Customers: Fate (design and construction) St. Petersburg; Construction and industry of construction materials Contractors: Altius Software Product: Altius is Construction managementProject date: 2010/09
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The financial manager of Fortuna company Svetlana Ilyasova shared with ALTIUS SOFT company the impressions about work in the ALTIUS — Construction Management program. According to Svetlana, the program is intended for conducting management accounting in construction and is capable to solve the mass of important, analytical problems.
Give, please, the brief information on your company. What do you differ from other construction companies in? What new technologies, the innovation approaches do you use?
The Fortuna company is engaged in design and construction of treatment and prevention facilities in Moscow and regions of Russia: in St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov and Northwest regions, generally. We perform design of net operating rooms. Further, the Intermedservice company which group includes Fortuna company supplies the medical equipment. Today, at construction we use materials of foreign producers, but we try to pass to domestic materials, more available at the price. We are also going to arrange own production of some materials to reduce costs.
For what reason did you think of need of automation of management accounting?
The task of conducting ordered management accounting was set at once. There were no premises for maintaining it, say, in the MS Excel or manually. We understood need of an order for accounting of agreements, documents, settlement. This task was also sounded "on top".
What criteria were for you main when choosing the program for construction management?
The main criterion – an opportunity to see all picture of projects: from customers, to specific contractors, contractors. It is also important to have up-to-date information about settlement (by management accounting) and to see all scheme of work: the plan for accomplishment, data on payment, the list of the signed agreements (existing or invalid), etc. Also it was necessary that the program for construction management correctly worked with the estimate program and with MS Project.
Why as a result you selected the ALTIUS — Construction Management program?
At the program there are a lot of pluses. It is important that the ALTIUS — Construction Management program is the standard solution which can also be configured individually if necessary. Accounting of agreements which in the program is delivered in full is very important for us. Also it would be desirable to note that it is not the accounting program, namely a system for conducting management accounting in construction. Also its price availability is important. For example, within 1C it would also be possible to deliver construction management, but it would be quite costly.
What problems do you manage to solve with the help of the ALTIUS — Construction Management program?
In the program we keep account of agreements with customers, contractors and also we consider settlement between them. In the nearest future we are going to establish cooperation with MS Project. Also we will use the module "Stroylogistik" to pass to the automated inventory control.
How did implementation of the program take place? What difficulties were? On what "rake" did you step? How many people at first worked in the program?
At first in the program one person, namely I worked. I needed to get acquainted with the program, to look as all functions work. I want to notice that at implementation we worked with the previous version of the ALTIUS — Construction Management program in which there was no number of opportunities which are in the sixth version of the program now. With transition to "six" began to carry out many tasks more simply. It is possible to tell that we continue also now implementation since not all modules of the program began to use at once. Any global difficulties at implementation of the program were not. I can select only that employees, having completed a training course and having taken some break in work with the program, begin to forget through some time about how to work in it. I cannot select other difficulties.
What induced you to transition to the new, sixth version of the program?
As I already told in the answer to the previous question, we were attracted by new functionality of the sixth version of the ALTIUS — Construction Management program. In particular, possibility of setup of parametrical reports. New reports became much more convenient to use, it is not necessary to lump all indicators together. Reports do not require additional editing that significantly saves time. Besides, it is very important that in the sixth version relation between the modules "Contract of Sale", "Stroypodryadchik", "Stroyzakazchik", "Stroyfinasist" was established. It, of course, is very convenient. It is not necessary to duplicate works.
What part of a company performance is still performed manually? Why? Whether you consider that there is no program for automation of such section at all?
Now we keep an inventory control almost manually. I will repeat that in the company the module "Stroylogistik" of the ALTIUS — Construction Management program since we just have no large volumes of an inventory control is under-exploited, but it does not mean that we will not automate it. Estimate calculation is also not conducted completely in the estimate program, we consider something using the MS Excel. The matter is that there are individual quotations which in the estimate program are not considered. The ALTIUS — Construction Management program allows to make individual preferences, to consider standards so we will not always resort to use of the estimate program.
Do you have some unjustified hopes concerning the program? If yes, that what?
As the program is still used not for all 100% and some requirements is not formulated by us yet, you should not speak about any disappointments. Perhaps, further there will be small defects, but the ALTIUS — Construction Management program completely is repaid. It is sure that we will have no unjustified hopes.