Adams-Bickel Associates, Inc

In business for more than 60 years, Adams-Bickel Associates, located in Collegeville, Pa., has built and renovated thousands of projects in both the public and private sectors throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Stephan F. Kraus, Treasurer at Adams-Bickel explained the challenges they’ve overcome to be a successful contractor for decades and the tools and processes they’ve embraced along the way.

“Since we were founded, we have grown to do more than $50 million in annual revenue, and over those years our business has continually evolved and our processes have changed to accommodate our growth.

In the 1980s, we realized the potential for automating our processes to run our business more efficiently. Starting on a microcomputer, we began using Maxwell Systems solutions for our accounting practices. Now, we are using the latest version of Maxwell Systems™ Management Suite™, which has grown with our business over the years and helped us become a virtually paperless office.

We have integrated Maxwell Systems business management software solution into our operations to enable us to work efficiently from estimating, and project management, through to managing our financials, procurement, and services.”

On the financial side, Management Suite is an essential tool for running Adams-Bickel’s payroll in-house, generating tax returns, and tracking job costs, in addition to providing an extremely flexible financial reporting module. Kraus continues, “We also rely on its ODBC capabilities for extracting project management information, and combining it with accounting data to easily create reports and analyze our projects and track them real-time basis.”

Integrating Data

“Like most contractors, we use various databases in our operations,” he said. “So having a software solution that eases the integration of this information is critical for our productivity. Management Suite integrates all of our databases and enables us to easily extract, combine, and massage the data to conduct in-depth analyses of our operations. With this integrated approach we now have all of the information we need at our fingertips. We’re at a point now where if we are asked for specific data, we know exactly how to get it at a click of a button.”

Keeping up with Change

As Adams-Bickel has grown, the company’s accounting requirements have changed. Kraus explained: “Our software solutions need to be versatile, providing the flexibility to change as our business evolves. Many systems that I have used in the past have generated canned reports and allowed for minimal customizations of the reporting formats. Maxwell Systems Management Suite provides the ability to customize reports to our specific requirements, extract data from our various sources, and use that data to our competitive advantage.”

Maxwell Systems business management software has enabled Adams-Bickel to look at projects in a different way and analyze data more efficiently. “We can study almost any aspect of a job, from the team working on the project to how one project compares to another,” Kraus said. “Having this data easily accessible in real-time is one of the most valuable features offered in the Maxwell Systems solution.”

In addition to having the ability to easily customize the solution, Maxwell Systems also updates the software regularly with important enhancements. Kraus continued: “For example, the AIA (American Institute for Architects) invoice formats have changed from time to time. Maxwell Systems provided us with timely updates to these changes, eliminating the need for one of our associates to manually prepare a six- or seven-page invoice on the custom form. The information in Management Suite can be printed directly on to the AIA pre-printed forms. These regular updates save us significant time and have kept up with the ever changing demands of our industry.”

Making it Effortless

Having software that is easy to use is also very important to Adams-Bickel’s overall productivity. “The software is so intuitive; we are able to do our training in-house. As we have upgraded to new versions, we have found the conversions to be seamless.”

The ease-of-use and convenience of the solution has allowed many of the company’s associates throughout the organization to use it. Kraus added: “All team members are able to easily access the information they need and Management Suite’s Business Center feature provides an executive dashboard with all business-critical data in one, easy-to-read location. Yet, the software also offers the security features we demand, and the configurability to keep sensitive data protected and accessible by only authorized users.”

Striving for Excellence

Adams-Bickel found a technology partner to grow with. “We have been a Maxwell Systems customer for more than 20 years and have found that they have a similar mission to ours. They strive, as do we, to form strong, long-term relationships with their clients by focusing on providing high quality products and excellent customer service. The constant interaction between Maxwell Systems and its users is fantastic. They listen to us and make a concerted effort to really understand our problems and issues and address them in a timely manner.

Whenever we have a question about the product, we simply log into the Maxwell Systems Customer Zone [online support site], and our issue is resolved very quickly. There is a level of trust there that we have built over the years and their support team has been great.”

Running Lean and Mean

With just three people in the accounting department, Adams-Bickel is able to efficiently operate a 40-50 million dollar business utilizing Maxwell Systems business management software. “Formerly at a similar sized firm, 15-20 people were required in the accounting department to handle the same volume of work – without this software solution,” recalled Kraus. “I think that the return on investment speaks for itself. We are running as lean and mean as we can in our accounting department, and I can attribute that to the quality of our team, and our use of Maxwell Systems Management Suite.”

Challenging times are confidently conquered by levering the many tools in the solution, as Kraus shared: “During the economic downturn, Maxwell Systems Management Suite has been vital to helping us quantify and minimize our costs. We have definitely felt the impact of increased competition, and the need for our bids to be precise and our projects to be tightly monitored has never been more apparent. Having software that enables us to handle the complexities of the entire project lifecycle from beginning to end will continue to help us more efficiently maximize profits and minimize costs.”