The Challenge

Rapid growth outpaced a patchwork of apps and spreadsheets

1904labs started as a small software house in 2016. The business grew quickly, and its existing processes soon started to struggle: disparate apps, spreadsheets and isolated databases began to creak as operational demands tested how well the different systems worked together.

These were the pain points the team set out to address:

  • Clear priorities: Staff should have total clarity on the work assigned to them and its priority.
  • Efficient resourcing: Projects should be resourced efficiently, with the highest possible staff utilisation.
  • Easy time tracking: Staff should be able to track time on their assigned tasks easily.
  • Visible uninvoiced time: Uninvoiced time should be visible and easy to invoice.
  • Project profitability: Project managers should be able to evaluate the profitability of each project.

“Be very clear on what you need – what makes you successful? Find a PSA provider where you are more than a number, a firm that will understand your needs.”

Sarina Handa – Delivery Practice Director, 1904labs
Why Avaza

Chosen after reviews, demos and trials

1904labs did a lot of research before choosing a platform: reading reviews, weighing up features, then working through demos and trials. In the end, they chose Avaza for three reasons:

  • Easy to work with: The Avaza team was very easy to work with and very responsive.
  • Every feature they needed: Avaza had all the required features at a reasonable price.
  • Quick to adopt: 1904labs onboarded its team with minimal training.
The Solution

Scheduling, time and invoicing on the same data

Features 1904labs uses

Resource scheduling: forecast revenue, cost and capacity

With Resource Scheduling, 1904labs forecasts future revenue and cost, and can see whether additional people will be needed to deliver upcoming projects. Balancing the workload on the Team Schedule has improved overall staff utilisation.

Time tracking: complete timesheets, sharper estimates

The team tracks time easily against specific tasks. Project managers review the variance between scheduled and actual time and use it to fine-tune the estimation process, while timesheet reminders and approvals encourage everyone to enter all of their time accurately.

Invoicing: no more copy and paste

With all the data in the same system, the finance team can easily pull uninvoiced time into invoices. Previously that information had to be copied and pasted to create invoices, which was prone to errors. Just as important, billable uninvoiced time no longer slips through the cracks.

The Impact

Smoother operations, and no going back

With Avaza in place, 1904labs runs its business operations a lot more smoothly:

  • Clear visibility: The team knows who is working on what, and who may be required for upcoming work.
  • Less admin: Time spent on administrative tasks has been significantly reduced.
  • No copy-paste errors: Errors caused by copying data from one system to another are a thing of the past.
  • Forward-looking finance: With the data at their fingertips, leaders run financial projections and different scenarios based on the pipeline.

“With Avaza, the data is at our fingertips. We can run financial projections and different scenarios based on our pipeline... We can't see ourselves ever going back to pre-Avaza processes.”

1904labs