When a commercial or state site needs grading and/or asphalt paving in a 50-mile radius of Rockingham, N.C., Hudson Paving, Inc. is on the job. Since the company was founded in 1961, it has experienced steady growth to almost 60 employees and built a new drum mix asphalt plant in 2008 to service the influx of state highway projects it has won in recent years. Throughout its history as it has continued to expand, the asphalt company has had to review and improve its processes to ensure greater efficiency and profitability.
In Pursuit of Detail, Speed, and Accuracy
In the mid-1990s, Hudson Paving was using a small accounting program from a local computer company to handle its payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and general ledger. “The challenge was that none of the modules linked with one another,” explained Brenda Herring, office manager for Hudson Paving who has been with the company for 29 years. “We needed a better program that would also provide us with more detail on our projects.”
Challenges
The company was using a small accounting program to handle payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and general ledger and none of the modules worked with each other. This limited the amount of detail available on projects and restricted efficiencies and workflow.
Solution
The contractor uses Maxwell Systems Management Suite to have detailed job costs, verify job performance, and improve profitability. Further, they use Management Suite to process invoices, manage equipment, handle all financial data (including AP, AR, GL, and payroll), and manage accounting for its sister grading-and-utility company.
Results
With these solutions, the contractor has been able to eliminate redundancies, increase accuracy, and save significant time be streamlining processes from takeoff through accounting and managing projects.
Hudson Paving evaluated a number of solutions. “The product now known as Maxwell Systems™ Management Suite was our best option, hands down,” stated Herring.
Years later when deciding that its manual takeoff process could be enhanced, Hudson Paving selected Maxwell Systems™ Quest Estimator and Maxwell Systems™ Quest Earthwork™ to provide more speed and accuracy.
A Complete Solution
Now, with Quest Earthwork’s automated takeoff feature, the four estimators at Hudson Paving place blueprints on their digitizer board, set the scale, trace them, and are able to generate accurate cut and fill quantities for potential projects. Using Quest Estimator’s Notepad, they are able to keep track of all their quantities and cost item specifications – resulting in more accurate estimates.
With the 3-D View in Quest Earthwork, the estimators are able to get a more realistic view of their existing and proposed elevations in their takeoff, providing a checks and balances to easily catch any inconsistencies during the takeoff process.
Once a project is won, a job number is assigned in Management Suite and job costs and values are set up to help verify job performance, identify potential problems, and take necessary steps to maintain profitability. “We needed a solution that would provide more detailed job costs,” explained Herring. “Knowing where we stand on each job – if we made money or lost money – is essential to every aspect of our business.”
In addition to job costing, Hudson Paving uses Management Suite to process invoices, as well as for equipment management. With a fleet of dump trucks and other equipment, it is important for the team at Hudson to be able to monitor the usage of its equipment, including tracking maintenance needs and money spent on repairs. With more information on each piece of equipment, Hudson Paving can make more reliable decisions on whether to repair or replace a piece of equipment.
Herring also relies on Management Suite for managing the firm’s financial data, from accounts payable and accounts receivable to the general ledger and payroll.
Each day, employees complete their timesheets using task codes for activities they have performed such as installing stone or asphalt lay down. With this detailed information, payroll can easily generate labor costs for projects and run payroll. “Having payroll and accounts payable tied into our job costing, saves us so much time and keeps us more on top of our financial status,” explained Herring.
The accounting team also uses Management Suite for Hudson Paving’s sister company, B&B Company, a provider of grading and utility services located in Laurinburg, N.C. The accounting team processes the invoices and manages the accounts payable for both companies in Management Suite, but is able to keep the financial data totally separate in the system.
Maxwell Systems Magic
Jeff Tyner, one of the estimators at Hudson Paving finds value in using Quest Estimator and Earthwork during both the bidding and project management processes. “Once we digitize a project, we put it in a 3-D View and can do a ‘fly over’ to verify where cuts and fills are on the project and ensure accuracy. This saves quite a bit of time compared to the old fashioned way of checking our quantities.”
He added that “during the project, we can focus specifically on the area that our team is grading that day to ensure accuracy with our measurements. If our guys are working on a huge parking lot, we can provide them with details on what they have to do that day, for example. We can tell them how much dirt needs to be moved and materials filled during the day. We don’t have surprises on projects using Quest.”
Once a project is started, Herring takes over with help from Management Suite. Details are extremely important to Hudson Paving’s president, Tom Hudson. He has set up the task codes for each job so that he can see what labor was done on any particular day. He schedules every day for the team in the field and based on the details in Management Suite, he knows how long it will take to pave, put down stone, or use certain equipment. “If we had to do this manually, it would be extremely time consuming to compute all the information. Without Management Suite, we would have had to hire another person to manage our financials,” explained Herring.
“In a competitive market, where every dollar counts, these details help us come in at the right price by knowing specifically where we can cut costs,” added Herring. “We love the Job Costing feature. Having accurate profit/loss data helps us develop even tighter bids on future projects.”
Hudson Paving processes hundreds and hundreds of invoices. “Doing it manually was a bear,” said Herring. “It is so easy with Management Suite. I also love the fact that with one button, I can see all the account detail and do not have to look through screen after screen for the details. And, having a complete solution with modules that work together saves us so much time eliminating duplicate data entry. We think of our Management Suite program as magic.”
“I can’t say enough about Maxwell Systems’ support,” added Herring. “We know that we’ll always get a call back and that they are really there to help us. They always take the time to walk us through our questions. The support is just wonderful.”
