Integrating Cloud-Based Project Management and Accounting Software Cuts Wasted Time and Can Increase Sales by 60 Percent

With an extremely thin margin for profit, it’s critical to have accurate, timely control over how financial changes impact construction projects. Construction teams need to manage the financial aspects of their projects from the field to make vital project decisions. If accurate financial data is not readily available, project managers must rely on guesswork from manually entered (potentially outdated) information, or contact accounting to obtain the data — causing costly delays.

Since we started using Procore, over the last year we were able to increase our sales by over 60%. We know that without Procore we wouldn't have been able to handle that amount of work." Sylvia LamasControllerWells Construction

With Procore’s Sage 300 CRE Connector, Procore offers the only comprehensive cloud-based project management platform that integrates with Sage 300 CRE. Procore now seamlessly synchronizes Procore project management data with accounting data in Sage 300 CRE. Financial data synchronized from Sage 300 CRE is accessible and housed in Procore — available any time, anywhere, with any Internet-connected device.

Procore connects projects to jobs in Sage 300 CRE, enabling seamless, synchronous data flow between the two systems. Users can enter, route and approve commitments, and push them directly from Procore to Sage 300 CRE databases. Users can link companies in Procore to vendors in Sage 300 CRE to ensure the commitments pushed are tied to the correct vendor in accounting. Actual cost and financial data syncs to Procore from Sage 300 CRE on a schedule (or on demand), allowing teams to control the data flow.

The ability to control budgets and forecast from Procore offers a major savings in time, effort and efficiency, resulting in improved accuracy. Prior to this release, subcontracts and purchase orders managed in Procore had to be manually duplicated in an accounting package and actuals, including invoiced and paid cost, had to be manually entered in Procore. This is no longer necessary, eliminating the potential for errors due to double data entry while eliminating the costly delays that come with contacting accounting for financial information. Accounting teams no longer need to create ad hoc reports, and project managers can access financial data without having to wait to hear back.

Learn how this California-based firm uses Procore and its Sage 300 CRE Connector to make decisions from the jobsite and keep projects moving at a successful pace.

Wells Construction Thrives with Procore’s Sage 300 CRE Connector

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Prior to Procore’s Sage 300 CRE Connector, Wells project managers had to wait hours for accounting information in order to make decisions and keep projects moving at a successful pace. Wells needed an easy way to share accounting data with its project managers while being respectful of the accounting team’s time.

Now that the California-based firm uses Procore with the Sage 300 CRE Connector, the accounting department and project teams work seamlessly with one another, keeping accurate financial data in one place. Decisions are made faster and with more confidence.

"We've been using Procore for two years and Bobby, our associate project manager, was the person who led the way, worked with Procore, and established how we use Procore today," said Sylvia, the company's controller.

Bobby uses every tool in Procore to its highest level and claims it just keeps getting better. "Just as our project types vary significantly, the depth in which we use Procore varies," Bobby says. "We may only use four or five of the tabs for one project, while another project uses all of them."

Managing the Financial Side of Projects

Bobby explains: "Once the Budget Tool was created, it correlated with the SOV as opposed to the SOV serving as the budget itself. This enabled us to use the pay applications within Procore to bill our clients, eliminating the need to create billings outside of Procore."

"I think in the last three months, we have tried to use Procore's payment application as often as we can," Sylvia said.

Bobby believes the staff is getting better at the processes. That's the big thing this year—locking down the processes and using more of the global tools in Procore from the administrative viewpoint to see overall company profitability, while continuing to use job tracking on a micro-level. They plan to continue improving their processes, enabling them to use more and more macro-level views.

Financial Data in the Cloud

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Download Procore's webinar on the new Sage 300 CRE Connector and learn how it can help you:

• Avoid costly errors and the hassle of dual entry

• Have confidence in the accuracy of financial data in Procore

• Manage commitments and commitment change orders in Procore

• Solve communication issues between accounting and project managers

Using Procore with Sage 300 CRE

Sylvia is excited by the amount of time the Sage 300 CRE Connector is saving the company. She says Sage has integrated really well and allows them to spend more time on their projects and even get additional work. Another one of the company's goals is to increase sales by 25 percent this year. Bobby estimates Procore's Sage 300 CRE Connector has saved 5 percent to 10 percent of his time.

"The biggest hurdle was the transition from the old accounting software to Sage 300 CRE," Bobby remarks. The actual connection between Procore and Sage has been pretty seamless and Procore has supported them every step of the way. "We've had a lot of input from Procore as to what we needed on the Sage side and how the data was going to get transferred," Bobby says.

Why Procore?

Procore's best-in-class cloud-based project management platform, integrated with Sage 300 CRE, offer an unmatched comprehensive solution for construction companies. With Sage being the hub for all Wells Construction's accounting processes, like the general ledger and job costs, certain information flows from Procore to Sage and vice versa. Wells can create jobs and commitments in Procore as opposed to having to create them in both systems; the connectivity has eliminated that redundancy.

“With the Sage 300 CRE integration, information that needs to be synced into Sage is brought into Procore, enabling project managers and users without Sage licenses to access it.” Sylvia LamasControllerWells Construction

At Wells Construction, everybody in the field has access to the Sage 300 CRE Connector in Procore. Bobby uses the accounting data before meetings, giving the right people visibility to Sage information. The whole accounting department, which includes eight staff members, also uses Sage to manage accounts.

On the other hand, essentially the entire company uses Procore; everyone from the superintendent level up, totalling around 50 employees. Superintendents use it to do their daily field reports, look at contracts and arrange schedules. With the Sage 300 CRE integration, information that needs to be synced into Sage is brought into Procore, enabling project managers and users without Sage licenses to access it. Procore has been a great marketing asset for Wells Construction when it negotiates jobs with clients and work with architects, Sylvia says.

"I think Procore itself has been a marketing tool for us prior to the Sage 300 CRE Connector because we often act more like a CM-at-risk than a general contractor, so we're dealing with clientele that need higher levels of transparency into the project. We show them the tools and how easy they are to use, so Procore has been instrumental in attracting more business. Our competitors don't have that capacity and their clients are left in the dark on a lot of things, whereas the tools we have allow them to see pretty much everything we want them to see."

Bobby is convinced that the Sage 300 CRE Connector is invaluable with regard to marketing on cost-plus type projects where they have to deal with a construction manager, a bank or someone that needs to see up-to-date job costs. By presenting that information to external project team members in much less time than it used to take, Procore provides Wells with a competitive advantage that they can use to sell to clients.

Learn how Procore's construction management software can solve all your project management needs.

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