounting system (A&K switched from MYOB to Xero at the time of the simPRO implementation), so there is no need to enter information into two systems, everything naturally progresses in simPRO and then updates directly to the accounting system for financials. The ability to complete a job and invoice it the next day, using professionally branded templates, is a huge positive for the A&K administrative team.

“My whole quality of life has changed because there is more control and more accountability to other staff members that are also responsible, therefore taking the pressure off me to do so much work. It’s made a huge difference to our business and our lives,” said Lievesley. When asked what advice she would give other companies looking to invest in a job management system, Lievesley said, “There’s no alternative to simPRO.”

If individuals or businesses need help, they can contact simPRO for a no obligation, on-site demonstration or a free 30-day evaluation of the software.