Beginning in 1978 as a small building firm on Dublin’s Northside, Jerry Beades Construction has expanded over the years into a diversified family group (www.jbconcrete.ie).
It now includes both property development and construction, ready to pour concrete, the new EasyScreed self-levelling floor screed and a 30-bedroom guesthouse.
“We currently employ just over 70 people across the various enterprises,” says Nicky Beades, brother of the eponymous founder Jerry. He has been involved with the business from the beginning and after a long career in management in Aer Lingus joined the firm full-time in 2002. The technology used across the various companies is certainly under his remit: “I was involved in various projects with the Cara Computing people in Aer Lingus around the time Jerry started up, on foot of which I was responsible for advising on the firm’s first computer, which was way back in 1979 and we chose an Apple II.”
Technology benefits
From that very early stage, Nicky Beades recalls, it was clear that computerisation of the accounts, especially VAT and payroll, was a huge benefit for a small firm trying to grow in often difficult economic conditions. The company did indeed grow and expanded into ready to pour concrete in the 80s with the first mobile concrete plant in Ireland. This was initially in response to its own needs but there proved to be a ready market in other smaller builders in the Dublin area which were not a priority for the big concrete companies.
“Like most companies, we worked through a series of IT upgrades and generations of business software, notably in payroll – that perennial bugbear for smaller company administration – and in the latter part of the 90s a move to a business management suite that was tailored to the construction industry.” That move became particularly significant, Beades recalls, because the business moved into property development in its own right in 1998 with the construction of 61 apartments and 27 houses in Coolock.
“We found the package in the UK and it actually suited us quite well. We certainly became accustomed to the convenience of a system that was tailored to our industry.” On the other hand, support was an issue even for minor queries as was the fact that the software had to exchange data with the core financial application. By now this was Sage Line 50 and the concrete side of the business had invested in the ‘Weighsoft’ application, a complete ready mix administration package that integrates completely with Sage.
“By this stage I was full-time here and we were planning further development,” says Beades. “Apart from the support issues with our construction package, it was clearly desirable to have a single financial and admin systems across all the businesses for consistency, ease of training and a single management view of everything.”
Lucky break
By sheer coincidence, as he recalls, a circular arrived one morning from Sherwood Systems about the Sage Construct package. “We had quite simply never heard of it before, despite being a Sage accounts user. From first glance it had to be investigated and as we found out Sherwood is a specialist in IT for the construction industry. So we asked them to demonstrate the Construct applications. We had a full run-through and a subsequent session focussed on our needs. It was clear they understood everything we needed or wanted and what is more had experience of installing such systems in many other companies.”
So for nearly three years, the Jerry Beades group has been successfully using an integrated system across all of the businesses, working on Sage Line 50 with a full set of specialist Sage Construct modules. It has been also been using Sage Micropay since the late 90s, which handles the individual companies and is of course fully integrated in the overall financial system. Jerry Beades Construction is currently in the early stages of its next major project, a four-block 48-apartment development on its own site in Fairview, Dublin. Beades cites this project as a perfect example of the many ways in which the sector-specific applications are contributing to efficiency, control and cost saving.
Track and analyse
“We can track and analyse the project costs by apartment, block or total project,” he points out. “We are monitoring costs exactly as we need to, by materials, subcontractor, directly related labour and time and any other categories that might be useful as well as relating to budgets and estimates or quotations.” There other essential administrative tasks that can be even trickier, he says, but that are now taken care of by the system, notably Relevant Contracts Tax and automatic deduction from payments to subcontractors as required by the Revenue Commissioners. “These are important areas that can be quite a headache, with any error or dispute likely to be both troublesome and time-consuming—not to mention our legal responsibilities.”
Screeding
The newer EasyScreed business is also tied into the corporate systems. This is based on the pouring of a special self-levelling and quick drying compound that forms a solid floor screed. Lighter and thinner in use than concrete, under floor heating elements can be encased in a 35mm screed in less than an hour. The solution can even be used on wooden floors in upper storeys. “This is proving very successful for us, but of course every single site and room is different. So our representative visits every site and combines the final quotation with the measurement, assessment and specific site preparation required.” Using a laptop on site, all of the necessary information is entered into the system so that scheduling, materials requirements and so on can be incorporated through the Construct applications.
Smoothed out
Overall, the Jerry Beades team is essentially where it wants to be on a technology plateau at this stage: “We have ironed out our wrinkles and have about ten regular users working on a unified system that we are happy with. The whole point of IT is to enable you to get on efficiently and profitably with your main business.” Nicky Beades himself is the only manager currently interested in remote working and as we go to press has his ADSL service after a wait of over 10 weeks in Santry, Dublin. “Logging on by VPN is certainly going to be useful, certainly, especially for end-of-period management reports and special projects.”
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