The interview was conducted with Grant Collins from Skyler Contracting. Grant is a Quantity Surveyor at Skyler Contracting.
What does Skyler Contracting do?
Skylar Contracting installs waterproofing and roofing systems on mostly new apartments and houses. We also do some remedial work, such as refurbishing.
What kind of software tools have you used in the past?
We used Pegasus, a cost reporting software, and Excel as well.
Why did you start looking for a software tool?
Before using Planyard, much of our cost tracking and budgeting was done on spreadsheets. It took a lot of time, and having managers involved interfered greatly. So, I started to look for new software to keep our process straightforward.
What is Planyard?
Planyard is a budget tracking software. At least, that is what we use it for.
Why did you choose Planyard among other software tools?
I started using Planyard because it looked like it would be the easiest to use instead of making the whole process much more difficult.
What are Planyard’s strengths?
It’s straightforward, easy to use, and very user-friendly. Before, I had to go look at the budget and then go to another software to look at the purchase order. The budgets were constantly being amended without him being notified. What has saved a lot of time now is that you can just really go look on Planyard at how much is still to order, and you can easily create a purchase order for the amount.
So now all the numbers are up to date and perfect. Before, I would go to the budgeting software and raise a purchase order. Then, I would have to go back to the budgeting software and essentially re-create the purchase order. I was doubling a lot of work, but now it is all on one system, and I only need to do things once.
Regarding concrete time savings, we save 2-4 hours a week (1-2 days per month). But we are just starting to bring on our projects, and the ones that have been brought on are our smaller projects. If we were to bring on all of our current projects, we would save at least 1.5 hours per day (7.5 hours per week and four days per month).
In my industry, we work with many different types of insulation. So, if my manager asks me how much 80mm insulation we have already ordered, I can go into the material budget and see how much I’ve ordered. In the past, I had to find all purchase orders and add the quantities with a calculator. Consider 10-15 minutes of savings for a simple equation.
There are many improvements in the overview of a project. You can jump on there and have a look straight away and immediately know how much you have ordered, paid, and left. It is a great visualizer, and you can see how a job is doing at any point.
How easy/complex was it to get started?
It was quite easy getting started with Planyard. We ran into issues since we also wanted to bring some older, already ongoing projects to Planyard. We had already raised purchase orders and invoices for these older jobs.
The fastest way to start is to start all the new projects on Planyard. Going back to old projects and trying to import the purchase orders and invoices can become a bit time-consuming. Just draw a line and go for new projects only.
Getting used to the system takes no longer than a week of general usage. The best way to learn things is through trial and error. It might not be best for everyone else, but for me, it was best. It took me about a week to get fully used to it.
Creating and sending purchase orders is exactly the same as I used to do it, and it’s exactly like this on QuickBooks as well, so it was easy to grasp right away. Putting the budget on Planyard took me some time to figure out, just to get used to the format and the layout. That probably took me about two days to get used to. Now that I know how it works, it is no time.
Who do you think should use a tool like Planyard?
Medium to large-sized contractors. A medium contractor with a turnover of 1 million and over. It’s a great tool for new companies as well. Because new companies might not know about budget tracking systems and rely too much on Excel.
Would you recommend Planyard to a colleague?
Yeah, definitely, it is a great tool.