August 7, 2019 • 24 mins
Customer spotlight success interview with Michel Van Doorn, President of LDV Consultants Inc. and Owen Vibert, Product Manager of Dovico. LDV is an engineering firm and shares their story about how they use Dovico Timesheet for their billing and project tracking needs.
"So once a manager has approved though whoever's responsible for that project approves the time it's in there and all you do is collect it. It goes onto a report which becomes the invoice. And we went from two people full-time, Martine and I for a week doing the invoicing to, in two days Martine has it all out on her own. And two days because we still insist on doing a lot of checking just to make sure everything's just right." - Michel Van Doorn, President of LDV Consultants Inc
LDV Consultants Inc - www.ldvconsultants.ca
Dovico Software Inc - www.dovico.com
Podcast archive: Originally recorded in 2011 and reformated for this podcast
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Episode Transcript
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Owen (00:00):
Let's start off with that Michel, can you tell us a little
bit about LDV?
Michel (00:04):
LDV Consulting is a small engineering firm but fast
growing.
We started back in September2009 just two partners that had
met in previous lives workingfrom our basements and got
together and say hey how aboutwe do something together.
And we started out got a coupleof.
(00:24):
Pretty interesting contracts andthen.
Found a third partner our thirdassociate.
Who joined us maybe four or fivemonths after.
And which brought us to anexpansion.
We've moved twice.
We're now.
25 full time employees five orsix contractual employees.
(00:45):
So nice growth in a short period.
And it's getting you growingeven faster right now.
So we have more work and we canhandle nice success story
things.
So carjacking before you guyswent over to you guys before we
implemented Dovico for all ourtime tracking time sheets
(01:05):
billing invoicing we used that.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'd say homegrown but it's not exactly right.
We looked on Microsoft Officetemplates found an Access
database that had time sheetsthat had some invoicing.
And we had employees ourselvesfirst and then employees entered
time in Excel sheets and justbring that into access and from
(01:28):
access that database we would dowhatever reporting we needed
whatever invoicing we needed.
So all right when you're smallup to five six employees worked
fine but you know you also hadto recap you what was being done
on the Excel put it in thedatabase and then lot of double
checking to make sure it workedon the invoicing.
And making sure everythingmatched every every month.
(01:49):
When we got to I'd say 15 20employees it was a nightmare.
It was a invoicing was a fulltime job for me and.
My assistant for a week.
Just to make sure everythingmatch you didn't want to send
anything to a customer withmistakes in it.
So that was it was a nightmareand with time to change we got
there to that point you say nowlook at this can't go on.
(02:10):
So that's when we startedthinking about going into it to
something else and lookingaround.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So what we're talking about just your previous process
to deal with go laborious youdecided on those be talk a
little bit about the selectionprocess in choosing.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well when we finally decided to change that we needed
something else.
We needed a new type ofapplication anything.
We we started looking aroundstarted looking around on my own
previous experience with otherengineering firms that used
large complicated software.
I knew I didn't want that.
I knew I didn't want thedatabase anymore.
I didn't want this huge monsterwe had before in our previous
(02:46):
lives.
So I asked one of the young whizkids we have on board who is
helping us out with everythingthat we have computerized.
And he had even modified theAccess database we had in the
past to make some reportingeasier.
And I asked him to start lookingaround for what was available
and he did started with aninternet search contacted a few
(03:09):
people he had found like five orsix different applications that
it seemed interesting to startoff with.
And when we started talkingtogether about our needs how we
do the invoicing and how we dothe time collecting.
We had narrowed that down to twoapplications.
And David Colby being one ofthem what helped us for the
(03:30):
final selection was that we hadnever even considered the web
base and vehicle provided thatand they said that's good
because the less I have tomanage here on a server that I
don't really have and don'treally want to take care of the
better it is.
And then are there the peoplethat echo helped us out.
I mean they were ready to answerquestions.
They offered us a trial whichwas fantastic.
(03:51):
We could try it for a month andget it up and running just to
see how it would work and howthat was.
And they were very patient withus because we took more than a
month.
It took us three weeks tofinally say oh god there's only
a week left.
Let's do this trial now.
And then when we got to the endof a week we thought oh this
we're not really sure how itworks.
(04:12):
So when that article said itshould take another week take
two weeks no problem just testit out.
Good.
And so we did and we tested itout and it really made life a
lot easier.
From from the tests on thesamples we had done and we
figured okay this was the onefor us.
That's what we use.
If we just take a step back hereto stop me you just said you
(04:34):
talked about in your previouslife you use.
A large.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Probably a f ully integrated solution.
W hat we see is a lot ofcompanies using us as an interim
solution and then moving intothese larger scale solutions.
Ta kes a while for them to getthere.
A nd then when they finally doget there they run into problems
and then there's an extended useof Depakote as a result.
(04:58):
M aybe you talk a little bit ofy ou know some of these things
that yo u've s een with thelarger packages that ma de y ou
realize you didn't wa nt a largescale solution th at s omething
Or lando w ould have been OK.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We didn't go for the large scale solution for a
couple of reasons.
One is the experience in thepast how complex and onerous it
was and the support that'sneeded to run it.
