Benefits of Payapps for Sarah Constructions:
- Significant time saving – up to one day per week for accounts and project team members
- Streamlined process and improved compliance with payment regulations
- Seamless integration with Jobpac ERP software
- Fast implementation with minimal training required
- 100% adoption of Payapps by subcontractors
About Sarah Constructions
Sarah Constructions is a highly-awarded, multi-faceted South Australian building company. This third-generation family-owned business undertakes large-scale building projects in a variety of sectors including education, residential, retail, aged care, health, commercial, hospitality, recreation, and industrial.
Organic growth and acquisition have created a diversified construction company that includes a modular building division focused on innovative and cost-effective building methods, and a development arm.
A new payment claims process embraced by the accounts team, project managers and all subcontractors
Sarah Constructions is focused on building great relationships, and the business is always looking to improve processes and create efficiencies.
The company adopted Payapps to manage their payment claims and found significant time savings for accounts payable and project managers, improved compliance and reduced risk, and a 100% take-up of Payapps by their subcontractors.
There has been a significant improvement in the payment claims process since we introduced Payapps. As well as increased visibility, time saved by our finance team and project managers has allowed them to focus on more productive tasks.
Lewis Skittrall | Commercial Manager, Sarah Constructions
A complex, manual payment claims process lacked visibility and demanded a lot of staff time and attention
Sarah Constructions is a diversified construction business with a large number of active projects underway at any moment in time. To ensure payment accuracy and compliance with regulations, the accounts payable team and project managers spent excessive time each month deciphering and consolidating payment claims that were submitted in various formats by their large base of subcontractors.
Each payment claim required a number of manual steps and updates of spreadsheets and the Jobpac system, involving numerous team members across different departments. With 50-60 monthly claims per project, and around 30 active projects, payment claims were taking an inordinate amount of time to process.
Not only was the process time-consuming, but using email made it difficult to keep track of compliance documentation supplied by subcontractors, as well as deadlines to review and approve payment claims.
The company was concerned with managing risk exposure, ensuring payment deadlines were met and creating a more reliable process for the ever-changing regulatory environment.
A new solution was sought to streamline the payment claims process, reduce the time and resources spent on administrative tasks, and increase visibility between the company and its subcontractors.
Of critical importance to the Sarah Constructions team was how their large base of subcontractors, of which a number had many years of experience working with the company, would embrace the new process. For a business built on relationships, Sarah understood that the new process had to work for all stakeholders to be widely accepted and adopted.
A successful trial and a smooth transition to a more efficient way of managing payment claims
Sarah Constructions Commercial Manager Lewis Skittrall had prior experience working with Payapps in another construction business, and understood the benefits it might bring to the company.
With a remit of process improvement to help the accounts payable team and project managers save time and money, and a desire to find a way to increase transparency with subcontractors in the payment claims process, Lewis planned a limited trial to put Payapps to the test on a single project.
Payapps appealed to the team as it seamlessly integrated with their JobPac system, and it could be adopted quickly without major implementation and training challenges that are often associated with new software and systems.
The trial was successful, with accounts payable staff and project managers each reporting a saving of between half a day and a full day every week in time spent on administration.
Before rolling out Payapps, the project team took a close look at their subcontractors. Working with Payapps, they discovered that nearly half of their subcontractors were already using Payapps. They then designed a program of communication and consultation with the remainder of their subcontractor base to introduce Payapps and help them start using it in their businesses.
With their entire base of subcontractors on board, Sarah Constructions adopted Payapps across the business and all new projects.
Our business is built on great relationships, so it was important to us that our subcontractors embraced the move to Payapps – we’re pleased to say they all came along and are enjoying the benefits of using Payapps as much as our team.
Lewis Skittrall | Commercial Manager, Sarah Constructions
A streamlined payment claims process that provides total visibility for all stakeholders
After a full year of using Payapps, Sarah Constructions’ internal stakeholders have reported significant time savings, as well as simplifying the payment claims process for project managers.
There is increased visibility for all parties of the status of payment claims, and improved compliance is provided by ready access to important documents in one place. Payapps has proven to be easy to use and easy to adopt for both Sarah Constructions and their subcontractors.
With the payment claims process streamlined, the commercial team can now turn its attention to further improving business processes.
Payapps is saving us a lot of time every month, but just as important is the reduction of risk exposure and improved compliance. Our subcontractors are enjoying much more visibility of where their claims are at without the need to email or call our accounts team. Overall, the move to Payapps was seamless and a complete success for our business.
Lewis Skittrall | Commercial Manager, Sarah Constructions
