Serving the greater San Antonio area for more than 35 years, Gerard Electric, Inc. has been providing a wide range of electrical services to its customers for both new and existing construction projects. The contractor repairs, maintains, and expands existing electric systems, and also provides new construction services ranging from fire alarm systems and security and surveillance solutions to telephone and data and solar power systems.
By providing personal attention and using cutting-edge technologies, Gerard Electric has successfully met the expanding needs of its commercial and industrial customers since it was founded in 1974.
Challenges
Gerard Electric wanted to simplify its estimating process and easily determine the materials and labor needs for jobs. In addition, the contractor wanted to be able to synchronize job cost data and ongoing changes with hard financial data.
Solution
The contractor uses Maxwell Systems Estimation and American Contractor for end-to-end business management of estimating, job cost accounting, and project management. These solutions have helped Gerard Electric achieve significant time-savings on takeoff, bidding, and data entry, as well as improve financial control and reporting.
Results
Using Maxwell Systems solutions since the late 1980s, Gerard Electric has been able to automate its estimating and accounting practices to ensure maximum productivity and profitability. As the construction industry changed, they had the technology to adjust with it and have been able to quickly create accurate estimates to win more work as well as have visibility into financial standings to manage for optimal profitability.
Simplifying Processes while Gaining Visibility
Gerard Electric has been using Maxwell Systems™ Estimation and Maxwell Systems™ American Contractor™ since the late 1980s. In the past two decades, the construction market has changed and so too has the technology being used in the construction market. Gerard Electric has realized the value of leveraging technology and automating its estimating and accounting practices to ensure maximum productivity and profitability over the years.
Estimation is a complete takeoff and estimating solution designed specifically for the unique needs of electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and HVAC contractors, and offers a tailored solution developed to meet the specific business needs of electrical contractors. This advanced estimating software automates the often time-consuming and painstaking bid process helping contractors quickly create accurate estimates and win more work.
“It really simplifies the estimating process,” explained Ed Moore, president at Gerard Electric. “We can take off a set of blueprints and then easily enter that data in Estimation. The system then lets us electronically send out requests for quotes. Next we do a final bid tally, develop the scope letter with pricing estimates, and send out our bid. It’s a seamless process that helps keep the pipeline moving. We also plan to use Estimation Digital Takeoff in the near future, which will allow us to further speed up our processes, increase accuracy of our estimates, and cut costs. It’s a flexible solution that we can continue to grow into and grow with.”
With Estimation, Gerard Electric can easily determine the materials and labor needs for any job and more accurately create professional estimates, helping them win more bids.
The contractor uses Maxwell Systems American Contractor as its financial management tool to handle its job costing and accounting operations. “With our previous accounting system, we had much financial data that was being compiled and calculated using spreadsheets and had to build our own forms to send that data to our CPA. These were extremely time-consuming processes,” said Moore. “Now, with a Maxwell Systems end-to-end solution, we enter the bid day numbers once and have real-time, accurate information to better manage our budget for every job.”
By using Maxwell Systems solutions for estimating and accounting, from bid to cash, Gerard Electric can match up financial data on a project with the original quote it submitted. “If we go over what we budgeted on a fixture package, for example, it will be flagged in the system,” said Moore.
Being able to synchronize job cost data and ongoing changes with hard financial data, Gerard Electric has more financial control. Leveraging the automation of the Job Ledger to the General Ledger and the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable transactions, the contractor has been able to streamline its processes and gain more visibility into its financial standings.
Time-Saving & Cost-Cutting Benefits
“Estimation enables us to stay on top of our materials pricing. As copper prices increase or decrease, for example, we are able to keep up with the most current price,” explained Moore. “And, by being able to customize our assemblies to reflect the types of work we go after, the software is definitely a time-saving tool.”
For further time savings, American Contractor allows Gerard Electric to speed through its weekly payroll. “Plus our job clock program works easily with American Contractor’s Payroll component, which is a huge benefit of the solution,” said Moore. “This was a manual process before that is now automated and has significantly reduced our time spent on data entry.”
“The Maxwell Systems solution also tracks our costs to make sure that we are not over or under billed on a job and that we are drawing correctly on the job,” he explained. “Being able to print job cost reports at any time keeps us on track and running smoothly.”
“And, our CPA loves the system because of the reporting capabilities,” added Moore. “We are able to send her electronic reports that reflect real-time financial data, reducing the time required to do her job and ultimately reducing our costs.”
Summing up his experience: “We have been a customer of Maxwell Systems for over 20 years and are very happy with its products and have always had a positive experience with the service professionals at the company.”