There are a lot of people to runthese big systems and people
that we don't have.
We're an engineering firm we dothat very well we're quite proud
of what we do.
We're not a computer managementor software management firm.
(05:31):
We don't didn't want to get intothat.
And that was confirmed that is abuddy of mine works for a firm
that's about five times oursize.
He's a partner in that firm.
And they were converting over tothis huge package at the same
time as we were looking at DavidCole and their implementation
took a year and their accountantfull time for a year to do that.
(05:53):
I said I am not going to do thatI can't afford it I'm a small
company.
We have to turn around on a dimeand we have to do things
quickly.
And our implementation didn'ttake anywhere near that that
that amount of time.
So that was why we decided nowthe big packages for us at all.
So we were talking about thelarge scale package difficulty
in implementation.
Maybe you could talk a littlebit about the implementation
(06:14):
process that does go to what youhad to do to get the package out
to your employees.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
How much setup time was involved you contacted
support for help.
So let me just talk a little bitabout that implementation.
If I forget something go back toit because it was a key to.
The implementation process wassomething that went really
smoothly.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And it was partly because obviously all the help
we got but also because I thinkwe have done our homework
properly.
What we were trying to do withDavid Co is not stray too far
from what we were already doinguse a different tool.
That makes the management of thedata the same but for the people
who actually use the softwarethe collection that data had to
be similar to what they weredoing and we could do that with
(06:54):
topical.
The excel sheets were easy tofill out.
Everybody was used to them andyou could configure and you can
use Delvecchio in that sense forthe time entries is very very
similar.
So that made that part reallyeasy and that was a key criteria
to make sure that we can get itup and running fast.
We trained with Doug becausehelp certain key people.
(07:15):
Doug Cook came over and gave ustraining on the.
Management side on datacollection reporting invoicing
but also showed these key peoplehow to do with the time entry.
And then they went out andshowed each individual employee
how to how to enter their time.
But it's so simple.
(07:36):
I mean anybody who's filled inan excel sheet knows how to fill
in time and don't go and whatthey really enjoyed was they
didn't have to retype inprojects we're working on each
week or whatnot or copy it fromthe week before.
David Cole has I'll add in assoon as we implement in sorry
enter the projects in difficultand say these resources are
(07:57):
assigned to it they can just goin and say OK I worked on it's
there I'll just add it to myattention this week I work eight
hours on this Tuesday and whatit's done.
Is so implementation was reallysmooth.
We had.
To be sure again the sticklerfor accuracy.
I wanted to make sure that.
Invoices match time sheets thefirst.
(08:18):
So for I believe one month maybetwo months we ran in parallel it
was two months the first monthwe ran in parallel but we sent
out invoices from our old systemthe second month we ran out ran
parallel but sent out invoicesfrom Cole system and making sure
that everything matched becausewe were we were confident in the
old system and we wanted to getthat same confidence in double
(08:40):
system.
And once that was done once wesaw after the two months we said
this is working great let's moveon.
So we dumped the old system andmoved on to WEO which make my
life a lot easier.
Obviously there's been some timesavings.
Since implementing that but.
Maybe you can talk about thatprevious process where you're
saying you know it would take aweek to go invoicing process and
(09:03):
how much time it saved as aresult.
As the the original the previousprocess we had for invoicing was
quite complicated.
We had the time sheets fromExcel.
We would read and put them inthe access database.
We would run reports from theAccess database that we would
bring back to excel and then getmatches from the Excel sheet
through macros to make sure thatall these numbers matched for
(09:25):
each project and.
Some projects are big.
And you know that works reallywell.
But we got a lot of littleprojects being a small company.
And that was a very timeconsuming to go through each one
and saying OK and you'll youstart wondering is it worth it
you know for a five hundreddollar invoice for for one
company.
That's a lot a lot of work.
And by going over to Dovico youdon't have that because the
(09:49):
people are importing their time,managers have to approve their
time each week.
So once a manager has approvedwhoever's responsible for that
project approves the time it'sin there and all you do is
collect it.
Pick it out after and it goesonto a report which becomes the
invoice.
And we went from two people fulltime, Martine and I, for a week
doing the invoicing to, in twodays Martine has it all out on
(10:13):
her own.
And two days because we stillinsist on doing a lot of
checking just to make sureeverything's just right.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Unbelievable.
Well I was just stating twopeople's time for a week and a
one person for two days two daysand one person for two days.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
But again there's still a lot of checking.
I'm still I have always thatskepticism of a mechanical
engineer looking at us afterseeing this thing in the back
really doing what I wanted to do.
So I have to do it a lot ofchecking.
That maybe is not necessary butjust give me a warm fuzzy
feeling when you want to makesure what you're putting into
your customer calls.
Yes exactly.
(10:53):
And it's getting simpler becausenow I'm just setting it out to
the project managers who havestill yet signed and have
approved the timesheets.
And now they get the invoicesand they can match it up.
So they get the responsibilityover to that they get that
customer contact important thatthey see everything they do and
in their project.
Has an impact on the customer.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Unexpected benefits.
Speaker 6 (11:16):
Has there been any error.
Is it just as if this is exactlywhat you thought it would be.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
So anything I expect anything that you didn't realize
you could do that you are ableto do.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
That's a good one.
