Synergy2016 – Using historical data for quick fee proposals in Synergy - Peter Redway (Quantum Surveys)
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Quantum Surveys director Peter Redway talks about how his company uses Synergy to create quick fee proposals when juggling over 700 new projects per year.
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Synergy2016 – Using historical data for quick fee proposals in Synergy - Peter Redway (Quantum Surveys)
- 1. USING HISTORICAL DATA FOR QUICK FEE PROPOSALS PETER REDWAY DIRECTOR, QUANTUM SURVEYS
- 7. + 2004
- 8. “IN THE SURVEY INDUSTRY, NEW TECHNOLOGY DRIVES OUR BUSINESS MODEL.”
- 9. High turnover and lower fees see us average approx. 700 different projects per year. HOW WE USE SYNERGY
- 15. TIMESHEET TIP: Our team enters their own timesheets and are paid based on payroll reports from Synergy
Editor's Notes
- Kindly Introduced / Name / Director / Geraldton WA
- Work Surveyor / Passion Sailing / Seasoned Long Distance Traveller Second Trip This Year / This Time Flew / Quicker Than Driving Nullabor Spectacular Harbour / Sydney to Hobart
- Where is Geraldton / Major Regional Centre / Midwest City / Country Town / Client Friends as well as Business Associates Anyone here been to Geraldton / Scott / Wind Kite Surfing / Wind is one of the Attributes / World Class Sailor / We are knicknamed the Windy City after all Surveyor 1995 from Victoria If anyone listens to JJJ / Shout out / Lucky Recipients One Night Stand Concert
- Economy Diverse Agriculture Fishing Mining Tourism Survey Consultancy Practice / Undertake Aspects Survey Work / All Economic Sectors / This Includes Catchment Area 600,000 Explorers / Landcruiser Camel
- As most of you probably know / Surveying and Land Surveying / Measurement / Mapping Surrounding Environment / Execution Construction Spatial Sciences Profession / Google Maps / Spatial Sciences Professionals Shopping Centre / Directionally Challenged Surveyor As Surveyors we are in good company / Collaboration / Engineering / Architecture / Planning / Covered room, missed Boots to Suits / Outside gathering data / Map and Present Info / Designing and Planning Built Form Challenge setting out / Physically Constructed
- Advancement New Technology Surveying / Take Measurements and Report Data / Increased Speed and Accuracy Lookout New Technology / Regularly Use / Robotic TS, GPS, Scanners & UAV’s / Job Done Expensive Toys / Not Much Change / 50K
- Quantum Surveys Started 2001 / By 2004 / Excel Spreadsheets / Commenced Looking Practice Management Software / Handle Day to Day Fundamentals Wow Amazing Google / Searching and Evaluating / Discovered Total Synergy There I go Again / Brand Ambassador / Funky Scott Story Geraldton Scott Synergy Pitch / Evaluation Product Positive / Implemented Total Synergy Experience Previous Database / Tailored Surveying Industry / Colourful than Spreadsheets
- New Technology / Business Model Immediate Impact Billable Sales / Previously not Captured
- As Survey Company / Model / High Turnover Lower Fees This Model / Averaging 700 Projects Year Variety of Challenges / Use of Systems & Procedures / Strive to Maintain Quality & Consistency / Products & Services Synergy / Glue Holds Together / Today Talking about a few Techniques Assist with Running Successful Business / Servicing / Best of Ability
- This slide shows a basic outline of our project wagon wheel with Synergy shown as a go to application for all of our project tasks. Firstly all new project requests and enquiries are entered into Synergy. For all new clients we always ask the question “how did you hear about us”. This additional information is entered as an attribute which can be reported on to gauge levels of effective marketing. It also comes in handy as sometimes you will also be able to gauge from the clients response on whether you are competing for work or not.
- As surveyors we work on a large number of land parcels throughout our catchment area. By utilising the secondary address field in Synergy we are able to apply a unique lot on plan identifier to all of our projects along with the street address. The lot on plan identifier or parcel identifier as we call it is a standard thats been adopted by Landgate, Western Australia’s official register of land ownership.
- Searching parcel identifiers enables us to:- identify if we have completed work on the land parcel previously. (You’ll be surprised on how many times we get asked to repeat work on the same landholding, an industry hazard when we work for all the builders in our area) identify other landholdings that we have worked on that were previously created on the same survey plan. This is of great assistance when pricing similar work. This picture shows an area of two Survey Plans for the Seacrest Estate in Geraldton. Just to illustrate that we have had few bites of the cherry. We created all the original land titles shown here and the shading shows the results of a plan search in Synergy. As we have been we have been using Synergy since 2004 and having access to all of this historical data is invaluable when when pricing new work.
- Now we are a quality assured company and pride ourselves on systems and procedures to maintain quality and consistency across all our products and services. Synergy assists us in this process with its templates. Sub project templates, document templates, email templates and invoice templates all assist in maintaining a consistency in communicating with our clients that is very important to us. We have in the past compared ourselves to McDonalds, even though we are not a fast food chain, we do admire their systems, process and branding. We regularly use the outlook addin for Synergy that enables us to file correspondence on the run and recall it very quickly as required. We regularly get rung up and asked if we remember that project we did in 2001. I tell you what I don’t know how good your memories are but when you are doing 700 jobs a year, unfortunately you don’t remember them all. `Synergy does but, its got a memory like a bull elephant.
- As we cover a fare area that is remote from the office, we are big fans of the synergy cloud app. Allowing us to enter timesheets, pull up contact details etc plus the timesheet leaderboard is a novel way to crank up some competition with your colleagues.
- Timesheet Tip – We got our team engaged with timesheets, they all enter their own timesheets and are paid based on the payroll reports from Synergy.
- One of the most important aspects for our business and I suggest all businesses is to know the numbers. Now Synergy is a great program to report numbers, but of course it’s the old saying crap in crap out. To this end we are always reviewing and tweaking the practice financial controls in Synergy. This includes updating Staff Remuneration and the practice constants in Synergy. I won’t bore you with the details except to say the program has some great calculators to assist with the process.
- From there we can quickly go into the individual project and click the profitability tab to review performance. As you can see I am a system administrator and so I get access to the shaded fields which in this case are actual costs without the practice overhead. I have also added one optional column that details invoice markup. We have a variety of set price products and regularly report on a selection these to check performance. Once we have invoiced again using word document templates we use debtor notes when rounding up the cash
- As a business owner I find my Synergy dashboard to be like a barometer for my business. Being able to quickly check things like monthly invoice totals, aged WIP and utilisation are all effective tools in checking the health of the business. As people say cash is king, and here I can tell very quickly wether I am a king or a pauper. Now you may have noticed that I haven’t covered much reporting out of Synergy. We do use reports although for our size business they are pretty basic, things like payroll reports, work in progress, invoice reports and utilisation. For me personally I find that I can check the main information from straight on the screen which is great. Sometimes we have requirements for more detailed reporting and I always seem to be able to find a report that I can modify to export the required information. Now as a small to medium sized enterprise we don’t use all of the features of the program, but the features that we do use are fantastic in managing the day to day operations of our business. We really do appreciate the way the software caters for all sized business be them small or large.