Associated with the crane industry since 1957, Baldwins Crane Hire currently run a fleet of 7-1000 tonne cranes from several strategically located depots throughout the UK. The company is split into three divisions that include Heavy Cranes, Small Cranes and Contract Lifting Services.
The Challenge
Crane hirers hire out their cranes with an operator specially-trained and experienced in the use of that particular model. In addition, invoicing is dependent on a timesheet system where the operator is required to obtain the customer's signature on the timesheet in readiness for charging.
“At Baldwins, each depot traditionally takes their own hires." explained General Manager, Lorraine Baldwin. "This gave us a co-ordination challenge when it came to centrally controlling and managing the contracts and invoices.”
Prior to MCS-rm, Baldwins operated Sage together with a manual, paper-based hire management procedure. With Sage, invoice information had to be manually keyed in and customer ledgers checked for payment status. It was only then that the Depot Managers would know if new hire contracts could be authorised. This was time-consuming and did not provide proper control of customer credit or invoicing procedures.
In addition, all invoicing was done from scratch. Weekly, Baldwins Head Office would receive batches of hand-written hire contracts from each depot and then had to key in all the information from the hire contracts into Sage to create an invoice. It was a slow and time consuming job.
The Solution
It became apparent to Baldwins that they needed to invest in an automated hire management system. One that would deliver time-savings, have a high level of credit control and would link seamlessly to Sage. The company was already familiar with MCS-rm, the comprehensive hire management solution, from specialist hire management software company MCS.
“We were comfortable with the functionality of MCS-rm,” Lorraine continued. “We knew the company offered excellent support, so it was an easy decision to make.”
The company’s initial focus was on streamlining the invoicing procedure and establishing reliable credit control.
“Once the depot managers were using MCS-rm, the system immediately began saving time and money as well as increasing accuracy,” Lorraine said. “What’s more, we can control customer credit centrally.”
The Benefits
Because Sage is now seamlessly linked to MCS-rm, Baldwins is in better control because they can quickly view customer information. This can include credit limits and available credit, their current balance, account status and any uninvoiced amounts as well as many other financial details. What’s more, by setting credit limits linked to the relevant customer, the Accounts Department can check that an account is in the black before initiating new contracts.
Depot managers are also in better control because they can create a contract directly within the system. Information for each hire is entered onto MCS-rm and a contract is automatically generated at a touch of a button. This contract details the unique crane number that identifies every crane in the fleet, the start and end hire dates, the prevailing hire rate and customer details including location of the hire. A delivery note is then printed out to provide the operator with all the relevant information and linked with the daily, signed timesheets once the job has started.
“It’s a simple procedure but the most effective for dealing with the nature of our business,” commented Lorraine.
Contracts and associated timesheets, along with any hand-written notes which, for example, could highlight changes in the hire period, are sent to Head Office for invoicing. Before MCS-rm was installed, each invoice would have to be created from scratch. Now they have to check the timesheets against the chargeable rates and any hand-written notes on the contracts before making the necessary amendments, converting them to invoices and printing them out for mailing to customers.
“This not only saves time, it also saves on the cost of pre-printing and storing boxes of numbered contract pads as we did before,” Lorraine added.
The Future
With everything going well for Baldwins, they are looking forward to activating more functionality within the system. In particular, Purchase Order Processing would allow them to take better control of spending costs minimising overspend by controlling who is able to raise orders and to what value.
Lorraine concluded. “Overall, everyone is very happy with the MCS system and appreciating the efficiencies it offers in reducing workload.”
To find out how MCS-rm could help your business, call us on +44 (0)1628 828000 or use our enquiry form.
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