Bowhill Engineering

A South Australian structural steel fabrication company with 60 staff and a turnover of $15 million.

Primary challenge

Double entry of financial and project costs causing inefficiencies and risk of errors.

OneCore solution

Integrating Procore and Xero, eliminating the need for re-entering data while enhancing accuracy.

Key outcomes

• Cutting data entry time in half
• Enhanced quality and reduced errors in data
• Increased transparency for the projects team, reducing the need to consult the accounts team
• Increase in CEO’s confidence that knowing transactions are accurate and easily verifiable
• User-friendly and seamless integration that runs smoothly in the background

Company background

Bowhill Engineering is a South Australian-based structural steel fabrication business. With 60 employees and an annual turnover of $15 million, it specialises in constructing bridges, defence infrastructure, and large mining equipment components.

Challenges 

Bowhill Engineering found it cumbersome managing data entry between their project management and finance teams. The respective departments relied on Excel spreadsheets for managing projects and tracking while using MYOB and Job commander for accounting. Because the systems failed to communicate with one another, Bowhill was double handling all data while needing to regularly check it for errors.

As CFO at the time (now CEO), Jodie decided to upgrade Bowhill Engineering’s tech stack through Procore and Xero, with OneCore to integrate the two. 

Wanting a developer they could closely collaborate with, OneCore’s responsiveness to customer feedback was key to her decision. “It’s a company you can work with. You can get in there and provide feedback as an end user,” Jodie outlined. “This is beyond fixing bugs – we can request features specific to our organisation and they are very responsive in meeting our requirements.”

With seamless integration between their accounting and project management systems, Bowhill engineering have been able to improve efficiency, visibility and accuracy in a number of ways.

Eliminating double handing 

Without the need to enter information twice, the integration has cut data entry time in half. The impact extends beyond efficiency: “It’s not just about saving time; it’s about the quality of data. We’re not making as many errors,” Jodie said.

Transparency for projects team

The projects team now has improved visibility over finance data, reducing the amount they need to consult the accounts department. As well as providing the projects team with greater visibility and control, there are notable time savings for both teams.

Accurate, reliable data

As CEO, Jodie has gained complete peace of mind knowing that transactions are accurate and easily verifiable. “In the past, I was constantly manually checking the transactions, wanting to know things had been processed, and people had remembered. And whenever there was a problem of figures not matching, I would have to ask why. Now it’s very fast and easy to see,” she explained.

The accuracy of data has significantly improved, with the company experiencing only two failed transactions out of 130 in a recent month-end checking process.

Easily scalable 

According to Jodie, OneCore’s seamless integration and user-friendly interface makes it easy to onboard and train new staff. “It takes time to set up, but for us in the front end, it’s set and forget.” 

“I absolutely recommend OneCore to other construction companies. We really appreciate the fact they are always improving based on our feedback, helping us make financial data management as efficient and accurate as possible.”