SITUATION
Harapan Builders Sdn Bhd was formed in 1995 by a group of engineers to handle all fields of the engineering business, with special emphasis on civil and construction contracting activities.

It started off by concentrating on the provision of manpower to manage job sites for bigger corporations and have since matured to taking contracts under its own capacity. Its construction projects cover civil, industrial, commercial and residential projects.

Harapan Builders has also diversified into other business activities including trading in building materials and property development.

Since its inception, Harapan Builders had been using a stand-alone DOS-based accounting system. Obviously, with the passage of time the system could no longer meet the fast growing needs of the company.

One major drawback of the solution was that it could not facilitate the automating of various work processes. For example, all purchase requisitions are prepared, tracked and matched manually by the Purchasing Department. Approved requisitions are sorted and a separate purchase order will then be raised manually.

“With the volume of requisitions on hand from various departments, this is definitely tedious,” says Harapan Builders’ Finance & Administration Manager Lim Eng Chuan.

The old solution was not fully integrated and getting timely and up-to-date information was a major challenge. As the need for business information grew, the staff found the limited amount of information captured by the system to be a major handicap.

“As we are in the construction industry, we need timely information about our cost centers. But the old accounting system did not allow us to get such details easily,” says Lim.

For example, if the management needed reports about cost of certain building materials for a particular project, the staff would have to manually search for the necessary paperwork. Considering that the company has up to 12 projects running concurrently at any one time, the amount of paperwork the staff had to wade through was monumental.

“It was obviously very time consuming to get such information. And this hampered us in our decision-making process,” Lim explains.
He adds that the limitations of the old application meant that the company’s reporting needs were not fulfilled, especially tracking of project billings and expenditures. “All these reports take time to be generated and were done manually using spreadsheets,” he says. This often resulted in a backlog of between three to four months to get these reports completed.
The senior management was also unable to analyze the materials utilization compared to what was budgeted for every individual project. The system could not provide exception reports which were needed for internal discussions as well as discussions with the sub-contractors.
Preparing the company’s forecast and budget was also a complicated and time consuming affair previously. This was because Harapan Builders had to manually track individual project expenditures and progress billings in order to perform proper analyses.

The solution was also not very helpful in the preparation of proposals for new tenders. This was because the staff had to manually track and identify all the material suppliers to obtain the pricing for various building materials.

SOLUTION
According to Lim, Harapan Builders saw the need to replace the aging accounting system with an integrated Windows-based business solution. The company evaluated several mid-range options before finally selecting Microsoft Business Solution – Navision.

Running on Windows Server 2003, the modules implemented were Accounts Receivables, Account Payable, General Ledger, Inventory and Cashbook. Harapan Builders had engaged Microsoft Certified Partner Advanced Infosys Sdn Bhd to deploy the solution in mid-2005. Lim says Advanced Infosys handled the customization of specific reports as well as provided training and technical support.

“Navision is a good fit for our business and required little customization. It has resolved the challenges we faced with the previous solution,” Lim explains.

Because Navision is an integrated solution, it has helped to automate a number of business processes and brought about significant improvements in efficiency and productivity.

Lim explains that the decision to deploy Navision was made easy as it was a Microsoft product with a proven record of transforming businesses around the world. Harapan Builders operates fully on the Windows platform and the move to deploy Navision essentially leverages on its existing IT investments, he adds.

“We use various Microsoft solutions as Microsoft Project and Microsoft Office. With Navision, we can easily integrate with Microsoft applications such as Excel.”

Navision’s intuitive Windows interface, which was similar to Microsoft Office, meant that the accounting staff was able to learn to use the system fairly easily.

Lim adds that quality resources were readily available to implement the Navision solution. In this regard, he affirms that Advanced Infosys had provided excellent service in the deployment process and in technical support.

BENEFITS

Faster Financial Closing of Accounts
With Navision, Harapan Builders has been able to automate a number of work processes and this has helped to speed up the closing of its monthly financial accounts by over 50 per cent.

“There is no longer duplication of work as Navision provides a fully integrated platform,” says Lim. For example, the processing of purchase orders, invoices, debit and credit notes are now integrated and time taken to perform the tasks has been reduced. “When an invoice has been processed, the details are automatically and immediately posted to the debtors’ module,” explains Lim. The time saved has enabled the accounting staff to concentrate on higher value-added tasks.

The staff also spends considerably lesser time keying in repetitive information. “For example, when processing a purchase order, details about the suppliers, materials and pricing can be pulled out from the Navision database without having to re-key it in.”

Navision also allows more users to access the system concurrently unlike the previous application which only allows access to one user at a time. This promotes greater productivity among the staff. “This means that one staff can be keying in details of the payment vouchers while another inputs the receipts at the same time,” says Lim.

Comprehensive and Timely Reports
The Navision system has fulfilled all of Harapan Builders’ reporting needs, churning a host of reports necessary for effective decision making. In the past, it was not uncommon to have a 3 to 4 months backlog in generating reports as the information had to be retrieved manually.

“With Navision, the information that we need is now available on a real-time basis. And that is very important for the management in making good decisions,” Lim explains.

Navision allows Harapan Builders to churn out more reports than before, allowing its staff to do the necessary audits and analyses on various aspects of its business operations. “For example, the reports will show us if there has been an over-usage of a particular building material. This will facilitate corrective measures to be taken.” The upside is that this cuts down on wastage and unnecessary expenditure, Lim adds.

The enhanced reporting capability has also resulted in significant improvement for budget preparation and utilization tracking analysis. “This has saved a significant amount of time for the Purchasing Department in preparing and issuance of Purchase Requisitions and Orders,” says Lim.

Improves Tracking and Monitoring
The Navision system has transformed Harapan Builders’ tracking and monitoring capabilities, providing it with real-time information on areas such as material utilization and delivery of supplies.

The system also has the added advantage of allowing for building material prices to be tracked for historical comparisons. Previously, tracking was done manually and the staff had to sift through a huge amount of documents.

“All the information concerning any particular purchase order – the schedule of delivery, quantity delivered, which project site it was delivered to, and so on, are now available within the Navision system,” says Lim.

“With Navision, tracking and monitoring is no longer a tedious and time-consuming process,” he adds.

Ideal Platform for Expansion
As Harapan Builders expands its business, it plans to leverage on the extensive range of modules available under Navision. Though it is currently used only by the Accounts Department, it plans to extend the usage to other departments to tap on the reservoir of information available within the Navision system.

For example, the company is planning to implement a job costing module which will enable the Contracts Department to have direct access to the system. “They will be able to access information such as the latest building material prices and labor costs without referring to hard copy documents. It will be a great help in preparing tender proposals,” Lim explains.

“Having timely and accurate information is critical in preparing tenders as contracts run into millions of ringgit. If we get our tender calculations wrong, we will be in big trouble!”

Lim says Navision’s extensive functionalities and flexibility means that the system can keep pace with the growth of Harapan Builders.

“Navision is a powerful software which is geared for the future. We have absolutely no regrets in choosing Navision,” he adds.

End.