Monsen Engineering: Integrated Solution Grows Service Division by Millions
"Buy me this software, and I’ll be able to significantly grow our service division without adding additional people to the office. "
Jeff Somers
Vice President and General Manager at Monsen Engineering
It was a tall order to fill, but he knew the capabilities of the WennSoft solutions and what it could do for their service department.
The company went with WennSoft and in four years they’ve grown service division of their company from $5.5 million in annual revenues to $10 million. In total, the company does more than $25 million in sales, while providing mechanical contracting repair and maintenance, new construction installations as well as providing electrical, building automation and engineering services.
Since replacing an older Unix-based system with their WennSoft solution, they’ve added approximately 25 technicians, all without any major additions to their office support staff. Through the WennSoft Service Management Series and Job Cost solutions, Monsen has successfully improved their call management, dispatching, contract management, billing and overall business reporting. “Our WennSoft system has given us much greater flexibility, much greater efficiency across our entire system,” said Somers.
Even operations such as managing service contracts were a challenge before installing the WennSoft system.
“With the old system, managing contracts was difficult and cumbersome,” Somers said. “It was a manual process, and you had to do a lot of things with the software to get that month’s inspections printed out. If you didn’t do it exactly right, you had to get several people involved so you could reset the whole software program to run them again.
“With the flexibility of the WennSoft system, all the calls are entered automatically and it’s a lot easier to manage.”
Somers added that his service call coordinators, who receive the incoming calls, can now manage those calls better with improved access to each customer’s contract.
“Service call coordinators are now able to see the customers’ contract while they’re on the phone and tell a customer if the work they are requesting is covered by their service agreement. They couldn’t do that before because they didn’t have easy access to the contract. That’s a big bonus from a customer service standpoint.”
Somers also found that the company was also able to improve the speed and accuracy of outgoing invoices with the WennSoft system.
Before the WennSoft solution, invoices typically took between 30 and 40 days to process. That time was reduced to between seven and 11 days after the WennSoft implementation. Somers said their ability to link purchases with individual service calls has made a tremendous difference in the invoicing process.
“Before we had the software, we had to key in by hand all the purchases that we made for a particular service call,” Monsen said. “It was time consuming and not always accurate. Now all the purchases that we make for a given call are automatically there for us. We view that link between the PO and the service call as one of the key features in saving us time and making sure customers are billed accurately.”
By automatically tying purchase orders with individual jobs, Monsen said they no longer need to wait to receive invoices from their suppliers to bill the customer. As soon as parts or supplies are ordered, the customer can be billed through the automated system, helping to get invoices out sooner and improve cash flow.
The WennSoft solution has not only improved the invoicing, but thanks to the WennSoft signature account receivable traffic light, they’re able to tell, before dispatching technicians to a customer site, if that customer has outstanding invoices and if the Monsen collections department should get involved.
“With the WennSoft traffic light, we can see if the customer is having any problems with payment before we dispatch technicians. We couldn’t do that before,” Somers said. “We don’t service customers anymore that don’t pay us. We hold their feet to the fire. In a lot of cases, if they call for service, the service coordinator can see they have a red light and tell the customer that first they need to speak with the collections department to clear up outstanding invoices. We certainly couldn’t do that with the last system.”
Monsen said the integration with Great Plains was also a major selling point during their search.“We like the Great Plains accounting package, and because WennSoft was a Gold Certified developer with Great Plains, we knew they were up there in the Great Plains hierarchy,” he said.
Because Monsen also performs new construction jobs, they also use the WennSoft Job Cost module to track and manage costs. Keeping close tabs on labor for those jobs holds significant importance for Somers. “With being a union contractor, we can’t afford any mistakes on our labor. Particularly on the Job Cost side, being able to view everything about a job on a single screen, including how we’re doing with all our costs, is immensely helpful.”
Somers said their technicians, who quote their own service work, use reports from the system to gauge how profitable they are on each job.
“They’re quoting in the field, so they need to know on a regular basis how they’re doing with this,” said Somers. “If we don’t share it with them, they may think they’re doing fine but in actuality they could be under-quoting. They all want to be successful. So they can use the reports to see where they may have went over on their quotes, and avoid doing it in the future. It just gives them better knowledge and understanding of their jobs.”
Ultimately, Somers said, the WennSoft system has given Monsen all the tools they need to help them manage their technicians more successfully, operate their back office more efficiently and service their customers more effectively.
Just as Somers promised four years ago.