Business Challenges for EPC companies: Solutions and Benefits of an ERP

Engineering Services and Project Consulting companies across disciplines, namely, electrical, mechanical, electronics, construction, architectural and those addressing infrastructure execute projects wherein tracking Project Budget and Actuals for material, labour, revenue and other expenses is essential. These companies execute a wide range of projects across industry verticals which makes it important for them to adopt best practices. In order to deliver on milestones within budget you need to have effective co-ordination and communication between the various departments involved, coupled with accurate tracking of materials, expenses and revenues. In other words, you require a strong project management and job costing mechanism built into a robust accounting system.

For every project, post analysis and requirement scoping, a detailed design and component selection is undertaken. A Bill of materials is then created which goes to the purchase department wherein it has to be logged in against the specific project. In such a complex scenario there is a major challenge in material management, tracking and planning. Also since there are various costs that have to be incorporated into the project billing, such as material cost, time cost of manhours spent by personnel from multiple departments, you require a system that could ensure accurate time and materials costing while providing estimates to its clients. The billing process is also quite complex as invoices need to be raised at any phase of the project, hence it is essential for project cost visibility at all times in the project cycle. Apart from needing a project job costing solution, there is also a requirement for accounting software that could meet your financial requirements, ranging from Indian tax compliance and payment, accounts receivable and accounts payable, bank reconciliation and general ledger. All small and mid-sized companies are concerned about the impact that growth would have on its technological investments and would want a modular, scalable solution that would adapt to its unique workings and keep pace with the organization’s growth. Sage Accpac ERP system having a strong project job costing module that integrates with the financial modules and purchase order addresses these rigorous requirements. A sophisticated, robust operating and accounting system, Sage Accpac ERP has a modular structure, which allows you to implement only the modules and options you need today and build out your financial system by adding on more options later. The Sage Accpac ERP system also has the capability of integrating with other productivity solutions like CRM and is highly customizable, and works in a multi location environment. The core financial modules of Sage Accpac ERP comprising of accounts receivable, accounts payable, the general ledger and the system manager can help you confidently manage your complex finances. Available with full multicurrency capability, powerful bank reconciliation and tax reporting features, flexible transaction processing options, and informative dashboards for analytical reporting, Sage Accpac ERP accurately presents valuable financial information in a clear and understandable format. The Project Job Costing module makes the estimating, tracking, costing, and billing of projects easy and manageable, thus simplifying the cost control and planning. Sage Accpac Project Job Costing connects project activities with company financials, provides extensive inquiry and reporting capabilities and helps ensure accurate and timely accounting and billing processes throughout the life of a project. The powerful features incorporated in Project and Job Costing help in identifying potential issues, tracking costs, ensuring profitability and determining success factors for any project. The automated billing features in this job cost accounting software streamline customer invoicing and reduce the time spent managing this process.

The project and job costing module of Sage Accpac can enable you to place orders, receive materials, track materials and assign manpower against specific projects. Since it automatically tracks the project cost throughout its life cycle, it allows the managers to keep track of project profitability at all times. The strong reporting feature avoids delays in the project work flow due to communication lapses, prevents misallocation of materials and ensures effective utilization of manpower and resources to guarantee profitability. By providing a greater understanding of the profitability and multi-level costing of projects, Sage Accpac also helps you to estimate better. Since it helps in tracking arrival and dispatch of materials at all times, it also facilitates supply chain management.

Engineering and Project Companies: Few Queries to Ponder

Incorrect estimation of 3M’s of your Business (Manpower, Material and Machinery) could hurt you very bad, what is worse if you do not monitor actual viz a viz your estimation, you might be loosing lakhs of rupees without actually knowing about your losses! In today’s turbulent times reducing the costs and wastages are AS important as making Sales. You need a powerful engine which can help you to estimate and budget resources for your project and monitor regular usage by providing powerful MIS reporting to track your actual consumption versus your estimate. With Powerful Estimation, Budget and Actual usage quantities, Sage Accpac ERP keeps a close tab on actual resource consumption v/s budgeted and estimated quantities.

Inflated Revenue, deflated costs and not recording of all your expenses and overheads might give you Rosy picture of your profitability index, who knows there could be bed of thorns behind Rosy books of accounts, you might be bleeding internally in absence of a perfect Costing System for your projects. You need a system which can accurately track your costs, overheads, project expenses and revenues from a project to give you a 360 degree view of financial health of your each project. Powerful Financial and Project costing engine calculates accurate costs associated with executing the system and gives you accurate profitability on each single project.

In absence of a close monitoring system, you never know when a delay from getting subcontracted work done could affect overall project schedule; at times subcontractors may delay in performing tasks and lack of control systems do not allow you to act in Timely manner. With advanced subcontract tracking you get actual status of your subcontracted activities and take timely decision in case of delays from subcontractors. Analyze cost and performance of various subcontractors and take informed decisions.

Be it any resource (Men, Machinery or Material), it costs you MONEY, in absence of close control over issuance of material and manpower on various projects you might be incurring more costs reducing profitability of the project or even making the project see Red. With aid of powerful user authorizations and controls you can restrict issuance of material and other resources for a project over allowable limits; only senior level authorities can monitor and authorize issuance of more material then permissible limits.

