The Background

Since 1979, Plymouth Electric Inc. has been providing fast and reliable completion of all types of electrical jobs. Their professional team in Plymouth, NE is just as comfortable taking care of your home’s electric heaters as they are installing alarm systems in large commercial facilities. Plymouth Electric works across all industries to provide complete, premium quality electrical services. When it comes to perfectly completed electrical jobs, Plymouth Electric Inc. is an industry leader.

The Problem

Prior to GoCanvas, Plymouth Electric was similar to many other electrical contractors in the world today in that they did everything on paper. The use of paper was causing multiple issues in their business including inventory control issues, mistakes in recording accurate data on job sites, and hours of back-office data re-entry into their pre-existing database systems. These errors caused by paper forms were adding up serval hours per week of wasted time and productivity, which equaled thousands of dollars in lost revenues

The Solution

Last March, Plymouth Electric went live with the GoCanvas App in order to start taking back the hours they were losing due to their inefficient paper process. Plymouth chose GoCanvas, the global leader in mobile apps for business, because of the flexibility of the platform and its quick deployment structure. Beth Weishahn of Plymouth Electric commented that she
 “enjoyed that we have the ability to change and adapt our app. If something isn’t working, we can change it.”Electrical contractors like Plymouth can search from over 20,000 pre-built app templates in the GoCanvas Application store that can be completely customized with the online, drag-and-drop App Builder tool.  Using that same tool many businesses, like Plymouth Electric, elect to build their own from scratch. They decided to incorporate features like interactive checkboxes, digital signature capture, integrated customer/parts lists(via Excel), and auto-calculations. Other features include GPS capture, image capture, barcode scanning, and more.

After signing up for a free trial of GoCanvas, a Senior Consultant reached out to Beth and the team at Plymouth Electric to set up a client success call and ensure the project go off on the right foot. During this call, the team at GoCanvas analyzed the various business processes at Plymouth and identified where things could become more efficient. From there, the GoCanvas App platform could be customized to fit the exact processes identified during the success call and be tested by the entire Plymouth team!This was done within days with the use of GoCanvas’ powerful App Builder tool, which allows “citizen developers” to create their own apps to meet their specifications without any coding or techy language. The GoCanvas App was able to be created, deployed, and field tested in just a couple weeks.

The Outcomes

Plymouth Electric celebrated their one year anniversary of implementing GoCanvas in March. Over that time, they have been able to eliminate over 1,300 paperwork tickets by implementing the GoCanvas App. This has allowed them to clear up the issues bogging down their inventory reporting process and avoid wasting their in-office personnel’s time have to re-enter the data from paper back into their databases.

Plymouth also commented that the overall reduction of ordering and using paper forms has helped them save on their bottom line. Beth Weishahn commented that “Cutting paper helped save an additional $1,700 for the year.”

Since Plymouth Electric fully deployed the GoCanvas App in April 2015, they have seen a dramatic reduction in overall labor costs and increase in technician productivity.

• Increase in Labor Efficiency – Since deploying the GoCanvas App, Plymouth has to be able to streamline their front and back-end data capture and storage processes. Now all the information comes back to the office in real-time as a secured PDF and is always available via the cloud for the technicians whenever they need it. They no longer have to right now everything with pen and paper, then drive it back to the office at the end of the day. “In fact, it’s been so efficient that we’ve saved approximately $475 per day in labor costs”, said Beth Weishahn.
• Solving Inventory Control Issues – By using the GoCanvas App, all the data is able to flow smoothly from the field crews and into their back-office systems. No longer is there paper to bog down the process. Beth Weishahn of Plymouth Electric commented that “Honestly, GoCanvas was our solution to an inventory control problem. We went from having our work tickets as PDF’s to a real money saver in terms of efficiency and inventory accuracy.”
• Getting Early Returns – Plymouth recently passed the one year mark of using GoCanvas and has seen dramatic returns on their investment. The savings have come from not only labor, but also productivity and material costs.
  Beth stated that “in labor cost alone our savings have been over $120k in the last year across 4 crews”.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.

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Case Design Accelerates Sales Cycles and Improves Invoicing with GoCanvas

Overview 

Apps used

• Home Repair Work Order (Contracted)
• Home Repair Work Order (Time & Materials)
• Plumbing Work Order

Highlights

• Project Managers receive Work Order forms immediately via email so invoicing or additional work can be scheduled.
• Calculations on costs and mark-up are performed automatically and therefore with greater accuracy.
• Craftspeople do not need to return to the office just to drop off paper work.
• The completed Work Orders are automatically attached to the customer’s record in Case’s CRM system, MS Dynamics.
• Their customer receives a PDF document customized by GoCanvas to reflect and match Case’s distinct branding.

