Aspire Solutions found costly mistakes and put measures in place to reduce human error
Company: PCL Contracting
Industry: Civil contracting – Roading and earth work projects
Interviewee: Luke Lee, Managing Director
PCL had temps assisting throughout a particularly busy period when the company was expanding and it soon became a major issue when key accounts were missing critical payment information. Thanks to Aspire Solution’s system knowledge and forensic accounting the issue was identified and resolved quickly.
“We are a large civil contracting company and have huge contracts so it’s imperative that our accounts are carefully monitored.” Luke Lee, Managing Director of PCL Contracting said. “When we uncovered an issue with some of our accounts it was a debacle which needed specialist forensic accounting and auditing to first find the issue and then fix it, which was a nervous time for the whole company.”
PCL Contracting was established in 2006 and works with local councils and major infrastructure companies. There are always tight deadlines and loads of costs which must be tracked and reconciled to ensure jobs don’t exceed budget and that future projected costs are correct for quoting.
How Aspire Solutions made the issue go away for good
- Aspire Solutions listened to Luke in order to understand how the issue had come to light
- Then reviewed all the current accounting processes to identify what critical steps were being missed.
Completed an audit of key accounts and used forensic accounting techniques to find the root cause of the errors, measuring the rework required along the way.
- The team cleaned up the accounts by looking back over the past years and liaised directly with suppliers and clients to obtain missing reconciliation information.
- Following this large reconciliation, Aspire Solutions set up a simple monthly checklist of processes to ensure that income reporting is accurate, and that income tax is paid on the correct revenue figures. Outstanding retentions are now tracked for cashflow forecasting and debtor management purposes.
- Aspire Solutions provided full accounting system training to the new full time staff which PCL Contracting brought in – Now Luke and the team can create their own reports and reconcile their accounts with ease and confidence!
Luke is extremely happy with what Aspire Solutions has created for PCL Contracting, “The new system and process is very thorough and ensures we get it right first time. We got in a new person with the right skills to manage our accounting in house and they were trained by Aspire Solutions. The business is saving money by no longer having to employ temps or accountants.”
“With the monthly reports Aspire Solutions created, we can now produce cashflow and reconciliation reports ourselves which is fantastic and I can see exactly how the business is performing.”
“I would definitely recommend Aspire Solution to other businesses.”
Other challenges Aspire Solutions has helped PCL Contracting solve…
- System support – “The administration team and I receive on-going system support from Aspire Solutions, we call them whenever there is a problem with the system or if we need to do something new and are looking for some advice. The friendly team at Aspire Solutions are always helpful and explain the process with simple step by step instructions.” Says Luke.
Helping your business…
Every step of the way Aspire Solutions kept the business goals of PCL Contracting in mind and used their expertise to implement tailored business management solutions.
Talk to Aspire Solutions today about your accounting system challenges – enquire now!