How DCS Transformed Financial Management
with Aldoa

About

Dynamic Civil Solutions (DCS) is an Alabama-based firm that specializes in civil engineering and surveying, offering a wide array of services in infrastructure development. Their expertise spans site development, transportation, and buildings, catering to both the public and private sectors.

The Challenge

Despite DCS's technical proficiency and successful project completions, they faced project & financial management challenges that hindered their operational efficiency.

One of the primary pain points was the lack of a unified system for tracking project progress, profitability, and task assignments. Bolaji Kukoyi, President & P.E., stated that the company used a combination of QuickBooks for financial management, Excel for tracking project details, and Timetracker for monitoring employee hours. This fragmented approach resulted in siloed data, making it difficult to gain a holistic view of project performance.

“It was very problematic because you can’t go to one location and get the information you need,” Bolaji explained.

This inefficiency was particularly evident when evaluating the profitability of completed projects. For instance, if DCS designed a 500-student school one year and received a similar project the next, determining whether the previous project was financially successful required extensive manual effort. They had to sift through multiple Excel files and timesheets to piece together the information, making it a time-consuming and error-prone process.

Another issue with their existing systems was the inability to track projects by individual phases. Engineering projects, especially those involving infrastructure, often span several years with multiple phases of work. Without a system to track progress and expenses at each phase, it was challenging to identify areas for improvement and ensure projects stayed within budget.

The Solution: Aldoa

DCS needed a way to streamline their project & financial management processes, consolidate data, and provide transparent, real-time insights into project performance to enhance their operational efficiency and profitability.

Aldoa provided the ability to track projects by phases and tasks, offering detailed insights into where the business performed well and where improvements were needed.

Key Benefits

• Enhanced Tracking: Aldoa enabled DCS to track hours allocated and expended for each phase, ensuring tasks were completed within budget. Employees could monitor their hours, promoting transparency and adherence to project timelines.
• Data Consolidation: With all data consolidated into Aldoa, DCS could easily generate reports and dashboards, providing historical data and performance metrics needed for optimizing future projects.
• Improved Profitability: The ability to track each project by phase and task helped DCS identify areas for operational improvement, ultimately increasing profitability. Historical data visibility allowed for better budgeting and pricing of new projects.
• Transparent Billing: Aldoa enabled DCS to build detailed time & materials budgets while still invoicing the client on a lump sum basis. This proved to be incredibly helpful for more accurate cost estimating, tracking of hours worked, and streamlined client billing.

The Outcome

Since adopting Aldoa, the DCS team has integrated the software into their workflow, with positive reception from all members. Bolaji Kukoyi is confident in Aldoa's ability to manage long-term projects efficiently, highlighting its importance in tracking historical data to optimize ongoing and future phases.

Bolaji reflected on the transformation: “We were running the business on multiple different spreadsheets; each project had a spreadsheet. It was too difficult and time-consuming to track data across separate projects. With Aldoa, we now have consolidated, easy-to-view data in reports and dashboards, allowing us to do better as a business.”

Dynamic Civil Solutions has successfully overcome their project & financial management challenges with Aldoa. The improved tracking, data consolidation, and transparency have optimized their operations, enhancing both efficiency and profitability. As DCS continues to grow, Aldoa remains an important tool for project management, ensuring on-going success in the civil engineering industry.