Civil construction.
Westforce Construction is a based in Western Australia and was founded in 2006,as an earthworks and concrete specialist. Since then, the company has grown exponentially to become a major contractor that specialises in all aspects of civil and structural construction works. Their key areas of focus are the resource and infrastructure sectors, and the company has completed numerous projects for the government departments of Defence, Water Corporation, Western Power, Main Roads, and Public Transport Association (PTA).
In December 2017, Westforce became part of the Raubex Group, one of South Africa’s leading infrastructure and construction material supply groups. Their expertise extends across a variety of sectors including materials, roads, earthworks and infrastructure.
To date, the biggest and most successful project completed by Westforce has been a joint venture with JWI Construction, which saw both companies upgrade the drain diversion system for the Vasse River.
As labour in Australia is expensive, Stanley Bubb, the financial manager at Westforce has access to a smaller workforce with which to run an effective financial department. In practise, this means that he and his assistant are responsible for managing the entire department from start to finish. This includes reconciling and paying invoices, completing all cost reporting and consolidating final reports for the Raubex head office.
The most important feature for me is the seamless integration between procurement and accounting provided by RIB with BuildSmart.
Stanley Bubb, Finance Manager
Westforce Construction
Before the implementation of the RIB solution, Westforce experienced a variety of challenges including:
- Manual and time-consuming procurement of orders and processing of invoices
- Ineffective reconciliation
- Faulty tracking of commitments and costs
- Inaccurate cost reporting to head office
- Defective payroll calculations
In June 2019, RIB successfully implemented BuildSmart for Westforce. Having worked with this cost management and construction accounting solution previously, Stanley Bubb was already well acquainted with the software which led to a seamless integration with the company’s day-to-day processes and workflow.
By integrating construction and project management as well as cost and accounting administration, BuildSmart empowers Westforce to operate as a successful construction company with integrated systems that ensure the correct execution and completion of projects.
Today, Westforce benefits greatly from their use of BuildSmart, with the software providing an approval matrix designed to ensure that the procurement of electronic purchase orders is always pre-approved, and the reconciliation of orders is cost efficient.
Cost reporting to the Raubex head office has also become effortless thanks to BuildSmart’s ability to export transaction listings.
Since implementing BuildSmart, Westforce has successfully completed a number of various projects such as:
- Excavation and earthworks for the Roy Hill Iron Ore mine in Newman
- The construction of a new access walkway for train maintenance by the Public Transport Authority in Ridgewood
- And the Vasse River diversion drain upgrade in Busselton mentioned previously.
Going forward, Westforce plans to implement Candy and integrate it with BuildSmart to harness the full potential of the RIB Complete Solution; providing the company with enhanced functionality and visibility of their processes and budgets in real-time.
