Process optimisation in finance and controlling
Success story from SSC-Services GmbH
SSC-Services GmbH is an IT service provider that supports companies with customised concepts for digital transformation, particularly in the automotive industry. With the help of Projektron BCS software, the company was able to make its controlling and resource planning processes more efficient and drive forward the automation of invoicing.
SSC services: IT solutions for digital transformation
SSC-Services GmbH, based in Böblingen, is an IT service provider with 200 employees that develops individual concepts for collaboration within and between companies. True to our mission: ‘Creating Connections – We connect working environments’, we are convinced that collaboration is possible from any location and can be optimally designed for every work and life situation.
Since 1998, our service portfolio has included IT services and products for digital transformation. Our expertise includes solutions for the technical connection and collaboration of large companies (OEMs) and their suppliers or development partners – mainly in the automotive industry. We offer development, consulting and services from a single source, providing our customers not only with comprehensive concepts but also with their implementation and support.
As a medium-sized company, we place particular emphasis on personal, friendly and fair dealings with our customers. The topics of integration, agility and networking play a central role both in the cooperation between our employees and in the cooperation with our customers.
Improving processes in finance and controlling
Until the end of 2013, we had been using a simple time tracking tool, which, however, generated a high level of manual work when it came to billing services. With the introduction of new software, we wanted to make our process from time and service tracking to service billing more effective and faster. Furthermore, we wanted to transfer our project evaluations and analyses, which had previously been done in MS Excel and MS Access, to a system-supported project controlling.
We came across Projektron BCS through a business partner who uses the software and recommended it to us. After a selection process and a conversation with a reference customer, who was put in touch with us by Projektron, we were convinced that BCS could meet our requirements. We have been using Projektron BCS in our company for more than 10 years now.
We started on 1 January 2014 with the basic functions of time tracking, holiday planning, project bookings and project controlling. This was a big step for all of us, significantly optimising our workflow and enabling us to control our projects. We quickly realised the benefits of using BCS more extensively.
The next step was to activate the CRM module in BCS. This not only led to a more efficient proposal preparation process, but also enabled us to map all project-related data in one system. Proposal documents, orders and order confirmations sent from BCS are linked to the project and can be accessed at any time via the project. This was followed by expense management, the recording of supplier and customer contracts via contract management, and the processing of dunning.
Finally, the requirements from the certifications and labels relevant to us in the area of project risk management were implemented. Among other things, this helps us to meet the requirements of the TISAX and ISO labels. We store agreements such as service level agreements and non-disclosure agreements for the corresponding projects, record whether relevant information values are processed in the project and whether scheduling has been contractually agreed. Risks and, if applicable, opportunities are stored in the project by the project manager.
Flexible and complete billing with BCS
By far the greatest process optimisation we achieved in 2017 was the introduction of billing in BCS. Since then, the invoicing of our services has been largely automated.
We provide our services primarily in IT projects, which are billed monthly and whose expenses must be documented in detail in expense reports. We have mapped the different requirements of our customers for these expense reports in various expense report templates. Using the project invoicing templates, we can control on a project-specific basis which report is to be created for which project as an attachment to the invoice. We can also individually store the customer contact person who receives the expense reports for approval for each project. The reports are now sent directly from BCS by email and this is also documented there.
We recently had this functionality expanded by Projektron to the effect that we can now also create so-called acceptance protocols as invoice attachments for fixed-price projects. The corresponding reports can also be selected via the project invoice template. In contrast to postings, these logs show, for example, payment dates for (partial) services. The creation of these fixed-price logs and their dispatch to the customer for approval is analogous to the procedure for expense reports.
Thanks to BCS, we can now also meet individual customers' invoicing requirements in ZUGFeRD format.
A possible addition for us would be a simpler billing and booking entry for customer maintenance contracts. We do not use the BCS ticket module and therefore record our support efforts on higher-level standing orders. We bill these contracts using recurring items on a customer project group.
Nevertheless, we were able to achieve enormous time savings overall by invoicing via BCS in conjunction with the DATEV export.
Future prospects with Projektron BCS
The numerous further developments and innovations in BCS enable us to continue using the software in the future, even with growing sales and employee numbers.
We are constantly discovering new features and possibilities that help us to work more effectively and efficiently in controlling and finance. In particular, we have not yet exhausted the full potential of the software when it comes to planning the use of resources in conjunction with the option of storing employee skills.
BCS offers a good basis for data transfer for further processing with exports and.csv views. For more detailed analyses, we export the data from BCS and process it further in MS Excel or PowerBI.
