Over the past two years, JPR Group has experienced impressive growth and is ready for a new ERP to meet demand. We spoke to Company Secretary Paula Ferguson and Commercial Manager Adam Harold about their recent decision to purchase Sage 200 support with Datel.
JPR Group provides multi-skilled contractors in three main sectors: mechanical, electrical and plumbing; fire and security; and data and telecoms. Operating for 50 years, JPR has 130 staff, over 100 mobile operatives and a fleet of 70 vehicles.
Their current system is highly manual and reliant on paper filing, which Adam is keen to move away from; ‘When we're sending out monthly applications, we have to do it in Microsoft Excel and then again in the actual accounting system. It may be only ten minutes, but when you're doing probably 30-40 applications a month, it adds up.’ Paula agreed, adding that duplication was a big issue for them; ‘We’re doing things twice in two pieces of software. Our current system doesn’t transfer data between systems and even downloading takes a long time. It's come to the end of its life.’
Adam had previously used Sage solutions and liked the user-friendly interface. He contacted Sage directly who recommended Datel as a Sage partner. After a conversation with Ben, Sage 200 was suggested as a fully integrated solution that will meet their needs, and it’s fair to say Paula is ready for the change. ‘Sage 200 can handle multiple departments and provides better criteria and drilldown. For senior management that's going to be critical and provide much more visibility.’
The company still does print, but as Adam explained, Sage will help them be much less reliant on storing paper. ‘We’re going to save so much paper and office storage. At the moment everything comes in via email or post and we save invoices for so many years. With Sage, invoices are automatically saved to the system. It's an investment, but in the medium to long term it will save us money both in storage, and time.’
Working with a Sage 200 partner such as Datel is a new experience for the team, and they have been pleased with the service so far. The demonstration was tailored to their needs and Paula is confident in the implementation process. ‘Adam and I engaged with Alex, who's our Project Manager. He explained the scoping right through to ‘go-live’ and we were very impressed with the simplicity of something that could be very complex. I feel like we would have a handheld approach with Datel, with reminders of what needs to be done by when, which works for us because Adam and I are very busy.’
They are aware that the integration process may take some time but they are focussed on the benefits and getting it done right, as Adam explained; ‘It's going to have a profound difference for many of our staff - for instance our Purchase Ledger clerks will have more time to work on proactive business related tasks, rather than manual finance processes. That's why we’re not tied to a go-live date at the moment, I'm busy getting everyone on board with the vision. There may be some challenges on the way but I'm looking forward to the journey because it will be such a good step for the business.’