Vale Southern Construction Ltd is a construction company based on the south coast of the United Kingdom. With over 30 years of experience, they deliver a broad range of projects – from high-end private homes and eco houses to university refurbishments, wineries, and port infrastructure. Projects range from a few thousand to £10 million, and the company operates as principal contractor, managing all subcontractors and materials procurement in-house.
Meet Renee Davies (Finance Manager) and Gareth Evans (Commercial Manager). They were kind enough to share their experience about switching from a clunky legacy system to Planyard.
"Planyard is so much more straightforward and easier to use with fewer technical issues – it's generally a user-friendly system. It's been a breath of fresh air compared to our old construction software. And the support is a hundred times better than what we ever had before."
Before Planyard: a system everyone hated
Before Planyard, Vale Southern relied on a legacy construction management system combined with Excel spreadsheets. The software was difficult to use, slow, and created hours of duplicate work every month.
"Everyone hated our old system. Very time-consuming, lots of clicks to do everything. Even paying an invoice from start to finish took endless clicks. And if you made a mistake, it was horrendous trying to correct it. You had to completely undo everything and start again. That could take half an hour for one simple correction."
The biggest problem wasn’t just usability – it was the lack of timely financial visibility. Reports required downloading data from the old system, then manually entering figures into Excel spreadsheets. By the time anyone could see where a project stood financially, the numbers were already out of date.
"With our old system, all the data we were looking at were yesterday's numbers. Construction works on very tight margins – costs can run away with you quickly. By the time we'd navigated the software and got a report out of it, we could find that our project was making a loss, and it was too late."
For Gareth and the QS team, day-to-day use was equally frustrating. The system was sensitive, prone to freezing, and required extensive written instructions just to perform basic tasks.
"Our old system was very clunky. It would freeze or take its time trying to load the next page. I've got a book here – literally a whole page of steps just to set up a subcontractor order, and the same again to get my cost reports."
On top of that, any changes or customisations required expensive support calls with lengthy contracts. The team had no flexibility to adapt the software to their needs – and the costs kept adding up.
Evaluating the options
When Renee joined Vale Southern as Finance Manager, she quickly saw what the team had been putting up with. Having worked with different finance systems before, she knew things didn’t have to be this difficult.
"I came in from other finance backgrounds and just thought – why are we putting up with this? Everyone was completely fed up, but change is difficult. It takes someone to navigate that and say, 'Okay, it's time.' Our MD just said: 'If you want to start looking, start looking.'"
Renee researched alternatives through Google searches, website demos, and ChatGPT comparisons. The shortlist came down to two options: Planyard and one other established vendor in the construction software space.
The other vendor gave a polished corporate presentation – but when it came to substance, the team wasn’t convinced.
"The other vendor gave us a real slick presentation – three people, a big sales pitch. But it came across as a beefed-up version of our old system. Still quite clunky, still a lot of clicks, and there wasn't that at-a-glance visibility we were looking for. Plus, we'd be tied into another long, expensive contract."
The pricing model was also different, and Vale Southern could test the system before committing.
"With the other vendor, there was a lump sum for onboarding – you're paying out a lot of money before you've even got anything. Planyard didn't have that."
Planyard was a different experience entirely. The demo was clear, the system made immediate sense, and the whole team left the call feeling confident.
"When we had the demo call with Planyard, all three of us came away and went 'wow – that was really good.' With the other vendor, we all thought: We're not going to gain anything from that. It's a sideways step. We're trying to push forward."
The deciding factors were clear: ease of use, competitive pricing, no expensive onboarding fee, and the confidence that Planyard would listen and adapt to their needs – not the other way around.
Going all-in: migrating every live project
Many teams start with Planyard only on new projects. Vale Southern took a different approach – they migrated every ongoing project at once, leaving the old system behind entirely.
"We don't want to be working on two systems. We migrated everything from our old system onto Planyard so we could focus on one system and one system only. The sooner we could leave the old one behind, the better."
The rationale was straightforward: running two systems in parallel would mean double the work, double the confusion, and no clean break from the processes that weren’t working. If they were going to change, they wanted to change properly.
"If we're going to switch to Planyard, we don't want to be working between two systems – that just didn't make sense. So we put our brave pants on and migrated all our ongoing projects at once. And it worked."
