Matthews Constructions focuses on the commercial side of building, having worked on a range of hotel, shop, gymnasium, and school building projects throughout Tasmania.

The Devonport based construction company is in the process of rolling out a complete Greentree business management solution, incorporating the Financial, Purchase Order, Job Cost, Advanced Costing, Billing, Workflow, CRM, Payroll, and eReporting modules, to replace its CBA system of 15 years.

Chris Walsh, Matthews Constructions’s Accountant, believes the Greentree software will make the operation more efficient, enabling Matthews to better manage and grow its construction activity. However, Chris did not turn to a building industry specific specialist; instead he turned to Greentree, the software known to Matthews for its development and support of CBA and for its fully integrated Windows based system. “We chose Greentree as it offered the integration and the range of tools we required for our growth. Greentree gives us the capacity and the vision to develop our business over the next 5-10 years.”

Chris describes the choice of a business management package offering integration and flexibility, rather than a specialised package. “We looked at other products on the market to benchmark Greentree. There are many building specific products which offer a cost-effective package for our type of company. However, they did not come up to speed. Greentree offered a full business tool with the backing of strong support, a heritage of development and is used by a range of companies."

Very, very, integrated

The catalyst for Matthews Constructions was attending a Greentree seminar which explained the new functionality of Greentree, the product road map and the transition to Greentree from CBA. Chris explains, “For our business, it is a good time to move to Greentree. We always knew about Greentree and had waited for the functionality to develop to our specific requirements. Greentree will give us full integration across a breadth of modules and also includes CRM. Anyone can provide Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable capabilities but it’s when you get a fully integrated system that’s the key. We needed a strong business product rather than just a good looking one. With Greentree we get both.”

He continues, “CBA was a mainstream and reliable product. It did what it was supposed to and is easy to use. We could have stayed with the supported CBA but Greentree offers us so much more. Our Greentree system will be based on the functions we are accustomed to in CBA but will offer so many improvements in terms of integration. Greentree will give us more capacity than CBA."

“We chose Greentree as it offered the integration and the range of tools we required for our growth. Greentree gives us the capacity and the vision to develop our business over the next 5-10 years.”

Very, very, flexible

Greentree’s Job Cost module is the most important component for Matthews, providing complete tracking of costs and revenue against building jobs. It also includes entry of timesheets and disbursements with complete on-line integration to the other Greentree modules. They identified the need for a comprehensive job cost system to track the costs of their 50 employees and subcontractors and to track payroll costs and the total time spent on activities.

This level of functionality was not in their CBA system. “We will have a complete information management tool rather than just an accounting package, enabling us to communicate better and actually see what is happening with the business across the board.” Chris continues, “The integration with the financial suite, in particular the general ledger, is important. The level of reporting in Greentree is very encouraging as we can see many different levels of costing with the ability to query and drill down the data, important for reporting purposes.”

“We looked at other products on the market to benchmark Greentree. There are many building specific products which offer a cost-effective package for our type of company. However, they did not come up to speed. Greentree offered a full business tool with the backing of strong support, a heritage of development and is used by a range of companies.”

Very, very well planned

The move to Greentree will involve a deliberately meticulous roll out managed largely by the management team at Matthews. The management team prefers this implementation process as it will enable them to review their business systems ensuring a smooth transition. Chris describes, “We have a full methodology in place for the move from CBA to Greentree. We aim to trial the usage of Greentree in terms of working out the best practice for the business. The way the database is set up in CBA is different to Greentree, so we have to understand it and how it will help our business.”

He continues, “Currently we have a working CBA product that means there is no pressure to change systems overnight. We will take time to learn the product and query the system with the help of the Greentree consultants. We will then pass on the knowledge to the company.”

The team at Matthews had the perception that it would be harder to use a Windows system. As they get to know Greentree they now feel they will have more flexibility with Greentree. “We will be able to retain many of the functions we are used to in CBA, such as commonly used keystrokes for data inputting. Our aim is to keep our business approach the same for Greentree,” says Chris.

Looking to the future, Chris believes Greentree, being web based, offers further potential for Matthews Constructions to shape its customer service, “We can envisage using the internet for our customers to Log service requests on line.”

About Matthews Constructions Pty Ltd

Devonport based Matthews Constructions focuses on the commercial side of building, having worked on a range of hotel, shop, gymnasium, and school building projects throughout Tasmania. The company employs 50 employees.