Let me think about that for asecond.
That's unexpected benefits.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I think really pops out.
There's a more.
There were more reports thanwhat I thought for the report.
Yeah OK.
Originally we had thought weneeded like two reports.
That's what we had been we usedwith the Access database because
of the the professional order ofengineers here in Quebec we have
(11:56):
a requirement to keep a veryspecific listing of our projects
so they can trace it and auditevery now and then.
And so that was a specificreport that we needed.
And obviously the invoicingwhich which is a report to we
didn't find anything thatmatched that in the Standard
reports that that vehicle had.
(12:18):
But it was really easy to getand get you guys used to get
difficult to switch that.
And to make them add or adaptthem to what we needed.
So after some back and forth andit wasn't even myself it was the
lady who takes care of the the.
Invoicing and all the patientsthat I was talking to one of the
(12:41):
CO employees at one of thedifficult programmers and he
managed to two days pop out thereports that we needed.
So it was that was really a.
Pleasant.
Surprise it so quickly we couldget turned around exactly what
we needed.
Then we started digging andwhatever other reports that were
there we said hey this is nicewe can start looking at how much
our projects are costing usversus how much we're invoicing
(13:03):
and what kind of ratio was there.
And some clients are better thanothers.
Things of that nature is all inthere.
So that was that was reallyreally nice.
The.
Unexpected benefits.
There is one that I can think ofnow is.
The difficult has a report onall hours every week that comes
(13:24):
out and that's one report thatwe could send right out to our
paymaster who is also an outsidefirm and we send the report of
how many hours what the ratesare for each individual.
And we could just take a reportout of difficult and send that
to them instead of another thing.
Martin had to transcribe.
From from one to the other.
So that was a benefit that wehadn't thought of originally but
(13:46):
just popped out and say Oh wow.
OK.
There was another couple ofhours saved of Martin's time.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So we talked about reporting which is good because
he experienced customer reports.
Maybe he talked a little bitmore about that customer
reporting experience as well asany experience he may have had
with their supporting how that'sgone.
Yeah.
Had he called in to support andreceived technical assistance
and maybe we could elaborate onthe reports.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Customer supported David Cole has always been for
me very easy maybe because I'mthe president of the company in
and signed the checks.
I don't know.
But the feedback I get fromMartin she has one contact that
they're meeting is is verylimited in your English but
David has a French speakingcontact in there.
And she talks to him every nowand then when there's a bug I
don't hear about it.
So that means it's good whenthings don't work.
(14:33):
That's when I that's when I hearabout it.
And I know I hear every now andthen because we share an office
and every now and then she shetalks to David so I know that.
But it's like a five minuteconversation and she must get an
answer because I don't hearabout it again.
So I know I got a feeling thatthat works better than running.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
So we talked about the fact I'm doing psychology
covered that you know it's nicethat we're able to not only
shorten from a labor standpointyou're probably able to get your
invoices quicker to yourcustomers.
We sort of impact on cash flowor impact on.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
The the ease of invoicing with the software has
a couple of advantagesobviously.
The quicker you set out theinvoice the quicker we get paid.
I mean that's the way it is.
I wish we could press a buttonin David go and get the
customers to pay within the 30days they're supposed to.
But that's another issue.
Speaker 8 (15:27):
But just to get that invoice out quicker instead of
taking the two weeks you knowtake a couple of days.
Well that's two weeks shaved offthe payment there.
So obviously with a startupcompany like that like ours a
cash flow is a big issueespecially when you're expanding
.
We're an engineering firm webuild time.
(15:47):
So engineers that I hire I startpaying right away.
I invoice at the end of themonth if I hire somebody at the
beginning of the month or 30days that I pay him I invoice it
at the end of the month.
They've got 30 days to pay their60 days of this guy's salary I
have to I have to hold on.
So the quicker I get thatinvoice out the quicker I get
paid the better it is for ourcash flow.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And to use the help files that are systematic cash
to help us to help bales.
Out.
If.
Not.
Speaker 8 (16:16):
We have used to help files a bit.
Maybe I'm lazy maybe I'mstressed for time but it's
quicker to pick up the phone andsay How do you do this.
Do you get anything.
More often than not right there.
Just go there and just pressthis or do that rub your tummy
you tap your head and.
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Maybe I should ask this a little bit earlier but
maybe projects certainly talk alittle bit setting up projects a
little bit about employeeassignments.
Did you put budgets on yourprojects.
You talked about you know you'regoing live with a new project.
Speaker 8 (16:48):
What's involved when you start off with a new
project.
We obviously put out a serviceoffer a proposal to the customer
.
And in that proposal what weused to do is put up a name
Excel time sheet again Excelkeeps coming back.
And we'd say OK this employeecould work out that because he
has that skill set and it wouldtake him 10 hours to do this
(17:08):
particular part of the project.
Designing would be this part offinite element analysis would be
that part review and all thisand we put in the time and how
much of the rate we charge forthe customer in the Excel sheet
poof you get a magic number thatgoes on the proposal.
And this is what you charge thecustomer.
This is what you suggest to thecustomer for the project.
