Basson & Close

Overview

Basson & Close (B&C) is one of only a very few South African QS firms that specialise in large mining, engineering and process work. As a young company, B&C is strongly focused on delivering superior service to their clients. By choosing to implement ProMan, directors and other senior staff saved enormous, non-income producing time spent every month on sorting out problems with their “patchwork” financial admin system. ProMan is key to underpinning Basson & Close’s service ethic, by relieving staff of hassles with monthly invoicing, enabling staff to be hands on with projects whilst growing the business.

“ProMan supports our strong service drive by eliminating time we used to spend on financial admin.”

Brandon Close – Director

Background

Basson & Close (B&C) are one of a very few substantial South African QS firms that specialise in large mining, engineering and process work as well as covering other traditional areas of the QS business.

Unlike the vast majority of small QS companies who work on a fixed rates/fee basis, B&C bills by the hour so that the accurate tracking of time and disbursements related to clients’ projects is critical. Brandon Close, a director of the company, commented:

“ProMan simply worked for us. We came from a background of Pastel Evolution and spreadsheets. Our system was cumbersome. It took a lot of our time. We spent a lot of man hours, even director man hours, looking after the system, questioning and so on.

And that was with a full-time accountant in our employ. All she did was to capture the various bits and pieces, and do the invoicing. And every month end we had major problems with our invoicing. Now the only issues are very minor – such as a timesheet not being posted, or an invoice captured” explained Close. “With ProMan, we don’t have these problems. Financials and reports, such as staff utilisation, are all there, all the time – they are absolutely key to our business.

ProMan gives me an instant overview of how the business as a whole is doing. I can even do exports into Excel if I want to.” said Close.

Saving Money

Basson & Close has significantly reduced its administrative overhead by eliminating the need to employ a full time accountant. “We get very good telephone support from Akron Software when we need it. You simply don’t need a sizeable accounts department to run ProMan,” he believes.

Brandon Close concludes, “ProMan assists us with achieving our customer service focus by relieving us from wasting time on non-income earning administrative chores. Our goal is to go that bit further, do that little more. Superior service delivering better customer value is our mission. ProMan helps us achieve just that.

I’m an avid supporter of ProMan. We’re comfortable about telling other companies why we use it, and the benefits it has brought to Basson & Close”.

About Basson & Close

Basson and Close Quantity Surveyors (Pty) Ltd is a South African based and registered Professional Quantity Surveying Practice specialising in the cost management of sizeable engineering, mining, process and industrial projects.

Each director is closely involved with clients and projects in a hands on way because that is key to its competitive service and value delivery. Major clients include Assmang, Lonmin, and Northern Plats.

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.