Company Tracks Growth With mJobTime
Colorado cabinetry, trim and millwork company enjoys more accurate job costing while streamlining payroll
The economy has been rough on the construction industry recently, but despite the economic slump and the sluggish real estate market, Colorado-based RB Interior Trim has enjoyed robust growth and built a good reputation.
Since 2004, the nine-year-old company has grown from 19 to 80 employees. RB provides premium cabinetry, trim and millwork for large projects in the Rocky Mountain region, including resorts, hospitals, hotels and condominiums. Projects can last from a couple of weeks to more than a year.
Typically, crews of five to seven craftsmen and a project manager may work on several overlapping projects, so it’s important to carefully track each job and which employees are working on it. To accurately monitor the cost and progress of jobs, the company tracks each one by phases, as well as by categories, such as trim, hardware and cabinets.
In the past, most of that tracking was done by project managers on paper timecards. According to Patricia Ross, RB’s controller, the process was time consuming and often inaccurate.
“I had two major challenges,” said Ross. “To bid successfully and be competitive, the company needed a better job costing process. Second, I needed to find a way to reduce the time and labor involved in collecting employee time to meet the weekly payroll deadline.”
Looking at the work RB does inside and in the field that might be an understatement.
In addition to field crews engaged in installation, the company also has engineers who design projects and a custom manufacturing shop that fabricates millwork and cabinets for jobs. On any given workday, engineers and millwrights might do work for several different projects, so Ross must be able to accurately track the time each employee spends on a particular project.
“We have about 15 to 20 projects under way all the time, so we received a mountain of paper time records every week. I had to find a way to streamline the payroll
process and also extract useful data for job cost reports,” said Ross.
Ross researched a variety of different time tracking systems and finally settled on mJobTime because it is easy to use, will grow with the company, and interfaces with ComputerEase, the company’s accounting system.
“Before we found mJobTime, I routinely worked 80 to 90 hours a week, including weekends, to make sure that all job time records were collected and manually entered so that weekly payroll checks would be ready on time,” said Ross. “Now, my work weeks are pretty normal. I spend about 10 to 12 hours a week on payroll, and our HR manager spends about 15 to 20 hours a week verifying, entering and preparing payroll checks and reports.”
Employees in the field, engineering and the fabrication facility use a variety of devices to input their time and other important job data. On the job site, project managers use PDAs, the engineers log their hours in mJobTime using their work stations and in manufacturing, millwrights record their hours using a PC where the mJobTime application is always open.
Ross, by her own admission, is a workaholic, but since implementing mJobTime, she now spends her time more productively.
“With mJobTime, time records and other important information are sent directly to our accounting system, so now, instead of spending hours on manual input, I can access that data and use it to improve how we operate, like creating up-to-the minute reports for management meetings,” said Ross.
With mJobTime, company leadership can monitor each job’s progress, enabling them to swiftly adjust workforce and materials needs.
Ross says that’s a key mJobTime benefit. “RB’s owners and employees have worked hard to grow the business while building our reputation for quality. mJobTime is helping us succeed.”
