Spates Fabricators

About Spates Fabricators

Spates Fabricators uses the most advanced design and manufacturing techniques to build open web wood floor and roof trusses for the residential and commercial building industry. In the past, some of the support solutions used by their business weren’t as advanced. Increasingly, Spates found themselves spending more time on administrative tasks, like Time Management and Payroll. After booking a demo with Mitrefinch to view their Time Management System it became apparent that change needed to happen, fast. And it did, in every sense of the word.

Spates Fabricators Cuts Time Spent on Workforce Management in Half With Adaptable Solution

The tail wagging the dog

In business you need vendors and partners that allow your business to run smoothly. Their products should support your business operations rather than your business trying to fit in with the supporting products.

Dennis Caplinger, Head of Special Projects at Spates Fabricators confirmed this had been the case at his company.

“Our previous HR solutions provider are a large company with an old, outdated system. Their service was poor, their product was poor and the solution really didn’t meet our needs. We encountered problem, after problem after problem. They didn’t have the ability or willingness to customize their package to our needs or adapt to change. It was always us trying to adapt to them rather than them adapting to us.”

Other common frustrations with the previous HR solution included

• Inability to integrate with other software solutions
• No customization to the allow the solution to match Spates’ operating procedures
• Slow response to change in industry standards and practices
• Inability to meet deadlines using the old provider

Enter Advance Systems – Time Management System

Once Spates Fabricators engaged, Advance Systems immediately began to investigate their workday to provide solutions and create efficiencies using the Time Management System.

Dennis explained

“The most impressive thing was they spent time trying to understand our business and make their solution work for us. For example, there has been a significant time saving in a simple process like logging the employee hours for the month. We may have halved the time this would have taken using the old system.”

Questions got answered

After some research Spates requested a demo of the TMS solution. Having been down this road before they were blown away by how Advance Systems performed at the meeting.

“We’ve seen a lot of demos from companies down the years but there were always questions left unanswered. If we asked for specific things that we needed, other providers always had to get back to us. When Rob Parks did the Advance Systems demo for us he answered every question right there in the room during the demo, he didn’t need to talk to anyone. And it was accurate too, he didn’t promise anything they couldn’t provide. Their product is so superior it allowed Rob prove it can do everything that needs to be done for us.”

Deadlines were met

Spates Fabricators implemented the TMS from Advance Systems in Q3 2015; immediately there were two deadlines:

1. The financial year end
2. In October, 2015, Assembly Bill 1513 added new requirements with regard to employees who work on a piece-rate basis. The new law went into effect on January 1, 2016.

“On those two different occasions they really came through for us. When we signed on, it was close to our year end and we got everything done on time. And then when the California Piece-Rate Compensation Requirements changed we had a legal deadline and we made it. We never would have made deadlines with our previous partners.”

Additional benefits were found

Not only was Advance Systems TMS able to integrate seamlessly into the Spates work practices, but the solution provided additional benefits for using other programs.

“For payroll we use QuickBooks which has limitations. So Advance Systems came up with a nice data export configuration that creates a report that we can then export from TMS to Quickbooks the way it needs it.”

Would Spates Fabricators recommend Advance Systems to peers/other businesses?

“I would and I have already. I’ve had several conversations with companies that have been interested in purchasing the software. “ – Dennis Caplinger.