Milton Frank Plumbing
Growing Houston Contractor Finally Gets the System They Dreamed of Having
Milton Frank Plumbing Enjoys Benefits of Ascente Software from Compusource
Milton Frank Plumbing was started, like most companies, out of their dining room, with one plumber, the owner! Initially he did any kind of work he could find; lease spaces, re-pipes, service and repair, and an occasional new construction job. They grew slowly while developing a list of satisfied customers. Patty Frank states, "Our first attempt at compiling any kind of data base was to record our service history on 3 X 5 rolodex cards, filed alphabetically by customer last name. The turn over of houses in the Houston real estate market, especially those homes in our community, the northern suburbs, eventually made this type of system obsolete. If the customer did not know the previous homeowners last name, or didn?t tell us that he had purchased the home from one of our customers, we had no way of accessing the history, or knowing if we even had any history of the property".
Their next attempt in upgrading their data base, was an investment in a custom written DOS based database system which allowed them to search by name, street number, street name and phone number. Patty relates, "We thought we had our database problem solved. Although this system worked, and was certainly much more expensive, it didn?t ?connect? to anything. All of our accounting was still done by hand, using a complicated series of spreadsheets and ledger books. We realized we had a long way to go to get the system we really wanted and needed".
In 1997 they attended the national PHCC convention, with the sole objective of visiting the software vendors that would be exhibiting during the trade show. Patty states, "We visited with all three of those present, signed up for more information, and went home to wait. One company sent us a demo disk to preview. One company called and set up an appointment in our office and the third company never called us back. I'm sure you can guess which one of the three we bought! It was the CONTRAC2 software from Compusource Corporation supplied by their reseller partner in Texas SBC Systems".
Patty relates, Len Woodruff, president of SBC Systems, visited our office, lugging his laptop, remember, in 1998 they were cumbersome pieces of equipment! We were scared to death of the DOS-ness of the system, but we were convinced it was the right fit for our business needs. At the time we were running 6 techs. We were probably SBC's worst nightmare! I know we were terrified of the whole process. I think I woke up with the cold sweats for weeks after implementation, visualizing crashes and disasters that never happened. Oh, we had our glitches, mostly caused by user error.
We had several people in our office who had never touched a computer unless it was to play solitaire, so we had some learning to do. But learn we did, eventually becoming very comfortable with the call taking and dispatch process. We quickly learned how the general ledger integrated with the accounts payable, accounts receivable and payroll modules. And, we started wanting something better! Even though our reports all printed on the laser printer, the payroll and accounts payable checks still had to be printed on a dot matrix printer. A slow, sometimes loud, process, compared to the laser printer.
In November of 2002 Milton Frank Plumbing upgraded to Compusource's new Windows based Ascente and Traverse software system running under the SQL Server relational database.
They currently have two dispatchers dispatching 13 trucks, using the Ascente software. They have 6 or 8 users in Ascente all the time, taking calls, entering work orders, generating purchase orders, researching customer history, paging and dispatching. Patty states, "There is never any slow down. And the good part is, it communicates seamlessly with Traverse, their fully integrated General Ledger system".
Patty further relates, "At the end of 2004, we added two new features to Traverse, Payroll and checkbook reconciliation. We've produced payroll in house for about 3 months now and other than our checks looking different, everything works just like it did with the payroll service. It even handles the Direct Deposit function. We just finished out our first quarter and Kelly, our accounting staff person, reported her internal audits went smoothly and the reports were very easy to understand".
At the same time, on the advice of their accountant, they started producing their monthly financial reports, something they could have been doing from the beginning, in 1998. Patty states, "Our accountant sat down and looked at what the software produced and after some minor tweaks and adjustments, they now mimic the reports he previously produced for us. With the addition of accounting personnel to our company, we've departmentalized our accounts, separating service, remodel, install and showroom sales, giving us a much more accurate picture of our company".
Their next big project will be to implement the Inventory Control which is available in the Ascente / Traverse System.
Tempo Mechanical Services, Inc.
"There is a very important point of difference between a software purchase from SBC and a software purchase from ANY other software vendor I have worked with (or heard about for that matter). SBC understands their product, but more importantly, they understand the service and contracting business. They heard our problems, understood the underlying issues and then showed us how to solve them with their software. This is value!
"If I can dream it, SBC can make it happen.
"There is no software transformation that is easy. Anyone who indicates anything different is selling you something. I can say that our recent software migration with SBC was difficult, but, much less painful than I ever imagined it would be.
"Our business required a lot of special information management programming. The amazing thing about SBC is that we were able to dream up what we wanted, and together make it a reality."
Steve Saunders
Tempo Mechanical Services, Inc.
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