Discrete Manufacturing Lost Money Test Part 2: Solution

SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS and CURTAIL YOUR COSTS BY MORE THAN 25% WITH AN EASY TO USE, AUTOMATED AND INTEGRATED GLOBAL ERP, MRP and CRM system:

More than 50,000 customers use the system worldwide. WHY? Here is a just a few reasons: 1. Streamline and get control of your inventory with better raw material forecasting, snapshot of your inventory position resulting higher turnover of Inventory 2. Complete Production Planning for your manufacturing activities with inbuilt MRP and MRP level II reports for purchases 3. Strong Finance modules integrated with Inventory, Production and Sales modules to give you profitability status of your activities 4. Powerful Supply Chain to reduce your costs of inventory, purchase and carrying costs 5. Powerful analysis tools to give you accurate information on production processes with estimated dates of delivery to your customers 6. Integrate with CRM to take control of your front office activity and marketing activity 7. Drill Down and use powerful business intelligence tools for your financial planning 8. Multiple Legal Entities with support for all Indian taxes and statutory compliances PRICING: Sage and Greytrix brings you world renowned ERP and manufacturing system which is specifically targeted to Discrete manufacturing SMB industry and making it within reach without sacrificing on any aspect of “functionality” in comparison with any large ERP systems. The prices for the integrated suite starts from just 5 Lakhs. Contact us for a demo based exclusively with your own data and processes.

Discrete Manufacturer: Lost Money Trail Part 1: Problem Test

A simple test to determine your "readiness" for global competition. Answer "Yes", "No" or "Maybe" for the following:

Questionnaire Yes No Maybe 1. Inventory is Out of Control? Coordination of raw material, finished goods and consumables is minimal in your organization. 2. Weak Scheduling? Inefficient, uniformed scheduling –or no capacity planning – means poor use of machinery, materials and staff. 3. Ad-hoc Order processes? There is hardly any proper ordering and planning to order raw material before consumption. 4. No standard processes for Receivable Management? Have a non integrated system making it difficult for cash flow position of your company. 5. Manual Planning of production? Delays in production and customer complaints due to non delivery in time leading. 6. Inefficient subcontracting? No control and status of subcontracted activities leading to disastrous end products schedules. 7. Managing in the Dark? No business intelligence module to have an integrated system making management “feeling” instead of “seeing” the business. 8. Too much Scrapping and reworking? No planning procedure leading to higher costs and low product quality. 9. Double Double Entry Entry? Non integrated system making you do double entry in manufacturing, accounting and CRM with increased risk in data duplication. 10. Right Hand vs Left Hand? Only one person is capable enough to take the decision instead of the process and the system determining the action which reduces opportunity costs

If you even answered 1 as either YES or MAYBE, you are losing money BIG time ranging from 10-40% in profitability. You are also NOT ready for global competition which may not be here immediately but will eventually had made a lot of manufacturing shops to close down worldwide. Pull up your socks and save costs to make yourse

Greytrix and Sage: Putting your Business First: An introduction

Greytrix: Greytrix is the leading software partner, distributor and developer of Sage Software specifically Sage Accpac ERP and Sage CRM. With more than 300+ customers worldwide, Greytrix has worked and proven its credentials in bringing the best possible solutions to business problems related to day to day running of different and diversified industries including manufacturing, services, engineering, trading and distribution.Visit www.greytrix.in or www.greytrix.com

Sage is a leading supplier of accounting and business management software to small and medium sized businesses ("SMEs") The Sage Group plc comprises market-leading businesses throughout Europe, North America, South Africa, Asia and Australia supplying business management software and related products and services to the small and medium sized business community. Sage Software has over 700 customers and in India for its CRM and ERP products across industries like, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Distribution, Travel and Hospitality, Healthcare, Media and IT Services. www.sagesoftware.co.in

An affordable End to End solution for SME ERP Needs

Are you encountering the following business issues?

• Decision making process is Based on Inconsistent, incomplete or non integrated
  Financial, Manufacturing, Inventory and Operational Data
• You are banking on a low end accounting software worth a few thousand to run
  operations of an organization worth Crores
• Your business analytics system consists of working with Excel sheets
• You do not have any idea as to how much items you have, its costing or where
  are they located.
• You want to use a globally recognized sophisticated system but pricing is not for
  SME’s and it does not support Indian Taxes and Special reports.

Sage ERP and CRM: An affordable solution for you automation needs

The Sage Accpac (Enterprise Resource Planning) ERP system is, at core, a sophisticated,robust accounting and operations system for small and midsized businesses and Sage CRM is for Marketing, Sales, and Customer service teams.

A system which will take care of all your business pain points.

Prices starts at just a few including implementation. Schedule a request to discuss the problems which you have and you will receive a solution along with the demo before you actually buy the system.

MODULES

Inventory Control
Accounts Payable and Receivable
Sales/Purchase Orders
General Ledger
Project Management
Manufacturing
CRM Sales/Marketing
TDS and Excise
Financial Reporter
Business Intelligence
Manufacturing
Service Management