Skelly and Couch select Workspace mini to formalise procedures and control Project Financials

Online, March 9, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Skelly and Couch LLP have purchased Workspace mini from Union Square Software. Workspace mini will replace manual processes and spreadsheets and deliver live project financial information to all employees.

Skelly and Couch is a building environment and service engineering consultant employing 14 people in North London. The practice was formed three years ago by Mark Skelly and Tristan Couch, former partners of Max Fordham LLP. Skelly and Couch strive to provide innovative designs for bespoke projects and were shortlisted for the best new firm award at the 2009 Building Awards.

Workspace mini is a revolutionary new product which enables small practices to implement best practice knowledge management tools and techniques 'out-of-the box'. Skelly and Couch purchased Workspace mini with Project Accounting and modules for resource management, timesheet recording, document control and the email vault for £25,000.

As a young company, Skelly and Couch have developed their processes manually, using spreadsheets for recording expenses, timesheets and for resource planning. Like most practices, documents are stored on shared network drives according to strict QA standards. However in order to support future growth, Partner Mark Skelly recognised that the company needed a platform to control all the practice's activities "When Skelly and Couch was formed a number of manual processes and controls were introduced to keep the practice organised whilst we focussed on winning work. Once the business was more established and grew to a size where we needed to introduce more control over project processes we began to search for a new system. Initially we looked at standalone systems for project accounting including PROJECTminder and Sage. We then looked at Workspace mini and quickly realised that it could manage not only our project accounting requirements but would also provide a much more comprehensive solution to help us manage the entire practice."

Skelly and Couch were impressed with the strong references that Union Square could provide. "The ease of use of the financial modules and strong document control procedures was exactly what the practice was looking for", Mark comments "Workspace mini is ideal for a practice of our size; it will deliver us with exactly the right functionality to control our practice and formalise procedures in a way that matches the way we work. Following the implementation we expect to easily achieve ISO 9001 accreditation. Ease of use was an important issue in our decision making and the intuitive interface will ensure people adapt quickly. "

Mark sees the purchase as an important step in the company's continued development, "We are still building credibility in the industry so it is critical we have complete control over project work and communications." Skelly and Couch are implementing the new Workspace Project Accounting functionality which provides integration to Sage to deliver live project financial information to all users. "Everyone in the practice will be fully aware of the commercial position of projects and have live access to all electronic communications. This will reinforce our competitive edge as a flexible and responsive practice. "