Established in Malton, North Yorkshire, Derwent Vale Building Services Ltd has developed a strong reputation as a local market leader in the residential construction sector, serving clients with many varied requirements. By ensuring that high standards of quality are always maintained the company has grown in strength with repeat customers who come back time and again.

The business has grown and developed over the last 8 years and now has a turnover approaching £2.5 million. During the last 18 months the company has started developing sites as well and the turnover next year is projected to grow to an estimated £4million.

The company had been using Sage Accounts for some years and whilst this provided all the accounting functions for the business, the day-to-day control of jobs and costing was done with various excel spreadsheets. This was no longer providing the accurate information required and was time consuming because everything has to enter twice. Once in Sage and once in Excel.  A prime area for concern was the tracking of variations on the jobs and ensuing that these were monitored and billed to the client correctly.

The company employs 25 direct staff and uses a range of specialist subcontractors.

Simon Gibbons joined the company as Commercial Director 2 years ago to bring his experience from the residential development side and grow this particular area of the business. The company realised they needed an integrated job costing system and were delighted to find JNC Solutions and Construction Manager 50 on the web.

Simon comments: "Because Construction Manager 50 is designed as a Sage Line 50 addition we could keep our existing accounts system in place and replace all our spreadsheets with a system designed for the small-medium sized main contractor. In addition to tracking all the costs on jobs the system would simplify the subcontractors CIS scheme and deal with Applications and retentions. I was particularly interested in monitoring variations which the system allows us to do very easily, but like most systems it is as good as the person inputting the information, this is where the training and dedication is a must"

"The program was simple to install and quickly up and running within a few weeks. The support and training has been excellent and we now have all the information we need at our fingertips on each and every job. By setting up codes for variations we are able to track these easily and quickly produce our monthly valuations for the client. What used to take all day can now be done in half and hour"

"Because the system is designed for Sage L50 it is easy to understand and operate. This has been invaluable when our original accounts assistant left and a new employee experienced in Line 50 took over. We had no trouble showing the new person how to use the system and did not require any additional training at that point."