“JP Analytics flipped a switch where everything became a lot easier. The user interface is great.”
Upchurch Plumbing Controller Robert Vargas searched for the best way to present the data that was being collected in JOBPOWER construction accounting software. JP Analytics delivers relevant, high-quality detail the company’s project managers can act on.
Upchurch Plumbing, based in Greenwood, Mississippi, is a mechanical contractor involved primarily in plumbing, process piping, and HVAC installation of construction projects throughout the Southeast. Its more than 170 employees work on a variety of projects ranging from around $100,000 to contracts exceeding $5 million.
Once a project is engaged, Upchurch uses its JOBPOWER construction accounting software to manage everything including purchase orders, invoicing, subcontracts, waivers, budget monitoring, accounts payable, accounts receivable, as well as all of the reporting that’s delivered to upper management and project managers of individual projects.
In his role as a controller, Vargas manages all information related to costs, subcontracts, invoices, receivables, and more. It’s his responsibility to create and deliver reports to upper management as well as to the project managers for each of the projects.
JOBPOWER includes comprehensive construction reporting, but the data is delivered in a PDF format that doesn’t allow for the flexibility to dive more deeply into the information or modify the content of the reporting.
With the goal of delivering the best quality data, Vargas began investigating ways to slice and dice data from JOBPOWER as soon as he joined Upchurch in 2015. He integrated Data Warehouse, the precursor to JP Analytics, which provided a way to access the rich data within JOBPOWER via an alternate route than the included reports. Using the JOBPOWER Data Warehouse along with Microsoft’s analytics software helped Vargas to provide the depth of detail that his project managers could really use.
But as he was using these tools to create specific reports to deliver relevant and timely financial information to the project managers, JP Analytics was released. “It’s been a phenomenal success on our side because our project managers were used to reviewing ad hoc reports in PDF format whenever they requested them. Now they have a dashboard that they access that gets refreshed once a week.”
The integration of JP Analytics has allowed Vargas to save enough time to work on making additional improvements to the reporting that gets delivered to Upchurch’s project managers. And the time savings has been passed along to the Project Managers as well. Now they can get the information they need right away, with the level of detail that helps them to take action.
“They can really drill down into a more detailed level of their project, which saves them a lot of time. For example, they don’t have to go through a 30-page report on their budget versus actual reports. Instead, they can see the data from a high level summary and manage by exception focusing on potential areas of concern. It’s been a massive time saving for everyone involved.”
JOBPOWER has been a huge help, says Vargas, in allowing him to deliver more useful and actionable information to the decision makers in his company.
“JP Analytics allows us to give upper management and the project managers access to pertinent information and a much more robust view of all the information related to their individual projects.”
Watch our short video to learn more about how JP Analytics can make informed business decisions faster and more easily.