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Published January 26, 2023 . 7 mins read

Root Integrated Systems

Foundation Accounting Software user Root Integrated Systems isn’t your typical construction company

With offices in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, Root handles the design, engineering, installation, equipment-procurement and servicing/repair of a wide array of integrated audio-visual technologies.

These complex, multiparty projects include large conference rooms that bring people together in virtual and on-site workspaces; cloud-based training and educational systems for public and private entities; large-scale digital signage and video walls; and secure command-and-control/dispatch centers for government agencies.

While the typical Root Integrated Systems project might not involve a muddy construction site crisscrossed by excavators, backhoes and bulldozers, many of the company’s data needs are right in line with those of construction contractors everywhere.

Root began rolling out ProNovos in the Spring of 2022.

“We had different hubs of information sitting in Foundation Software—for example, data related to payables, receivables and the service side of our business—that weren’t talking to each other,” said Cassie Farley, Financial Services Manager. “We couldn’t cross-compare in real time how we were doing on our jobs. We also wanted a faster and more accurate way to do job-cost forecasting.”

BIG-PICTURE INSIGHTS, GREATER EFFICIENCIES

Construction data-integration also promised to give Root higher-level insights into project and company performance. “That was a big goal, because it’s so easy to get tied up with the day-to-day,” Farley explained. “You want to be able to zoom out and look at things as a whole: ‘On our average job of this type, are we going over budget or are we killing it?’”

Having cloud-based access to continually updated project and accounting data also saves time.

Farley, for one, has saved about three hours a week by using ProNovos to cut back on manual data extraction and reporting. Previously, she had to combine Foundation data and multiple reports to track and analyze profit margins and other key performance indicators (KPIs).

We had different hubs of information sitting in Foundation that weren’t talking to each other. We couldn’t cross-compare in real time how we were doing on our jobs. We also wanted a faster and more accurate way to do job-cost forecasting.

Cassie Farley
Financial Services Manager

We had different hubs of information sitting in Foundation—for example, data related to payables, receivables and the service side of our business—that weren’t talking to each other. We couldn’t cross-compare in real time how we were doing on our jobs. We also wanted a faster and more accurate way to do job-cost forecasting.

Cassie Farley
Financial Services Manager

“Now I can see profit margins for every job without having to pull reports, export them to Excel, build pivot tables and graphs, and scroll through it all myself,” she said. “ProNovos allows me to see right away where profit is dipping. I can quickly figure out what’s going on.”

Farley has also used ProNovos to streamline sales reporting.

“Before, I would assemble, publish and email the sales report every couple of weeks,” Farley noted. “Now our salespeople just sign into ProNovos and pull up that data themselves to see what’s happening with their sales.”

Before the contractor rolled out the platform, personnel such as salespeople and PMs routinely pinged the accounting team with requests for information such as the latest cost numbers for a particular project.

“If they needed that information immediately for a meeting, they might send me a message on Microsoft Teams and I would need to interrupt what I was doing, go pull the numbers and send them,” Farley said. “Now there’s no longer any need for that. Everyone has access to Foundation data in ProNovos.”

The system filters out sensitive information, such as payroll reports, and gives PMs, support technicians and salespeople exactly the information they need to see, often using data visualizations that are easier to understand.

“If you’re not an exec or a trained accountant, you may not want to scroll through columns and rows of numbers,” Farley said. “Salespeople might just want to see a bar graph of where they stand with their quotas. We had that information before, but it was underused outside the accounting team because it wasn’t easily digestible.”

Now I can see profit margins for every job without having to pull reports, export them to Excel, build pivot tables and graphs, and scroll through it all myself. ProNovos allows me to see right away where profit is dipping. I can quickly figure out what’s going on.

Cassie Farley
Financial Services Manager

Now I can see profit margins for every job without having to pull reports, export them to Excel, build pivot tables and graphs, and scroll through it all myself. ProNovos allows me to see right away where profit is dipping. I can quickly figure out what’s going on.

Cassie Farley
Financial Services Manager

COLLABORATING WITH PRONOVOS

Both accountants and C-suite execs at the company are using customized versions of the ProNovos work-in-process, change-order analysis and executive dashboards. Root also is leveraging the platform for descriptive construction analytics such as materials and labor tracking.

“The executive dashboard is one of the best ProNovos features,” Farley said. “It puts in one spot data that otherwise would be in separate places. It’s super-important to us because it lets us see how we’re doing right now.”

Executive dashboard

Root Integrated Systems also wanted to track KPIs for its successful service and repair business—a project that required close collaboration between Farley and ProNovos implementation expert Kevin Bright.

Root knocks out service tickets at a rapid pace—some of them in a single day—and the company needed a way to more closely track and monitor the status of those sales. An added bonus was the ability to filter through and analyze clients in a multitude of ways.

“We have warranty customers, equipment-rental customers, and even some customers that we haven’t worked with before that want us to do maintenance or repairs on their AV systems,” Farley said. “The sales report that ProNovos built for us gave us exactly the snapshot we needed for the service side of our business.”

SELF-SERVICE ANALYTICS

Root also was interested in an evolving capability of ProNovos—building your own reports (i.e. self-service analytics).

“Our current product roadmap includes further refining the platform’s self-service analytics capability to make it easier, more intuitive and more powerful for our clients,” said ProNovos Founder and Chief Data Scientist Bruce Orr. “Ultimately, we want them to be able to quickly and easily create the reports they need based on the particularities of their individual businesses.”

In the case of Root Integrated Systems, there was certainly a learning curve. Adept at building analytical reports in Microsoft Excel, Farley took the lead on using ProNovos to create a support dashboard for Root’s service teams, collaborating with ProNovos solutions engineers along the way.

“Garrett and Kevin have helped me at every step,” Farley said. “They have always been receptive to my questions. Even if Garrett doesn’t know the answer immediately, he will get back to me quickly to say, ‘Hey, I’m looking into this,’ which has been very helpful.”

Moving forward, the financial services manager aims to further leverage ProNovos’ self-service analytics to build forecasts that integrate data from other open-API systems used by Root.

What would Farley tell other construction decision-makers about the ProNovos platform? “You should definitely look into it if you’re interested in using Foundation data more proactively to make smarter and faster business decisions.”

You should definitely look into ProNovos if you’re interested in using Foundation data more proactively to make smarter and faster business decisions.

Cassie Farley
Financial Services Manager

You should definitely look into ProNovos if you’re interested in using Foundation data more proactively to make smarter and faster business decisions.

Cassie Farley
Financial Services Manager