Once the customer says after hegets over the heart attack of
(17:30):
seeing the price he says Oh okay.
And go ahead with the job andthen we input in the base
divisional program then we putin the project and then say OK
here are the people that willwork on it put in a certain
number of hours.
And say OK this is what they'rewhat the project going to be
like.
So it's the same.
Exactly the same type of workwell defined the project will
(17:53):
say these are the tasks in thatproject.
These are the people and therates we charge for that project
will assign them to them.
So they're doing the same work.
It'll pop out the same number atthe end saying it's going to
cost the customer so much to dothis project the added benefit
is now we can see.
Okay.
He's not going to be availablethat week to do that or.
We don't have that person thatdesigner available everybody's
(18:16):
loaded on something else.
This helps me in the H.R.
site add to just say oh I needto hire two more designers I
need to hire two engineers and Ialready just what a month that
we've been doing that it's beencoming up and saying OK we're
short people again we need to beshort staffed we need to get
more.
I know you mentioned and wetalked a little bit earlier
about the hosting service.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
You know maybe you can talk a little bit about
performance DDA is there anyproblems with accessing your
data is any problems with lowtide.
Speaker 8 (18:48):
How how how is the performance of the server there
hosting service was somethingnew for us and we had wondered
about that for a few reasons oneof the reasons we wanted to go
hosting service is everybody hasaccess from everywhere.
We have people on site in veryremote locations.
Internet access is limited andslow.
Because it's a bandwidth that'sshared by two or three hundred
(19:10):
people on this site and it's asatellite link up and we were
worried.
Is that something that they canaccess.
So far we have had no issueseven I at home I live in a weird
area.
It's a black hole for any kindof service whether cell phone
Internet and I have no problem Ican do my time shoot at home to
(19:32):
the great pleasure of myassistant who used to harass me
all the time to do the time shedidn't get it in on time no I
can do it from anywhere.
I even have the application onmy iPhone and iPad I can just.
Whenever I get a moment just putin Oh yeah I work half an hour
on this half an hour on that mytime sheets are a little more
complicated than everybodyelse's because I do a lot of
review a lot of planning so I doa half an hour here half an hour
(19:55):
there 40 hours half an hourthat's eighty entries it's a
heck of a time sheet whereaseverybody else will be assigned
one or two projects a littlesimpler so.
But anyway the the internetaccess was something that worked
out really well we have noissues about speed.
Nothing.
We always have a problem.
It's never been down we havemore trouble with with our own
(20:17):
internal stuff than we do withthe external so going hosted was
definitely the right choice forus.
The hosted advantage we didn'thave when we started out.
External access to our servers.
Internally so we needed for ourpeople that were on remote sites
to be able to do theirtimesheets wherever they were.
(20:37):
And they hosted was too easyquick dirty way to go when it
turned out to be better thanquick and dirty quick in
Cleveland works well.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Doing it like that.
Add to that we've talked aboutso far today.
We find with our customers.
Speaker 8 (20:55):
That our customers don't deal with a company they
deal with us as individuals.
They deal with us as engineersas to help them out.
To get them out of a problemthey call us.
Usually things aren't going thatwell or they have to improve
something.
And it's the people it's ourresponse to them.
It's our contact with them thatmakes them come back.
(21:18):
That's the feeling I get when Italk to the people that don't go
.
I call them up.
It's from the receptionist toanswer the phone.
I don't know who this woman isbut she always sounds Smiley.
She's very happy on the phone.
She must love her job and youstart off like that.
It's very.
In French we say okay.
I'm welcoming to have that typeof person saying hi.
(21:42):
Oh yes I'll get a win for you orwhoever we want to talk to and.
You get that feeling throughoutthe company whoever you talk to
seems to enjoy what they'redoing and seems ready to help
you and get you back on track asquickly as possible because that
little obstacle out of the waythey're not big obstacles but
get that little obstacle out ofthe way so you can move on and
(22:03):
go back to what we do best whichis engineering.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Other improvements.
It's running really well I meanthere's not that much to change
on it they're minor things andlike I said do try to work a
couple of work arounds withnothing major.
Nothing really says I didn'thave I wouldn't have the same
kind of feedback as my buddy hadin the other engineering firm
that.
Spent a dollar out that I'm notgoing to repeat because I think
(22:28):
that's privileged information.
But it was a huge number that Iwas not going to spend on this
kind of software and I I justcan't wait because we're looking
to with this buddy of mine to doa rather large project too big
for our firm alone and they'rebigger like I said they're five
times the size of we are.
So we're looking at using someof their people.
And when we do since we cancharge the customer we'll
(22:53):
probably add like 10 or 15people to and they'll put their
time sheet indirectly and I justcan't wait to see their feedback
because they went with a bigmonster package.
So I just can't wait to see it.
Yeah that'll be really.
I think it is I will.
Absolutely.
As an added feature that Ireally like also is that we are
(23:16):
subject to the nature of anengineering consulting firm some
projects requires extra people.
Speaker 8 (23:23):
Contract workers in our case.
And then when that project'sfinished we don't necessarily
need to keep those contractpeople with David so I have the
flexibility to say OK.
As of today I don't need thesethree people it either frees up
three places for someone to hireor I just don't pay for three I
pay for three less people at themonthly invoicing.
