Featuring Don Neal Electrical

Brief Background on the Contractor

Specialising in commercial, industrial and maintenance electrical contracting, Don Neal Electrical operates out of Mackay in North Queensland. The company has service contracts for electrical installation and maintenance work on service stations and storage tanks as well as several major energy companies in and around Mackay.

Don Neal Electrical’s six electricians could be working anywhere in a radius of over 250 km including Bowen, Sarina and west to Moranbah.

The Problem

Customers were often under-charged due to timesheets not being filled out on the spot but when the electricians finally got around to doing so weeks later. Parts and equiment invoices often went astray and when they were found were often illegible and jobs were often charged out at different rates but no record of the rates were stored.

Don’s daughter - who had been successfully running the office for several years – had also become critically ill and Don was forced to pick up the pieces in the office.

The IMS Solution

IMS is a powerful web-based tool, the system allows all service calls and projects to be managed centrally from the time jobs are logged into the system, right through to final invoicing.

Issuing Don Neal Electrical's field technicians with easy-to-use PDA/smartphones provided them with access to the central business system, allowing them to record all job related data such as the time and date a task commenced and was completed, through to ordering and purchasing materials. This eradicated time sheets and job-cards, dramatically streamlining the administration process.

IMS personnel were available online and by phone to ensure all training and implementation issues were addressed.

Older field staff members initially found using the PDA/smartphones difficult, all agree that they would never go back to the old paper-based system.

The Benefits to Don Neal Electrical

Don estimates his measurable gains as:

100% turnaround time on invoicing
100% time saved managing timesheets
30% increase in billable hours

“ServiceTrack has given me more time to get out in the field and pass on my trade experience to others, rather than being a slave to paperwork.”
Don Neal, Owner
Don Neal Electrical

For the full story read the case study of Don Neal Electrical at i-man.com.au