Established in 1955, Vaughan Engineering Services Ltd is a leading mechanical and electrical building services engineering contractor operating throughout the UK and Ireland. The company offers a comprehensive range of services – design, manufacture, installation, and maintenance of complex engineering systems – across a variety of both public and private development projects.
From offices in Belfast, Manchester and Newcastle, Vaughan Engineering Services operates with a commitment to collaboration, ownership and delivery, ensuring that buildings are brought to life through efficient and innovative engineering solutions.
Efficiency and collaboration are also important in the company’s back-office processes, which is why the team turned their attention to improving their management of applications for payment when using a paper-based system was proving to be a challenge.
Andrew Vaughan, Commercial Finance Director at Vaughan Engineering Services, comments, “We could have 30 to 40 subcontractors on a job at any one time and they were all submitting their applications in a different format. That was becoming very difficult and time-consuming to manage for our quantity surveyors, who were already under time pressure.”
The team also recognised there was a need for a single source of shared information relating to payment applications in order to improve communication and collaboration between the commercial and finance teams, as well as between the business and its supply chain.
“We had a manual process,” explains Andrew, “where certificates were passed to our Accounts team and then reviewed and put onto the payment system for processing – that’s a lot of data re-keying and duplication of effort, which brought a significant risk of error.”
Indeed, Andrew and his colleagues were aware that relying on a paper-based application for payment process posed a number of risks – missed construction payment notice deadlines should the quantity surveyor receiving the application be on leave for example, and multiple application formats leading to misinterpretation of data and calculation inaccuracies.
As such, Vaughan Engineering Services decided it was time to digitise their application for payment process. “It was actually during the coronavirus lockdown that it became apparent we could no longer rely on the paper-based administration of our supply chain applications,” comments Andrew. “It made sense to move away from the traditional, labour-intensive manual methods and switch to using Payapps software, which we’ve had for a number of years now.”
Easy-to-use and quick to set-up, Payapps ensures there is one source of information available to everyone working on a project; commercial and finance teams as well as subcontractors.
“Payapps provides us with all the information in one place,” Andrew says, “so we can more simply manage applications and variations, as well as have oversight and more control of their status and associated costs. We can even identify where extra commercial support might need to be allocated. It’s fantastic to have the option to dive into the line-by-line detail on each job, or step back for an overall business perspective across all projects.
“Payapps is accessible to our supply chain too, meaning subcontractors submit applications in a standardised format which is far easier for all concerned; it minimises errors right from submission and removes potential delays to payment.
“Key for our subcontractors is that they don’t have to spend time trying to get through to the accounts office or to the project team, they can access information at the click of a button. Payapps provides them with a centralised record of exactly what’s been applied for, how much has or hasn’t been approved, and the reasons behind those decisions. Being able to see what’s due and when gives them good control. And if subcontractors do call us querying payment, we know exactly where in the process it’s sitting, and who to chase to quickly provide answers.
“A single source of truth also means we don’t risk applications and associated payment notices being missed, no matter who’s away from the business… it would simply be reassigned within Pappaps. Any disputes we have experienced are quickly resolved because all the data is easily to hand, meaning the subcontractor is soon back on site again. It certainly removes a level of stress.”
Subcontractors aren’t the only ones more consistently on site – members of Vaughan Engineering Services’ commercial team are now less burdened by application for payment administration and can spend quality time on more meaningful and valuable activity.
“You don’t want a quantity surveyor stuck in an office just doing his notices,” states Andrew. “You want them out and about on site. So that’s the biggest time-saver for us.”
Vaughan Engineering Services has recently opted to integrate Payapps with its ERP system, Eque2 EVision. “That’s a game-changer for us,” says Andrew. “Once the certificate is signed off and has gone through the approval process, it will be live in our accounting system ready for payment, with no need to rekey anything, no duplicated entries, and more time saved. It’s been a serious amount of work for the Payapps team but, of course, it can be rolled out to other EVision users too.”
In terms of support from Payapps, the team at Vaughan Engineering Services continues to have a really positive experience. “Throughout, we’ve had a dedicated account manager as well as easy access to a very responsive support team that serves both Vaughan and our supply chain,” says Andrew. “Change can be difficult but all parties have adopted the software without issue such that we’re now using it across all of our projects. I think that’s testament to the fantastic support we’ve had. There’s no need for a user manual – we just use the in-app chat or pick up the phone. It’s personal and nothing has ever been a problem.
“Payapps has made the jobs of our finance team easier and has streamlined the admin process for our commercial functions. So I very much recommend Payapps – I see them as a partner of our business; one that has supported our growth without us having to onboard additional overhead.”
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