Scattered tools and no real-time view of project costs
ThinkPlace is a business consultancy with global aspirations, and it was managing projects across different geographical locations with a range of tools. Its projects are predominantly fixed-fee and milestone-based, and the work is highly collaborative. Project managers need to schedule projects around deliverables while keeping an eye on budget, expenses and invoicing.
The team was using one SaaS tool for resource scheduling and time tracking, another for accounting and yet another for project expenses. That setup created several problems:
- Multiple subscriptions: Three separate tools meant three separate SaaS subscription costs.
- Clunky manual processes: Tying project data together across those tools took a number of manual steps.
- No real-time KPI visibility: Without live project KPIs, the team could not track project costs against budget.
- Processes that did not scale: The setup could not grow with the business, and ThinkPlace needed one system that met the requirements of every country it works in.
“With the lack of real-time visibility on project key performance indicators, we were unable to track project costs against budget, and scale the processes for the growing needs of the business.”
Avaza for projects and Xero for accounting, in every office
Features ThinkPlace uses
ThinkPlace switched to Avaza for resource scheduling, time and expense tracking, invoicing and overall project management, and moved its offices onto Xero for accounting. Avaza's global capabilities and its native Xero integration made it a good choice to adopt both at every office.
“We needed a system that would meet the requirements of all the countries that we are in, and sort of “do it all”. We got all 3 offices to use Xero for Accounting and switched to Avaza for project management as it is all integrated and that makes it easier, more streamlined, and more efficient. And just the possibility of rolling it across to every other location that we have opened since then. So all of our offices are at the moment running on Avaza.”
How ThinkPlace works in Avaza
- Resource scheduling across hundreds of projects: Project managers plan and resource hundreds of in-progress projects, identify future resource requirements and optimise how existing people are allocated.
- Timesheets in a single click: Resource scheduling records feed into the timesheet module, so the team creates timesheets with a single click.
- Costs against budget: Cost rates let project managers view the total cost of each project and evaluate it against the project budget.
- Invoices in minutes: Uninvoiced time, expenses and fixed amounts are visible on the Account Dashboard and in reports, so the operations team includes all billable time on each invoice.
- Invoices straight to Xero: The native Xero integration takes all invoice information to Xero instantly.
A setup that travels to every new office
Because Avaza could be rolled out on a global scale, ThinkPlace has taken the same setup to each location it has opened since adopting it, including new offices in the US, UK, Kenya and Senegal. All of its offices now run on Avaza.
“What drew us to Avaza was that we could roll it out on a global scale. Avaza helped us take our international standing to truly global.”
Project managers now use a range of real-time reports to track staff utilisation, project profitability and more. Instead of piecing data together from three tools, they can pull a project summary report that covers timesheet entries, expenses and scheduling in one place.
- One integrated setup: Scheduling, time, expenses and invoicing run in Avaza and connect to Xero, replacing separate tools tied together by hand.
- Real-time project visibility: Reports on staff utilisation and project profitability give project managers the view they were missing.
- Time back for operations: Quick project summary reports have saved the operations team a lot of time.
- A global rollout: Every ThinkPlace office runs on Avaza, including those opened in the US, UK, Kenya and Senegal.
“Avaza has given us the freedom that project managers are able to really look at all facets of their projects, from timesheet entries, expenses and scheduling - using the various reports and functions that Avaza supports - and quickly get a project summary report that tells you everything you need to know about the project. The ability to do that has really saved our operations team a lot of time. The full-on impact is huge.”