So that's that's a nice touch.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
So value.
Definitely.
Absolutely.
I hindsight I would haveprobably started earlier if if I
go back now and think of the waywe were doing it before I waited
till 15 20 people or when wewere about 15 when we started
over to two Delvecchio Iwould've probably done it five
or six people.
Speaker 8 (24:06):
Knowing now what I know.
But.
Let's start off with that Michel, can you tell us a little
bit about LDV?
Michel (00:04):
LDV Consulting is a small engineering firm but fast
growing.
We started back in September2009 just two partners that had
met in previous lives workingfrom our basements and got
together and say hey how aboutwe do something together.
And we started out got a coupleof.
(00:24):
Pretty interesting contracts andthen.
Found a third partner our thirdassociate.
Who joined us maybe four or fivemonths after.
And which brought us to anexpansion.
We've moved twice.
We're now.
25 full time employees five orsix contractual employees.
(00:45):
So nice growth in a short period.
And it's getting you growingeven faster right now.
So we have more work and we canhandle nice success story
things.
So carjacking before you guyswent over to you guys before we
implemented Dovico for all ourtime tracking time sheets
(01:05):
billing invoicing we used that.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I'd say homegrown but it's not exactly right.
We looked on Microsoft Officetemplates found an Access
database that had time sheetsthat had some invoicing.
And we had employees ourselvesfirst and then employees entered
time in Excel sheets and justbring that into access and from
(01:28):
access that database we would dowhatever reporting we needed
whatever invoicing we needed.
So all right when you're smallup to five six employees worked
fine but you know you also hadto recap you what was being done
on the Excel put it in thedatabase and then lot of double
checking to make sure it workedon the invoicing.
And making sure everythingmatched every every month.
(01:49):
When we got to I'd say 15 20employees it was a nightmare.
It was a invoicing was a fulltime job for me and.
My assistant for a week.
Just to make sure everythingmatch you didn't want to send
anything to a customer withmistakes in it.
So that was it was a nightmareand with time to change we got
there to that point you say nowlook at this can't go on.
(02:10):
So that's when we startedthinking about going into it to
something else and lookingaround.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So what we're talking about just your previous process
to deal with go laborious youdecided on those be talk a
little bit about the selectionprocess in choosing.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well when we finally decided to change that we needed
something else.
We needed a new type ofapplication anything.
We we started looking aroundstarted looking around on my own
previous experience with otherengineering firms that used
large complicated software.
I knew I didn't want that.
I knew I didn't want thedatabase anymore.
I didn't want this huge monsterwe had before in our previous
(02:46):
lives.
So I asked one of the young whizkids we have on board who is
helping us out with everythingthat we have computerized.
And he had even modified theAccess database we had in the
past to make some reportingeasier.
And I asked him to start lookingaround for what was available
and he did started with aninternet search contacted a few
(03:09):
people he had found like five orsix different applications that
it seemed interesting to startoff with.
And when we started talkingtogether about our needs how we
do the invoicing and how we dothe time collecting.
We had narrowed that down to twoapplications.
And David Colby being one ofthem what helped us for the
(03:30):
final selection was that we hadnever even considered the web
base and vehicle provided thatand they said that's good
because the less I have tomanage here on a server that I
don't really have and don'treally want to take care of the
better it is.
And then are there the peoplethat echo helped us out.
I mean they were ready to answerquestions.
They offered us a trial whichwas fantastic.
(03:51):
We could try it for a month andget it up and running just to
see how it would work and howthat was.
And they were very patient withus because we took more than a
month.
It took us three weeks tofinally say oh god there's only
a week left.
Let's do this trial now.
And then when we got to the endof a week we thought oh this
we're not really sure how itworks.
(04:12):
So when that article said itshould take another week take
two weeks no problem just testit out.
Good.
And so we did and we tested itout and it really made life a
lot easier.
From from the tests on thesamples we had done and we
figured okay this was the onefor us.
That's what we use.
If we just take a step back hereto stop me you just said you
(04:34):
talked about in your previouslife you use.
A large.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Probably a f ully integrated solution.
W hat we see is a lot ofcompanies using us as an interim
solution and then moving intothese larger scale solutions.
Ta kes a while for them to getthere.
A nd then when they finally doget there they run into problems
and then there's an extended useof Depakote as a result.
(04:58):
M aybe you talk a little bit ofy ou know some of these things
that yo u've s een with thelarger packages that ma de y ou
realize you didn't wa nt a largescale solution th at s omething
Or lando w ould have been OK.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
We didn't go for the large scale solution for a
couple of reasons.
One is the experience in thepast how complex and onerous it
was and the support that'sneeded to run it.
There are a lot of people to runthese big systems and people
that we don't have.
We're an engineering firm we dothat very well we're quite proud
of what we do.
We're not a computer managementor software management firm.
(05:31):
We don't didn't want to get intothat.
And that was confirmed that is abuddy of mine works for a firm
that's about five times oursize.
He's a partner in that firm.
And they were converting over tothis huge package at the same
time as we were looking at DavidCole and their implementation
took a year and their accountantfull time for a year to do that.
