Lars Toft about e-conomic's craftsman's solution

Lars is running both a carpenter business as well as and a thatch roofing business - with assistants in both companies. He uses e-conomic's craftsman's solution to manage both companies, creating projects and sub-projects and keeping a good overview of his business. The assistants do their own time reporting in e-conomic.

Searching for an easy solution

"We were looking for a project management tool for construction sites as well as a time reporting system for our employees. We thought it would be so much easier, if they could handle their time reporting from home", says Lars.

e-conomic's craftsman's solution turned out to be just the right choice for Lars and his companies, because it is easy to use and does not require any major computer skills to learn to use.

Project management for craftsmen - not computer geeks

Even though his experience with computer programs is limited, Lars soon became familiar with the e-conomic accounting software. Together with his wife Lone, he now runs a short training session with new employees to pass on his tricks:

"I opened a computer for the first time four years ago. It took some getting used to, but it's easy find your way around e-conomic. I mean, I don't understand everything in there, but project management and time reporting are really easy to work with.

We will soon be training a new carpenter. He is 58 years old and has never used a computer. But I'm sure he'll learn this fast", says Lars.

Lars' wife Lone helps out with both bookkeeping and training of new employees:

"When we start training new employees, we invite them into the office and give them a short introduction and a little brochure which we have put together ourselves. We then make sure that they get their own login so that they can go home and get started straight away. All of this takes about 15 minutes.

If they are having problems getting started, we're always available on the phone to help them - usually their questions are about knowing which project number to report on or which button to press, but they all learn it pretty quickly.

It's extremely important for us that the software is user-friendly - our employees are craftsmen, not computer geeks", Lone adds.

Bookkeeping in no time

Every Wednesday, Lone handles both companies' bookkeeping. And that's something which has become a lot easier with the new system:

"Before we started using e-conomic, our assistants had to fill out paper time sheets manually. I would then spend several hours every week entering their data, trying hard to decipher their scrawl.

Today, our assistants do their own time reporting – with their login details, they can do it anytime they like – everyone has a computer! I then do their salaries, and when their hours have been approved in the system, each project is automatically updated. This gives us a good overview of how much time we spend on each project."

Lone is neither an accountant nor a bookkeeper, but she has a pretty good grip of both companies' accounts:

"I did go to business school, so I do know that 2 and 2 equals 4. But I'm a self-taught e-conomic user - and I have learned a couple of tricks from our accountant.

I create projects and look into which suppliers we owe money and which customers owe us money. I have previously used Microsoft's equivalent accounting software called 'C5', but it does not compare with e-conomic at all, as it's not nearly as user-friendly.

It is very valuable for us that every time we have visited a customer, we know straight away how it went – which expenses we have had and which earnings we have made.

In the beginning, we only used the project accounting module for the bigger projects, but now we enter all the jobs we have - even the small projects, because it makes a lot of sense.

For example, we do a lot of work for a school nearby, and we now use the project module even if we have just replaced a window there. It's really easy to do and it gives us a good overview."

Happy with the product - with room for improvement

When Lars talks about e-conomic's craftsman's solution, his words are all positive - he saves both time and money and he is entirely convinced that an online solution is the right one:

"My employees love it - there's no doubt that this is the way we are headed. It is easy to use and provides a good overview. In fact, I have even begun recommending it to others.

However, Lars believes that he has detected a bug in the system which gets in his way. When he clicks on a sub-project, the curser sometimes moves to the top of the screen. Then he needs to scroll down the list again to locate the project. Fortunately, Lars has reported the bug to e-conomic, who will be fixing it with an upcoming update.

But all in all, Lars, Lone and their employees are happy with e-conomic:

"All of our carpenters are really satisfied with the new system - they definitely don't want to return to the old system with hand-written time reporting notes", Lone concludes.