Case Study: Safety Research Corporation of America (SRCA)

Type of Business: Software Development
Uses Web TimeSheet for: Tracking time and expenses
Corporate Headquarters: Suite Q Daleville, Alabama

Company Profile
Founded in 1994, Safety Research Corporation of America (SRCA) specializes in interactive software database development. SRCA's team of highly skilled consultants delivers state-of-the-art solutions for prominent clients such as the United States' Department of Defense.

Based on SRCA's expertise in aeronautical safety, aircraft accident investigations, and accident reconstructions, the company assisted in several key investigations for the U.S. Government. In addition, SRCA provides specialized training programs for organizations within the U.S. Army's Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM).

The Challenge
Working with prominent clients such as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), it is critical that SRCA deliver projects on time, on target, and on budget. In addition, as a DoD contractor, SRCA must follow specific timekeeping guidelines set forth by the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). These guidelines ensure contractor time and costs for DoD projects are accurately accounted for.

Several years ago, in order to keep track of billable hours, expenses, and project timelines, SRCA developed an internal time and expense tracking system. Rather than the easy solution that the company had imagined, the home-grown system was becoming inefficient and costly to operate. Time and expense tracking was slow and painful, involving plenty of data entry and a long paper trail. Managers and clients could not view project information or determine whether projects were being completed on time and within the budget very easily.

In addition, this internally created time tracking solution could not fulfill the company's growing needs. As new features were required, SRCA's in-house programmers were interrupted from their main responsibilities to code the necessary features. This process was painful, time-consuming, and costly. When an SRCA programmer began coding customizations around the clock, the company realized it was time for a better solution. In addition, SRCA was concerned about the possibility of being audited because their home grown time sheets did not meet all of the DCAA's time keeping requirements.

The Solution
As a Government contractor, SRCA cannot afford project delays, budget overruns, or billing errors. To deliver projects on time and within budget, SRCA needed a time and expense tracking solution that would provide complete visibility into projects. At any time during a project's lifecycle, SRCA must provide clients with reports on estimated completion times, total project hours, and project costs. SRCA also needed an efficient means for creating and delivering these project status reports to their clients.

In addition, the solution had to adhere to strict DCAA requirements. According to Susan Crump, Vice President at SRCA, "We were audited 3 months after implementing Web TimeSheet, and we were really lucky, because Web Timesheet made it so much easier to prove we were in compliance with DCAA."

After evaluating over 20 different timesheet solutions, SRCA selected Web TimeSheet. Web TimeSheet was the natural solution because it offered the richest features, the greatest configurability, access to real-time data, integration capabilities, and was fully DCAA compliant.

Thanks to Web TimeSheet's ease-of-use and intuitive design, SRCA successfully deployed Web TimeSheet in less than 5 days and had everyone fully trained in approximately half a day.

"Web TimeSheet was extremely intuitive, easy to use, and incredibly fast to implement, making it a very positive experience for everyone involved," said Crump. "The user manual was very helpful, so we didn't require any training from Replicon. Our employees keep saying, 'why didn't we do this a long time ago?'."

The Results
Achieved Time Savings of Over 25 Non-billable Hours per Week
Overall, SRCA has realized over 25 hours of time savings per week after implementing Web TimeSheet. Employees are now spending more time on billable, rather than administrative tasks.

Reduced Approval Process by Over 80%
With SRCA's homegrown system, approving time and expenses involved a lot of data entry, cutting and pasting, and sending hard copies back and forth. Approvals are now a quick, one-step process, which has been reduced from 3 hours to 30 minutes, equating to significant financial savings.

Accurate Project Tracking, Costing, and Budgeting
SRCA uses Web TimeSheet's historical project costing data to provide clients with accurate project estimates.

"We are able to accurately budget by seeing what we really spent on each project," stated Crump. "By creating reports on all of the projects we have completed in the past year, we see how many hours were spent and how much it cost for each project. We then base our estimates on those numbers."

Increased Project Profitability and Client Satisfaction Tracking approximately 44 active projects in Web TimeSheet is painless for SRCA's project managers. "Web TimeSheet ensures that we are going to complete all tasks timely and cost-effectively," said Crump. "With the visibility into our projects, we can now make quick decisions that keep our projects on track."

Web TimeSheet's robust reporting means increased accountability and client satisfaction. With just a few mouse clicks, SRCA now provides clients with immediate, real-time updates on project timelines and project costs.

"With Web TimeSheet, we know exactly where we are in a project and this makes us much more accountable to our clients," states Crump. "Our clients can call us up at any time and we can immediately provide them with a status update. With our old system, generating a single report took at least an hour. Now, it takes just minutes."

Over 90% Decrease in Client Billing Times Web TimeSheet's simple reporting tools have significantly reduced the time it takes for SRCA to prepare their monthly time billing.

"Our billing is now prepared in about 30 minutes, while it used to take 2 days with the previous system," said Crump. "With Web TimeSheet, billing is now completely automated, whereas in the past, we relied on spreadsheets and hard copies, which was a time consuming process, and not always accurate."

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