(05:53):
I said I am not going to do thatI can't afford it I'm a small
company.
We have to turn around on a dimeand we have to do things
quickly.
And our implementation didn'ttake anywhere near that that
that amount of time.
So that was why we decided nowthe big packages for us at all.
So we were talking about thelarge scale package difficulty
in implementation.
Maybe you could talk a littlebit about the implementation
(06:14):
process that does go to what youhad to do to get the package out
to your employees.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
How much setup time was involved you contacted
support for help.
So let me just talk a little bitabout that implementation.
If I forget something go back toit because it was a key to.
The implementation process wassomething that went really
smoothly.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And it was partly because obviously all the help
we got but also because I thinkwe have done our homework
properly.
What we were trying to do withDavid Co is not stray too far
from what we were already doinguse a different tool.
That makes the management of thedata the same but for the people
who actually use the softwarethe collection that data had to
be similar to what they weredoing and we could do that with
(06:54):
topical.
The excel sheets were easy tofill out.
Everybody was used to them andyou could configure and you can
use Delvecchio in that sense forthe time entries is very very
similar.
So that made that part reallyeasy and that was a key criteria
to make sure that we can get itup and running fast.
We trained with Doug becausehelp certain key people.
(07:15):
Doug Cook came over and gave ustraining on the.
Management side on datacollection reporting invoicing
but also showed these key peoplehow to do with the time entry.
And then they went out andshowed each individual employee
how to how to enter their time.
But it's so simple.
(07:36):
I mean anybody who's filled inan excel sheet knows how to fill
in time and don't go and whatthey really enjoyed was they
didn't have to retype inprojects we're working on each
week or whatnot or copy it fromthe week before.
David Cole has I'll add in assoon as we implement in sorry
enter the projects in difficultand say these resources are
(07:57):
assigned to it they can just goin and say OK I worked on it's
there I'll just add it to myattention this week I work eight
hours on this Tuesday and whatit's done.
Is so implementation was reallysmooth.
We had.
To be sure again the sticklerfor accuracy.
I wanted to make sure that.
Invoices match time sheets thefirst.
(08:18):
So for I believe one month maybetwo months we ran in parallel it
was two months the first monthwe ran in parallel but we sent
out invoices from our old systemthe second month we ran out ran
parallel but sent out invoicesfrom Cole system and making sure
that everything matched becausewe were we were confident in the
old system and we wanted to getthat same confidence in double
(08:40):
system.
And once that was done once wesaw after the two months we said
this is working great let's moveon.
So we dumped the old system andmoved on to WEO which make my
life a lot easier.
Obviously there's been some timesavings.
Since implementing that but.
Maybe you can talk about thatprevious process where you're
saying you know it would take aweek to go invoicing process and
(09:03):
how much time it saved as aresult.
As the the original the previousprocess we had for invoicing was
quite complicated.
We had the time sheets fromExcel.
We would read and put them inthe access database.
We would run reports from theAccess database that we would
bring back to excel and then getmatches from the Excel sheet
through macros to make sure thatall these numbers matched for
(09:25):
each project and.
Some projects are big.
And you know that works reallywell.
But we got a lot of littleprojects being a small company.
And that was a very timeconsuming to go through each one
and saying OK and you'll youstart wondering is it worth it
you know for a five hundreddollar invoice for for one
company.
That's a lot a lot of work.
And by going over to Dovico youdon't have that because the
(09:49):
people are importing their time,managers have to approve their
time each week.
So once a manager has approvedwhoever's responsible for that
project approves the time it'sin there and all you do is
collect it.
Pick it out after and it goesonto a report which becomes the
invoice.
And we went from two people fulltime, Martine and I, for a week
doing the invoicing to, in twodays Martine has it all out on
(10:13):
her own.
And two days because we stillinsist on doing a lot of
checking just to make sureeverything's just right.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Unbelievable.
Well I was just stating twopeople's time for a week and a
one person for two days two daysand one person for two days.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
But again there's still a lot of checking.
I'm still I have always thatskepticism of a mechanical
engineer looking at us afterseeing this thing in the back
really doing what I wanted to do.
So I have to do it a lot ofchecking.
That maybe is not necessary butjust give me a warm fuzzy
feeling when you want to makesure what you're putting into
your customer calls.
Yes exactly.
(10:53):
And it's getting simpler becausenow I'm just setting it out to
the project managers who havestill yet signed and have
approved the timesheets.
And now they get the invoicesand they can match it up.
So they get the responsibilityover to that they get that
customer contact important thatthey see everything they do and
in their project.
Has an impact on the customer.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Unexpected benefits.
Speaker 6 (11:16):
Has there been any error.
Is it just as if this is exactlywhat you thought it would be.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
So anything I expect anything that you didn't realize
you could do that you are ableto do.
Speaker 7 (11:27):
That's a good one.
Let me think about that for asecond.
That's unexpected benefits.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I think really pops out.
There's a more.
There were more reports thanwhat I thought for the report.
Yeah OK.
Originally we had thought weneeded like two reports.
That's what we had been we usedwith the Access database because
of the the professional order ofengineers here in Quebec we have
(11:56):
a requirement to keep a veryspecific listing of our projects
so they can trace it and auditevery now and then.