Looking back, both Renee and Gareth are clear that it was the right call. The initial effort of migrating mid-project data was comparable to a single month-end reporting cycle – work they would have been doing anyway.
"I'm pleased we migrated all our ongoing projects to Planyard at once. If we hadn't, we'd still be working between two systems. It worked out better for us in the end."
Four clicks to your cost report
No more downloading, re-entering, and cross-referencing. Live project margins at a glance.
Implementation: one week from start to finish
The full migration – including all ongoing projects with their cost-to-date figures – took approximately one week. Most of that time was spent figuring out the best approach for transferring historical data, not fighting the software itself. After figuring everything out, importing the ongoing projects only took a few days – the same amount of time a month-end report would’ve taken.
"We migrated all our ongoing projects to Planyard in about a week.
There was some trial and error figuring out the best approach, but Planyard is a user-friendly system — once you know how to do it, it's easy to keep doing it."
Planyard’s support team worked closely with Vale Southern throughout. When the team hit a roadblock on how to handle retention and discount deductions from the old system, their account manager went away, thought through the problem, and came back with a working solution.
As for the team adopting the system, the learning curve was minimal. Gareth describes an early moment where everything clicked:
"When you first sit down with Planyard, you think, 'Oh my God, there's a lot to learn.' But when you actually start doing it, it goes in so quickly. It's so user-friendly – it's clear where you need to go, and it's a few clicks away before you're doing your action."
For onboarding new team members, Gareth is confident the system won’t be a barrier – even for QSs joining mid-project:
"I'm fairly confident a new QS won't take long to learn Planyard. A couple of goes on different tasks – whether it's uploading a payment or creating a subcontractor order – it won't take anyone too long at all."
The difference day-to-day
The most immediate change was visibility. Where the old system required downloading reports, re-entering data into spreadsheets, and cross-referencing multiple sources, Planyard gives the team live financial data at the click of a button.
"For me to get my cost report on Planyard is four clicks of a button, and it's all in one screen – no more going to three different places and rebuilding everything in Excel."
For Renee on the finance side, this means she can plan cash flow with confidence and see exactly what’s coming up for payment – something that was impossible with their previous system’s delayed data.
"With Planyard, there's better visibility of everything – from raising the purchase order through to paying all our suppliers and subcontractors, retention management, and sales invoices. At a glance, I can see everything. Before, it was shrouded in a veil of mystery – you had to dig deep and click on five different menus before you got anywhere."
The time savings are significant. The QS team no longer spends days pulling together monthly reports from multiple sources. And as Planyard becomes more embedded in their subcontractor payment workflow, Gareth estimates the efficiency gains will compound further:
"Planyard can save about 15 minutes per subcontractor payment. When I'm dealing with 50 subcontractors, that's 10 to 12 hours a month. Add the CVR reporting and all of a sudden I've got two extra days free."
Those freed-up days mean the commercial team can focus on what actually adds value: reviewing progress on site, negotiating with the supply chain, and managing risk – instead of copying numbers between systems.
"Planyard gives me more time to look into negotiations or reviewing actual progress on site rather than rushing through admin. I can focus on the live stuff instead of copying numbers between systems."
What makes Planyard different
Both Renee and Gareth highlight the same thing when asked what sets Planyard apart: the team behind it actually listens.
"The support from Planyard has been outstanding. Our account manager is like a member of the family – every single question we've had, he's straight back helping us. That's something we never had before. With our old system, you'd be at the end of a phone, dragging on, waiting for somebody to pick up."
More than just responsive support, Planyard has actively implemented features that Vale Southern requested – something unheard of with their previous vendor.
"We asked Planyard if they could add a pop-up where we could CC other email addresses when raising a purchase order – our site managers need to be copied in. They did it, and the turnaround was quick. That's quite unusual. Planyard actually listens to our queries and comes back with working solutions."
Gareth has already started recommending Planyard to peers in the industry – something he says comes down to one core quality:
"I've already been mentioning Planyard to people. The main thing I make them aware of is the simplicity – it's such a user-friendly and straightforward system to use, but it gives you the same output you need. You're not having to click all over the place to deal with one action."
For construction teams stuck with clunky legacy systems or drowning in spreadsheets, Vale Southern’s message is clear: if you’re going to switch, go all in – and you won’t look back.
Migrate in a week. Save two days a month.
No duplicate data entry, no month-end scramble. See committed costs and margins in real time.