The Background

Case Design is a family-owned, award-winning firm based in the Washington, DC metro area.  Started in 1961, Case has always been a company of innovation. Whether that is the work it does or the company’s process for getting it done, Case has pushed the envelope in improving the results it delivers for its customers.

Case Design offers a range of services from full additions, to kitchens, baths, and handyman services. Case’s innovative twist around its handyman business was to launch a separate brand and business called “fred” (www.schedulefred.com). This slick, contemporary offer required some slick, contemporary technology.

The Problem

Multi-part carbonless paper forms don’t scream “innovation”. They take time to fill out when you’re calculating job costs and margins. They are hard to read and easily lost.  And they need to be driven back to the office before anything can be done with them.  A truck is definitely a slow way to transmit work instructions.

At Case, the craftspeople were supposed to fill out the top section of the paper form first and get a signature from the client agreeing to the work. Then they were supposed to start the job. After the work they would add in and calculate the materials, labor, travel fees, and mark-up. “Calculations for the mark-up on materials was left to the craftsperson. This led to calculation errors”, says Karen Eckert, Sr. Director of Technology for Case.

A credit card number was collected from the customer and written onto the paper form. Another signature was collected.  And then it was driven back to the office. “In the past”, says Karen, “The paper forms required the craftsperson to return to the office before the invoice could be processed.”

The Solution

In March 2014, Case addressed this business challenge by turning to GoCanvas, the global leader in mobile apps for businesses. Thousands of organizations leverage GoCanvas’s mobile app platform to replace cumbersome paperwork order templates with highly customizable mobile forms (We call them apps!) that improve their data collection and productivity.

Businesses can search from over 21,000+ mobile app templates in the GoCanvas Application Store that can be completely customized with the online, drag-and-drop App Builder tool.  Using that same tool, many businesses elect to build their own from scratch. Factor in features like Dispatch, Workflow, uploading your price and customer lists, and integration with other systems and Canvas changes the way work gets done.

Set-up

Karen built Case’s work order using GoCanvas’s powerful App Builder tool.  GoCanvas’s professional services team then customized the PDF document that the GoCanvas platform generates to match Fred’s paperwork order.

Case also leveraged GoCanvas’s Professional Services team to connect GoCanvas to Microsoft Dynamics CRM in order to further automate the process.

According to Karen, “Building out the work orders and getting the integration with our CRM system went very smoothly. The team at GoCanvas was wonderful to work with. They created custom PDFs that look just like our paper form. GoCanvas was also very responsive to assisting me in building the work orders.”

The Outcomes

Case now has one cool team of craftspeople out in the field each with an iPad mini, and their fred business is more streamlined than ever.  Now what does their process look like?

Craftspeople

• They quickly populate the customer’s information at the top of the form by choosing the appropriate job number from a drop-down. The rest of the customer’s information is populated automatically using GoCanvas’s Reference Data feature.
• The Reference Data (their customer list) is updated automatically thanks to the integration with MS Dynamics CRM.
• They then review the job with the customer and capture their signature prior to starting work.  They have to because GoCanvas does not let them advance to the rest of the form until they do! 

After the craftsperson completes their work, the process looks like this:

• They enter their costs into the form and mark-up is automatically calculated for them using GoCanvas’s Calculation functionality.
• They collect the customer’s signature agreeing that the work has been completed to their satisfaction.
• Or, if more time needs to be scheduled, the form is updated to indicate that and it is sent off to the Project Manager right away.
• They can collect payment via swiping the customer’s credit card with the iPad mini (Case does not use GoCanvas’s mobile payment solution because they had an existing relationship with their bank for this.).
• The form is transmitted immediately to the office so next steps can be taken right away.

Project Managers

• The Project Manager receives an email with the PDF form attached.
• If the job is complete, then the Project Manager can close it out right away in their system. Electronic forms are much easier to read and craftspeople can’t skip required fields.
• If the job requires more hours, the Project Manager can schedule that right away to keep things moving.
• The PDF is automatically attached to the customer’s record in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

The Impact

A number of things have been dramatically improved for Case since moving this process over to GoCanvas.

• Customers are happier because jobs requiring an additional work request are scheduled right away.
• Case Design’s billing is more accurate because pricing and the associated markup is calculated automatically.
• Job close-out happens sooner and faster.
• Cash flow is accelerated. Especially if the customer pays via credit card on the spot.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.

Check out even more resources

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