And so that was a specificreport that we needed.
And obviously the invoicingwhich which is a report to we
didn't find anything thatmatched that in the Standard
reports that that vehicle had.
(12:18):
But it was really easy to getand get you guys used to get
difficult to switch that.
And to make them add or adaptthem to what we needed.
So after some back and forth andit wasn't even myself it was the
lady who takes care of the the.
Invoicing and all the patientsthat I was talking to one of the
(12:41):
CO employees at one of thedifficult programmers and he
managed to two days pop out thereports that we needed.
So it was that was really a.
Pleasant.
Surprise it so quickly we couldget turned around exactly what
we needed.
Then we started digging andwhatever other reports that were
there we said hey this is nicewe can start looking at how much
our projects are costing usversus how much we're invoicing
(13:03):
and what kind of ratio was there.
And some clients are better thanothers.
Things of that nature is all inthere.
So that was that was reallyreally nice.
The.
Unexpected benefits.
There is one that I can think ofnow is.
The difficult has a report onall hours every week that comes
(13:24):
out and that's one report thatwe could send right out to our
paymaster who is also an outsidefirm and we send the report of
how many hours what the ratesare for each individual.
And we could just take a reportout of difficult and send that
to them instead of another thing.
Martin had to transcribe.
From from one to the other.
So that was a benefit that wehadn't thought of originally but
(13:46):
just popped out and say Oh wow.
OK.
There was another couple ofhours saved of Martin's time.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
So we talked about reporting which is good because
he experienced customer reports.
Maybe he talked a little bitmore about that customer
reporting experience as well asany experience he may have had
with their supporting how that'sgone.
Yeah.
Had he called in to support andreceived technical assistance
and maybe we could elaborate onthe reports.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Customer supported David Cole has always been for
me very easy maybe because I'mthe president of the company in
and signed the checks.
I don't know.
But the feedback I get fromMartin she has one contact that
they're meeting is is verylimited in your English but
David has a French speakingcontact in there.
And she talks to him every nowand then when there's a bug I
don't hear about it.
So that means it's good whenthings don't work.
(14:33):
That's when I that's when I hearabout it.
And I know I hear every now andthen because we share an office
and every now and then she shetalks to David so I know that.
But it's like a five minuteconversation and she must get an
answer because I don't hearabout it again.
So I know I got a feeling thatthat works better than running.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
So we talked about the fact I'm doing psychology
covered that you know it's nicethat we're able to not only
shorten from a labor standpointyou're probably able to get your
invoices quicker to yourcustomers.
We sort of impact on cash flowor impact on.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
The the ease of invoicing with the software has
a couple of advantagesobviously.
The quicker you set out theinvoice the quicker we get paid.
I mean that's the way it is.
I wish we could press a buttonin David go and get the
customers to pay within the 30days they're supposed to.
But that's another issue.
Speaker 8 (15:27):
But just to get that invoice out quicker instead of
taking the two weeks you knowtake a couple of days.
Well that's two weeks shaved offthe payment there.
So obviously with a startupcompany like that like ours a
cash flow is a big issueespecially when you're expanding
.
We're an engineering firm webuild time.
(15:47):
So engineers that I hire I startpaying right away.
I invoice at the end of themonth if I hire somebody at the
beginning of the month or 30days that I pay him I invoice it
at the end of the month.
They've got 30 days to pay their60 days of this guy's salary I
have to I have to hold on.
So the quicker I get thatinvoice out the quicker I get
paid the better it is for ourcash flow.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And to use the help files that are systematic cash
to help us to help bales.
Out.
If.
Not.
Speaker 8 (16:16):
We have used to help files a bit.
Maybe I'm lazy maybe I'mstressed for time but it's
quicker to pick up the phone andsay How do you do this.
Do you get anything.
More often than not right there.
Just go there and just pressthis or do that rub your tummy
you tap your head and.
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Maybe I should ask this a little bit earlier but
maybe projects certainly talk alittle bit setting up projects a
little bit about employeeassignments.
Did you put budgets on yourprojects.
You talked about you know you'regoing live with a new project.
Speaker 8 (16:48):
What's involved when you start off with a new
project.
We obviously put out a serviceoffer a proposal to the customer
.
And in that proposal what weused to do is put up a name
Excel time sheet again Excelkeeps coming back.
And we'd say OK this employeecould work out that because he
has that skill set and it wouldtake him 10 hours to do this
(17:08):
particular part of the project.
Designing would be this part offinite element analysis would be
that part review and all thisand we put in the time and how
much of the rate we charge forthe customer in the Excel sheet
poof you get a magic number thatgoes on the proposal.
And this is what you charge thecustomer.
This is what you suggest to thecustomer for the project.
Once the customer says after hegets over the heart attack of
(17:30):
seeing the price he says Oh okay.
And go ahead with the job andthen we input in the base
divisional program then we putin the project and then say OK
here are the people that willwork on it put in a certain
number of hours.
And say OK this is what they'rewhat the project going to be
like.
So it's the same.
Exactly the same type of workwell defined the project will
(17:53):
say these are the tasks in thatproject.
These are the people and therates we charge for that project
will assign them to them.
