Background

Established in 1952, Pneumatic Contractors Ltd is privately owned and based in Southland, employing about 20 staff. We have been specialists in the abrasive blasting and protective coatings industry for 65 years and during that time we have had input into nearly every major construction project in Southland.  Pneumatic Contractors Ltd also have expertise in galvanizing, protective coatings inspection service and water blasting.

A boat painting facility is operated at Bluff in conjunction with the Synchrolift dry dock facility of Southport and we do a lot of the maintenance work for the fishing industry, tourist vessels out of Milford & Doubtful Sounds and the Stewart Island ferries. Abrasive blasting and protective coatings are applied either at the workshop or in the field.

When I, Rick Clyma, together with my business partner, Denis Harvey, took over the reins of the business from my father in 1981, it was decided that hand written invoices and manual systems were a thing of the past. Guided by Jill Stewart, and the team at Strategic Software, we soon implemented our first business management and accounting solution.

Under the leadership of Denis and myself, Pneumatic Contractors Ltd continued to grow and evolve.  With the advent of computerised systems within the business, there was a realisation that with the right systems in place, more efficiency could be achieved. I wanted to align the way that we did our job costing with how we provided our service, making sure that we were accurately able to record all of our time and materials data as each job progressed.

Pneumatic Contractors unique business and manufacturing processes meant that every job could potentially be analysed from 2 different angles; a square meterage approach or a time and materials approach. These choices, together with other factors, then determined exactly how an individual customer needed to be invoiced.

I approached Jill, and Strategic Software, to investigate how we could achieve our goals. It became apparent that our current system was too restrictive for us to progress in the manner that we had hoped for. We once again looked to Jill and Strategic Software for further guidance as a trusted advisor to our business.

I sat down with Strategic Software and explained in detail exactly how our business operated, and, more importantly, how we wanted to operate moving forward, together with the unique intricacies of our job costing and invoicing requirements.  Jill at Strategic Software recommended and assisted us in reviewing all of our processes.  The recommendation was that the best way to achieve the results we needed was to move away from our original software solution to a new ERP solution called Advanced Business Manager (ABM).  I remember that "ABM was far more adaptable" and that we would get "a far better result from ABM" including the very unique customisation that matched our business process. Being able to achieve the Job Costing alignment through the customisation was the critical factor in the decision to switch from our existing software.  The decision was made in late 2004 to switch to ABM in order that we could have the Job Costing customisation that we required.

The customisation itself provided:

  • New data entry screens designed specifically around our business processes.
  • The ability to enter the full job instructions, including the order and details of the coats required.
  • Production of a Job Card, showing product, colour and DFT for required number of coats, to be used as the factory instructions.
  • The ability to analyse time between blasting, painting and airless spray painting.
  • The ability to manage each jobs progress from quoting, to completion and invoicing.
  • The ability to enter the square meterage of any job and the rate per square metre, as well as record detailed time and materials information for the same job.
  • The ability to invoice based on either the time and materials or the square meterage basis, with the decision able to be made at the end of the job, once the two methods had been compared.
  • The flexibility, if invoicing on a time and materials basis, to show the full details of time and materials, including individual staff time, or summarised details for each job invoice.

Through detailed consultation and seamless implementation, Pneumatic Contractors "ended up with the perfect product (is anything ever perfect?), which allows us to make a decision of how much to bill the customer”.  We considered Jill, and the team at Strategic Software, to be trusted advisors and to give us unbiased and consistent advice.

The transition to ABM was seamless, with zero data loss between the two systems; we stopped using our old software one day and were up and running using ABM the very next!  I ensured that I had the right staff being trained on the software on day one to avoid a more costly phased or dual system approach. In regards to the continued support provided by the team at Strategic Software: “It just works. Support is very good!  Instant answers to our queries, which wouldn’t happen if the staff at Strategic didn’t fully understand our business."  During the first few months of using our new ABM software, the team at Strategic Software were on hand to fine tune the solution to perfectly match the business needs and have continued to work with me and the staff at Pneumatic Contractors Ltd to the present day, ensuring the software has evolved with the business.

Before ABM, my business partner and I had no monthly management reporting and would have no idea how the business was performing until the end of the financial year, by which time it was too late to do anything to change the results. With our new ABM system, timesheets are completed by all staff and entered into the system and ABM then provides us with a wealth of useful reports on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Realising the power of the information that is held in the ABM database, I have had the team at Strategic Software further customise existing reports and write new reports, as appropriate, to provide me with the business snapshots that I need. I  am now  able to see, (on a daily basis if necessary), the breakdown of man hours by department, how a job is progressing, accurate up to date job costs and it is extremely easy to proactively manage both the staff and the overheads of the business, thereby influencing the bottom line instantly. If a member of staff is operating at the expected m2/hour rate, then it is highlighted by the reports and gives my management team the ability to analyse and rectify the issue. If too much coating is used on a job then the costs for that job would be too high. Conversely, too little coating on a job could lead to sub-standard quality and repercussions at a later date. The business reports from ABM allow  us to keep our finger on the pulse of the business - “Reports are crucial. They help our bottom line immensely!”  Visibility of the critical business levers, such as revenue and costs, have become the cornerstone upon which Pneumatic Contractors Ltd have been able to build our success, which has seen us double our profit from three years ago. ABM has been a huge part of that success, due to the in depth analysis it has been able to provide the business with and has been instrumental in assisting in the gain in profit.
 
“When you talk ABM, you wouldn’t think that that’s what we could achieve out of it, because you look at ABM as an accounting package, but it’s a lot more than that!”
 
Rick Clyma, Director 1981 – 2017, Pneumatic Contractors Ltd.
I retired in early 2017, with the business passing to Gary Robertson and Dean Harvey.  ABM remains at the core of the business.