Milton Frank Plumbing was started, like most companies, out of their dining room, with one plumber, the owner!  Initially he did any kind of work he could find; lease spaces, re-pipes, service and repair, and an occasional new construction job.  They grew slowly while developing a list of satisfied customers.  In 2005, they received the PHCC; Plumbing Contractor of the Year Award.   Patty Frank states, “ Our first attempt at compiling any kind of data base was to record our service history on 3 X 5 rolodex cards, filed alphabetically by customer last name.  The turn over of houses in the Houston real estate market, especially those homes in our community, the northern suburbs, eventually made this type of system obsolete.  If the customer did not know the previous homeowners last name, or didn’t tell us that he had purchased the home from one of our customers, we had no way of accessing the history, or knowing if we even had any history of the property”.

Their next attempt in upgrading their database, was an investment in a custom written DOS based database system which allowed them to search by name, street number, street name and phone number. Patty relates, “We thought we had our database problem solved. Although this system worked, and was certainly much more expensive, it didn’t 'connect' to anything. All of our accounting was still done by hand, using a complicated series of spreadsheets and ledger books.  We realized we had a long way to go to get the system we really wanted and needed”.

In 1997 they attended the national PHCC convention, with the sole objective of visiting the software vendors that would be exhibiting during the trade show. Patty states, “We visited with all three of those present, signed up for more information, and went home to wait. One company sent us a demo disk to preview. One company called and set up an appointment in our office and the third company never called us back. I’m sure you can guess which one of the three we bought!  It was the CONTRAC2 software from Compusource Corporation supplied by their reseller partner in Texas SBC Systems”. 

Patty relates, “Len Woodruff, president of SBC Systems, visited our office, lugging his laptop, remember, in 1998 they were cumbersome pieces of equipment! We were scared to death of the DOS-ness of the system, but we were convinced it was the right fit for our business needs.  At the time we were running 6 techs. We were probably SBC’s worst nightmare! I know we were terrified of the whole process. I think I woke up with the cold sweats for weeks after implementation, visualizing crashes and disasters that never happened. Oh, we had our glitches, mostly caused by user error.

 
We had several people in our office who had never touched a computer unless it was to play solitaire, so we had some learning to do. But learn we did, eventually becoming very comfortable with the call taking and dispatch process. We quickly learned how the general ledger integrated with the accounts payable, accounts receivable and payroll modules. And, we started wanting something better!  Even though our reports all printed on the laser printer, the payroll and accounts payable checks still had to be printed on a dot matrix printer. A slow, sometimes loud, process, compared to the laser printer”.

In November of 2002 Milton Frank Plumbing upgraded to Compusource’s new Windows based Ascente and Traverse software system running under the SQL Server relational database.

They currently have two dispatchers dispatching 13 trucks, using the Ascente software.  They have 6 or 8 users in Ascente all the time, taking calls, entering work orders, generating purchase orders, researching customer history, paging and dispatching. Patty states, “There is never any slow down. And the good part is, it communicates seamlessly with Traverse, their fully integrated General Ledger system”.

Patty further relates, “At the end of 2004, we added two new features to Traverse, Payroll and checkbook reconciliation. We’ve produced payroll in house for about 3 months now and other than our checks looking different, everything works just like it did with the payroll service.  It even handles the Direct Deposit function. We just finished out our first quarter and Kelly, our accounting staff person, reported her internal audits went smoothly and the reports were very easy to understand”.

At the same time, on the advice of their accountant, they started producing their  monthly financial reports, something they could have been doing from the beginning, in 1998. Patty states, “Our accountant sat down and looked at what the software produced and after some minor tweaks and adjustments, they now mimic the reports he previously produced for us. With the addition of accounting personnel to our company, we’ve departmentalized our accounts, separating service, remodel, install and showroom sales, giving us a much more accurate picture of our company”.

Their next big project will be to implement the Inventory Control which is available in the Ascente / Traverse System.   

SBC converted their original data from their custom written program and when upgrading to Ascente and Traverse, they converted it again. Patty states,” We can tell you if we’ve ever been to a home, when, what was done, how much we charged and how they paid, if they have a bad dog, if they’ve given us a bounced check. We’ve begun to schedule maintenance calls for our water filtration customers using the reminder system and will be direct mailing to our customer list soon, using the labels we’re able to produce from Ascente. I know we don’t use the entire system to its full capability, but it’s become the central nervous system in our operation”.

Other staff members that use the Compusource Ascente software relate the following comments:

It was easy to learn.  Very user friendly.

Tracey, receptionist

There are many things that I like about Traverse over Contract 2, but the best thing is not having to produce Checks through the Dot Matrix printer with its continuous feeding of checks and the awful noise that comes with it.  Once all invoices are entered it only takes seconds to run checks. It’s wonderful!

Sue Bardwell
Milton Frank Plumbing

I think one of the best features of Ascente is that we are able to look up a new street or area that may not appear in an older key map by clicking the map key on the call taking screen.  It will automatically look up the address you have entered on the work order. This saves us a lot of time that is wasted searching for new streets not listed yet in our books.

Wendy, CSR

What I like about Ascente/Traverse.......I like that employees that know very little about accounting can not make many changes to the books in Traverse while using Ascente.  I also like that each month (or specified period) can be locked so that once the CPA's books are matched, no one can accidentally change them.  Another positive about the software is that the boss' and/or accountants can control access to specific areas inside the programming; therefore some errors are minimized and some confidential security is maintained.

Kelly, accounting

The partnership between Milton Frank Plumbing, Compusource Corporation, and SBC Systems illustrate how the right people combined with the right software will produce a system that not only tells management how they are doing financially but also gives them the tools to produce profitable long term growth.