KODA Ehitus builds and maintains the heating, ventilation, cooling and automation systems inside buildings. Founded in Tallinn in 2002, it is a specialist subcontractor to Estonia’s largest main contractors, among them Merko, Nordecon and Rand & Tuulberg, on jobs such as the Rail Baltica terminal at Ülemiste, the LHV office tower, Golden Gate, Fahle Terrassid and the KUMU art museum.
Jobs are typically €1 to 2 million and up, three to five at a time, for a turnover of around €4 million. Of the 17 people, three are project managers. Meet Joonas Kosk, who joined KODA 15 years ago as a site manager, became a project manager, and bought the company in February 2024. He still runs his own projects.
"Not one project has come in below forecast since we moved to Planyard in 2023. The forecasts are the pessimists now. Projects end up more profitable than planned, because the pressure is on from day one."
Before Planyard: stamps, then ten years of Directo
Cost control at KODA started on paper: once a week the site manager stamped a pile of 150 printed invoices and wrote in the cost codes by hand. Around 2012 the invoices moved into Directo, an Estonian accounting system with a proper approval chain, and it stayed in use for a decade. The problem was what it was like to use.
"Coding an invoice in Directo meant pop-ups, windows opening in random corners and a printed list of articles to hunt through. In Planyard you type three letters and pick the line. That alone was reason enough to move."
The bigger gap was that approving an invoice told you nothing about the budget. Directo’s budget module had been bolted onto an accounting system, so the project manager kept a spreadsheet alongside it.
"Every loss used to arrive in the last three weeks of a project. For a year it all looks under control, then it is oh-oh, and 90 percent of the money is already spent. In Planyard you see it coming while you can still do something."
Choosing Planyard
KODA started using Planyard in January 2023, after evaluating it alongside another Estonian system that most large main contractors use. That one was slower and built around the main contractor’s paperwork. Planyard fitted a team of three project managers, and KODA’s own subcontractors, many of them small family firms, submit their claims through it without trouble.
"If we were much bigger, something heavier might make sense. For a team of three project managers, Planyard is the optimal point: as simple as it can be, and our needs are simple."
Directo stayed as the accounting system. Every invoice approved in Planyard goes there automatically for the accountant to check before payment, and payroll and vehicle costs stay there too. In Joonas’s words, Directo was overkill for a project manager and fine for an accountant.
"Simplicity. Planyard rolls out in days and you can explain to anyone how it works. That is its biggest advantage over everything else we looked at."
Approve the invoice and see the budget line at the same time
Purchase invoices, subcontractor claims and forecasts on one screen, with the accounting system kept for the accountant.
Implementation: nothing changed except the speed
Because the workflow stayed the same, the move was quick. Cost lines, subcontractor claims and approval rules carried over as they were. KODA’s own installation crews are contracted to each project as a subcontractor, so their payroll cost lands on the right budget line like any other cost.
"Our project management process had been in place for 15 years when Planyard arrived. Planyard did not touch the process. It just made the same work faster and a lot more pleasant."
Onboarding the other project managers went the same way.
"The transition to Planyard was painless. A new project manager gets shown how it works in a couple of hours, because our own processes are already built into it."
Day to day: invoices as they arrive
A subcontractor’s invoice stream is nothing like a main contractor’s. The main contractor on a €50 million job gets one invoice a month from each subcontractor. KODA buys from dozens of suppliers, and on a busy site that is 15 to 20 invoices a day.
"Planyard is open in front of me all day and I approve invoices the moment they land. Before, they piled up for a couple of days and then I lost an hour sorting them."
The invoice reading has improved a lot since 2023.
"Planyard's invoice reading used to get maybe half of them right. Now it reads the total, the invoice number and the supplier exactly, every single time. That is an hour per person per week, gone."
With every invoice on a budget line the moment it is approved, the project view answers the question Directo could not.
"In Planyard the picture is in front of you all the time: forecast left, spent, committed. One look and you know where the project stands. In Directo that took a separate afternoon of analysis."
It also catches supplier invoices that drift away from the agreed price.
"I agree 17,500 with a supplier and put it in Planyard. Four months later the invoice arrives at 17,932, because they forgot our deal and applied their standard margin. The line turns red and I am on the phone straight away."
Asked how many hours all this saves, Joonas declined to count.
"I would not measure Planyard in hours saved. I would measure it in mental health. The work became so much more pleasant that you actually enjoy it, instead of thinking: damn, this has to be done too."
What it means for the owner
Since buying the company, Joonas reads every project in Planyard: which invoices are approved, which claims are open, and whether the other project managers are updating their forecasts.
"Project managers like to keep a reserve and leave the forecast where the budget was, just in case. In Planyard I can see when a forecast has not moved, and I know that cannot be the whole story."
KODA sets a financial target for every project before it starts. Before 2023 projects tended to end at zero or a little under it. Since then the pattern has reversed, and Joonas puts a good part of that down to the software.
The other change is the size of job the company is willing to take.
"With Planyard you dare to take on bigger jobs, because you can actually follow them. Being 5 percent out on 100,000 is one thing. Being 5 percent out on 5 million is a very different thing."
With three project managers, Planyard also means the financial side of every project is run the same way, whoever is running it.
"To run a budget in Excel you have to be gifted and genuinely interested. Any guy can be taught Planyard, so the money side of every project is standardised and visible to the company."
Who Joonas thinks it is for
His recommendation is aimed at Estonian contractors turning over €300,000 to €5 million a year. Above that the systems are in place anyway. Below it, an owner-run firm pays a few thousand euros a year for its first real cost control for a subcontractor.
"The biggest winners are contractors turning over 300,000 to 5 million a year. Even a firm doing 600,000 pays a few thousand euros for Planyard and saves 10 percent straight away."
Still on the wishlist
Joonas’s main request is a multi-level approval chain like Directo’s, where the site manager who placed the order approves the invoice first. KODA’s site managers order directly from suppliers but do not use Planyard.
"What I still want is multi-level approval, so the site manager who placed the order approves the invoice first. Site managers have drifted away from what things cost. I want the numbers to pass in front of their eyes."
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