GWP Engineering Consultants

GWP Consultants, an Oxfordshire based independent consulting partnership, has significantly improved its ability to track and capture billable hours with Sage Coretime. Here we see how this time recording and project management software tool has helped this business to increase its efficiency and profitability.
 

GWP Consultants provides excellence and experience internationally in geology, geotechnics, mining engineering, hydrogeology, hydrology and surveying. These skill areas are applied in mining, quarrying and landfill, various aspects of infrastructure and development projects, sustainable water resources planning and management, and the modelling, monitoring and mitigation of environmental impacts.
 

Amanda Godwin, GWP’s management accountant, is responsible for all aspects of this consulting partnership’s accounting processes, including invoicing and billing. Because the business bases those invoices on hourly rates, a system to capture time spent on individual projects is vital.
 

"GWP’s billing efficiency is dependant on how effective we are at recording time spent on specific jobs," Amanda says. "In the past two years since we installed Sage Coretime, its ability to accomplish this task has proved to be outstanding." 
 

Prior to installing Sage Coretime, GWP staff used a manual system to record timesheets. However, this system proved both cumbersome and unproductive. "Before Coretime, GWP staff recorded time using a manual system," Amanda continues. "Every day, they had to apply pen to paper in order to write up the time that they spent on individual projects. The timesheets then had to be keyed into a single time tracking software system, and some data was also abstracted manually for other accounting, reporting and tracking purposes by our team. But our new Coretime system eliminates the need for this manual and repetitive process."
 

Coretime makes tracking time against individual jobs painless. Because Coretime offers a multi–user facility, individual staff members at GWP can track and record time quickly at their own PC. Billable hours are easily allocated against specific jobs, while details of work carried out can be entered swiftly.
 

"Because Sage Coretime is so easy to use compared with the manual timesheets, we find that staff are recording, and the business is recovering more billable hours," Amanda says. "This new efficiency is contributing to the bottom line."
 

"Invoicing is also made much easier. The data inputted by GWP staff is collated in the Coretime central database. Because we have a number of different hourly rates, ranging from graduates to geologists with thirty years experience or more, Coretime automatically assigns the correct hourly rate to each staff member and to the hours that will be invoiced, while also ensuring that the total is assigned to the correct project. This ensures higher levels of invoicing accuracy and accountability."
 

"Coretime also provides a history of work. GWP staff members are able to quickly look back to any project, and any date within that project, to discover exactly what activities took place. Consequently, Coretime acts as an easy-to-use project management software tool for all of us."

Coretime’s ability to track time but also to input detailed activity reports also benefits both GWP and their clients. "Our clients are entitled to know why we’ve billed hours to them," Amanda explains. "Because Coretime enables staff to write detailed reports as part of the tracking process, and because we can print out those reports, we can quickly provide a comprehensive report regarding what work was carried out on any particular day."
 

Detailed reporting, as part of Coretime’s capabilities, can be particularly useful in the event of a query or dispute. Activity reports can be archived to provide complete, detailed histories for any job.This facility helps to foster a better level of understanding between Coretime users and the clients that those users serve.The activity report data provides our clients with a higher level of comfort," Amanda explains, "and allows us to demonstrate exactly what we have charged and why we have charged it." "What’s more, the facility is very flexible. We can individually tailor detail to meet the requested information required by any of our clients."
 

One of the most critical tasks of any project manager is maintaining budgets in order to achieve required project profitability. Coretime offers an effective solution to do just that.
 

"We’ve brought the project budgeting facility online now," Amanda says, "and we find it very effective." Billable hours and third party costs entered by staff against specific jobs are automatically allocated against project budgets. The Coretime solution deducts costs already incurred from the relevant budget, providing management with a budget balance.
 

"This provides the capability to quickly look at any given project budget to see if costs are on track."

"Moreover, we can set a trigger within Coretime to warn us (by automatic email to the project manager) if we are approaching the total allocated budget," Amanda explains. "This enables us to take action in a timely manner to ensure that the business doesn’t face cost overruns."  

Amanda is convinced that Coretime provides GWP with significant benefits that have allowed them to recapture costs while also increasing efficiency & productivity.

"Coretime has significantly changed how we track time and allocate it against jobs," Amanda concludes. "As an almost effortless package, staff are more than willing to use it, both in the office and remotely, and are consequently more vigilant in time tracking. As an efficient system, our business is much more likely to accurately bill hours of work actually incurred on any job, helping us to protect profitability."
 

GWP receive comprehensive support for Sage Coretime from their supplier Onesys. With offices in York and London, Onesys prides itself in delivering professional service support and training for a whole range of Sage software solutions for the professional services sector.
 

"Onesys are a real business partner," Amanda states. "I find them very helpful, and if I have any questions or queries the support team is there to help me instantly. In short," Amanda finishes, "we’re delighted."


Onesys is a certified Sage Business Partner accredited to provide a range of Sage Software Solutions. They provide full consultation, implementation, training and support for software including Sage 50 Accounts, Sage 200 Suite ERP, aswell as Sage CRM customer relationship management software