So they're doing the same work.
It'll pop out the same number atthe end saying it's going to
cost the customer so much to dothis project the added benefit
is now we can see.
Okay.
He's not going to be availablethat week to do that or.
We don't have that person thatdesigner available everybody's
(18:16):
loaded on something else.
This helps me in the H.R.
site add to just say oh I needto hire two more designers I
need to hire two engineers and Ialready just what a month that
we've been doing that it's beencoming up and saying OK we're
short people again we need to beshort staffed we need to get
more.
I know you mentioned and wetalked a little bit earlier
about the hosting service.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
You know maybe you can talk a little bit about
performance DDA is there anyproblems with accessing your
data is any problems with lowtide.
Speaker 8 (18:48):
How how how is the performance of the server there
hosting service was somethingnew for us and we had wondered
about that for a few reasons oneof the reasons we wanted to go
hosting service is everybody hasaccess from everywhere.
We have people on site in veryremote locations.
Internet access is limited andslow.
Because it's a bandwidth that'sshared by two or three hundred
(19:10):
people on this site and it's asatellite link up and we were
worried.
Is that something that they canaccess.
So far we have had no issueseven I at home I live in a weird
area.
It's a black hole for any kindof service whether cell phone
Internet and I have no problem Ican do my time shoot at home to
(19:32):
the great pleasure of myassistant who used to harass me
all the time to do the time shedidn't get it in on time no I
can do it from anywhere.
I even have the application onmy iPhone and iPad I can just.
Whenever I get a moment just putin Oh yeah I work half an hour
on this half an hour on that mytime sheets are a little more
complicated than everybodyelse's because I do a lot of
review a lot of planning so I doa half an hour here half an hour
(19:55):
there 40 hours half an hourthat's eighty entries it's a
heck of a time sheet whereaseverybody else will be assigned
one or two projects a littlesimpler so.
But anyway the the internetaccess was something that worked
out really well we have noissues about speed.
Nothing.
We always have a problem.
It's never been down we havemore trouble with with our own
(20:17):
internal stuff than we do withthe external so going hosted was
definitely the right choice forus.
The hosted advantage we didn'thave when we started out.
External access to our servers.
Internally so we needed for ourpeople that were on remote sites
to be able to do theirtimesheets wherever they were.
(20:37):
And they hosted was too easyquick dirty way to go when it
turned out to be better thanquick and dirty quick in
Cleveland works well.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
Doing it like that.
Add to that we've talked aboutso far today.
We find with our customers.
Speaker 8 (20:55):
That our customers don't deal with a company they
deal with us as individuals.
They deal with us as engineersas to help them out.
To get them out of a problemthey call us.
Usually things aren't going thatwell or they have to improve
something.
And it's the people it's ourresponse to them.
It's our contact with them thatmakes them come back.
(21:18):
That's the feeling I get when Italk to the people that don't go
.
I call them up.
It's from the receptionist toanswer the phone.
I don't know who this woman isbut she always sounds Smiley.
She's very happy on the phone.
She must love her job and youstart off like that.
It's very.
In French we say okay.
I'm welcoming to have that typeof person saying hi.
(21:42):
Oh yes I'll get a win for you orwhoever we want to talk to and.
You get that feeling throughoutthe company whoever you talk to
seems to enjoy what they'redoing and seems ready to help
you and get you back on track asquickly as possible because that
little obstacle out of the waythey're not big obstacles but
get that little obstacle out ofthe way so you can move on and
(22:03):
go back to what we do best whichis engineering.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Other improvements.
It's running really well I meanthere's not that much to change
on it they're minor things andlike I said do try to work a
couple of work arounds withnothing major.
Nothing really says I didn'thave I wouldn't have the same
kind of feedback as my buddy hadin the other engineering firm
that.
Spent a dollar out that I'm notgoing to repeat because I think
(22:28):
that's privileged information.
But it was a huge number that Iwas not going to spend on this
kind of software and I I justcan't wait because we're looking
to with this buddy of mine to doa rather large project too big
for our firm alone and they'rebigger like I said they're five
times the size of we are.
So we're looking at using someof their people.
And when we do since we cancharge the customer we'll
(22:53):
probably add like 10 or 15people to and they'll put their
time sheet indirectly and I justcan't wait to see their feedback
because they went with a bigmonster package.
So I just can't wait to see it.
Yeah that'll be really.
I think it is I will.
Absolutely.
As an added feature that Ireally like also is that we are
(23:16):
subject to the nature of anengineering consulting firm some
projects requires extra people.
Speaker 8 (23:23):
Contract workers in our case.
And then when that project'sfinished we don't necessarily
need to keep those contractpeople with David so I have the
flexibility to say OK.
As of today I don't need thesethree people it either frees up
three places for someone to hireor I just don't pay for three I
pay for three less people at themonthly invoicing.
So that's that's a nice touch.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
So value.
Definitely.
Absolutely.
I hindsight I would haveprobably started earlier if if I
go back now and think of the waywe were doing it before I waited
till 15 20 people or when wewere about 15 when we started
over to two Delvecchio Iwould've probably done it five
or six people.
Speaker 8 (24:06):
Knowing now what I know.
But.
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