Sage Timeslips for the Architects and for Town Planners

Housing was one of the first and most obvious casualties of the credit crunch and the dramatic reduction in housing starts has hit architects and planners particularly hard over the past few years.

Alternative avenues of revenue in other areas of construction have been similarly hit and with fees under constant pressure and with the ever-increasing demands of clients, it has never been harder to keep projects profitable and be successful in bidding for new projects.

Ensuring that all time spent on a project is recharged in an accurate and timely manner, along with recoverable expenses, can make a big difference to the profitability of a project and the overall profitability of the firm.

Sage Timeslips Introduction

Sage Timeslips is a Windows PC based project time and expense management software solution. It integrates with other systems but can function as a standalone system, giving you more insight and control over how time is spent in your business. Sage Timeslips is a global leader in Time Tracking and has been purchased by thousands of businesses worldwide.

Case Study – Pro Vision Planning & Design

Pro Vision Planning & Design (www.pvprojects.com) (PV Projects Ltd) are Town Planning Consultants, Architects and Urban Designers with offices in Hampshire, Dorset and Berkshire. Their clients include major residential house builders and developers, as well as Banks, Hotels, Utilities, Churches of all denominations and Local Authorities in the South of England.

Many businesses in the architectural profession have found winning new business more difficult in the current economic climate, but Pro Vision have remained successful as they are known for their special expertise in certain areas – particularly in ecological planning and design.

It can be difficult to accrue time and expenses information into a central database when a business operates out of several locations and this will be compounded when consultants are often on client sites. That’s why ten years ago Pro Vision decided investigate time and expenses recording solutions.

After investigating time recording systems on the internet and discussing the solutions used by other professional service providers they knew, they called on Deepak Sareen Associates who demonstrated Sage Timeslips to them. The demonstration showed them that Timeslips had all the functionality they required without any bespoking of the solution.

Their final decision to invest was made easier because Timeslips would be easy to use – particularly in data capture and producing simple reports.

Benefits of Sage Timeslips

The subsequent implementation went smoothly and the system soon paid for itself through better reporting of WIP that has enabled billing to be done at the appropriate time and more accurately. Financial management has also been improved in other ways since the implementation, as costs against budgets have also been able to have been monitored more precisely.

While it can sometimes be difficult to get every employee to record their time and expenses on time, alerts can be set up that will quickly identify when users are late with their recording so that project data can be updated.

Pro Vision also found that Timeslips was also able to generate the data needed to feed into their Sage 50 Accounts software – a popular solution for small to medium sized businesses that makes it easier to invoice customers, pay suppliers, as well as submit VAT returns online and help in the preparation of year-end accounts.