Loven Contracting, with a home base in Flagstaff, Arizona has consistently grown for over 30 years. The company was wasting too much time doing multiple data entry, in different software programs, for the same item, which became increasingly difficult as they grew. Loven Contracting found Dexter + Chaney’s Spectrum Construction Software when they had to replace their obsolete software. Dexter + Chaney is the forerunner in construction ERP software that is performed in the cloud. Spectrum gave them one system to consolidate all of their accounting and operations processes.
“When it came time for billing, our project managers would have to sit down with our accounting staff and go over things line by line, reconciling data from three different software systems. It was an obscene amount of double and triple data entry each period, just to get things to line up correctly,” said Loven Contracting Project Manager Jed Westover. “We spent about six months looking at software and narrowed it down to two choices, Spectrum and another company. We got feedback from everyone in our offices and throughout much of the rest of the company and Spectrum won—largely due to its interface. Spectrum was much more user-friendly than the other system we were looking at, and the fact that it’s truly web-based was a huge selling point for us.”
Loven Contracting is prestigious as the leader in construction in Northern Arizona communities since 1985. They are privately owned and their areas of expertise are in new construction in every kind of building imaginable. Besides their long list of healthcare projects, they partner with the National Park Service. “We’ve completed projects where we’re rebuilding trails along lakes where everything has to be barged in and barged out. We do some really fun, involved projects,” Westover said.
“Being a Northern Arizona general contractor means that we get to work in some of the most beautiful areas in the Southwest, but this also means coordinating projects in some of the most remote and inaccessible areas as well.” Getting data from one place to the next via traditional means can take time. But since Spectrum is web-based, it opens access to everyone we need—and doing it in a way that is secure—not utilizing remote desktops or VPNs,” Westover said. “Spectrum will allow us to take a lot of the burden of data and documentation off our project managers and let them get back to managing their jobs—but now in real time. Before, we worked one to three weeks behind on projects in terms of understanding the project’s financial data and where it stood. It’s managing the project from the caboose of the train. Now we can see the data we need as it comes in and understand how it’s affecting our jobs right now. It’s going to save us both time and money.”
Westover plans on using Spectrum’s Document Imaging capability to keep and access documentation and follow emails. They will also use Spectrum’s Subcontractor Kiosk and Job Compliance Tracking capabilities which offers seamless integration of subcontractor data that will let them do all their own billing.
“It is my job to track all of the subcontracts on our jobs, to stay on top of the subcontractors for things like compliance issues, insurance, billing and more. She was currently working from about 15 different spreadsheets,” Westover said. “Now, with Spectrum, we can consolidate that all into one system and really streamline and automate these processes. We’re taking advantage a lot of these great features in Spectrum to cut workloads in half…or more.”
Loven Contracting stands out in its field due to how well they complete difficult work without straining their employees or inconveniencing their customers. They have not only built a lot of new projects, but have been able to keep relationships with past customers to improve other previous built projects.
“The motto that our President Mike Loven stresses is to continually take care of all of our clients and in doing so, these relationships will continue to contribute to the success of the business. And we have over the years, helping us grow into one of the leading diverse general contractors in our area,” Westover said.
Westover looked at many construction management software companies and found Dexter + Chaney to have caring sales engineers that took their time to explain how the software works and showed them how it would best fit their company.
“We are thrilled to be able to provide Loven Contracting with the tools they need to continue to grow their business, while reducing the burden on its staff,” said Dexter + Chaney President Norbert Orth. “Loven is a diverse company that has gone out of its way to please its clients over the years and we’re excited to work with them into the future to maintain that high level of excellence.”
www.lovencontracting.com.
www.dexterchaney.com.