Nemai Consulting

The Bottom Line

NEMAI Consulting purchased ProMan in 2006 to replace an MS Access database to get the timesheets system under control and to move the company forward by implementing a fully integrated project driven financial system.

“ProMan brought best practice financial project management to our business”

Ciaran Chidley Pr.Eng.

Why Proman

Ciaran Chidley is a civil engineer by training, a working EIA professional and in overall control of Nemai Consulting’s financial function. Consequently his time is at a premium.

When reviewing the way forward for the firm in 2006, he started looking for an accounting system that was project related. The bottom line was that the firm needed a system that allowed full management control of the financial function whilst delegating the day to day admin; the ability to control timesheets; and a system that would automatically allocate costs to projects so that proposals would be much more accurate.

His overriding concern was to implement a “best fit” and “best industry standard” solution, quickly and reliably.

“We looked at ERP options but there was nothing that came close to matching ProMan’s fit for our type of business. ERP vendors could never give a straight answer concerning how they would customise what
they offered to what we wanted.”

A fully developed in-house system would have had all the problems of trying to brief programmers on what was needed for this type of industry with a future horizon of potentially high maintenance and ongoing development costs.

As the industry standard for consulting firms in South Africa, each client benefits from ProMan system development derived from experience across the total spectrum of users.

As a leading environmental consulting firm, it is important to show that it manages its business professionally. “ProMan enables us to send out automatic remittance advices to our creditors – even some big companies we deal with can’t do that.”

And ProMan has assisted staff retention by the confidence they have in how the business is run. “It’s a confidence and control thing. Our staff knows that if they submit their timesheets with their travel claims via the system, it’ll be put on the payroll. There’s no issue, no discussion. They get remittance advices professionally done. It’s important that our people know Nemai Consulting is well run.”

About Nemai

Nemai is a firm of about 20 highly qualified professionals in the field of Social, Environmental and OHS Consultancy. It was founded in 1999 and is a 100% BEE practice.

It conducts social projects in the local government, housing and relocation space, completing large linear and high value capex projects on time whilst reducing environmental risks. The firm has a site management division that carries out the client’s Occupational Health and Safety Agent and Environmental Control Officer duties. Private and public sector clients span mining, petrochemicals, bulk and general infrastructure provision, and housing.

Implementing ProMan has assisted them grow with confidence in terms of geographical scope and personnel.

About Proman

ProMan is South Africa’s leading integrated project and financial management software for Consulting Engineering firms and other enterprises, such as audit firms, critically dependent on time and disbursements for their income stream. Originally developed in the 1980s, the current version runs on Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7. It uses the popular Microsoft SQL Server relational database.

As well as Southern Africa, the system is also used in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, the Far East and China.

ProMan’s proven track record among Consulting Engineering practices is due to the following key advantages:

• ProMan is the industry standard solution for managing the complete Project Financial Management lifecycle.

• ProMan is cost-effective for any size of firm – from a single PC based system to a multi-tier, multi-branch, multi-national, multi-currency enterprise wide information environment.
• ProMan’s real time menu driven and graphical reports enable Project Management as well as Financial Personnel to rapidly assimilate key trends and to highlight key issues for action.
• Unlike comparable ERP systems, ProMan is rapidly implemented in a matter of weeks rather than months or years showing firms a rapid rate of return on their system investment.
• Akron Software continues to develop innovative, industry-specific modules for ProMan. These include ProTrack (automatic tracking and allocation of all printing and plotting costs to projects), CV and Project Information Sheets, Purchase Orders and ProDraw Drawing Management (integrated drawing register and secure drawing file management).

Akron Software

Akron Software (Pty) Ltd, which develops, markets and supports ProMan is a wholly owned South African application software company. Its head office is in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Take the first step towards streamlined project management with ProMan.