MOS Mechanical used LiveCosts to:
- Produce labour and materials reports
- See what each project budget costs are
- Send out invoices quicker
About MOS Mechanical
MOS Mechanical are a mid-to-large plumbing company that work on one-off houses with sites ranging from 20 houses to 500 houses, sometimes with 30+ projects going on at the same time.
In 2021 the company was in the process of changing from Mick O’Shea Heating & Plumbing to MOS Mechanical which now incorporated Building work into their normal Heating & Plumbing. Currently the two companies run side by side as some sites completed on the old Plumbing company and new phases have moved over to their new MOS Mechanical site.
Visit www.mosheating.ie
Challenges
What Were The Challenges Before LiveCosts?
We were on the lookout for a better system that would suit our needs.
We looked at a few different systems but none of them were construction based and we found that there would have been too much that we would have had to compromise on.
Results
What are some of the main benefits of using LiveCosts?
We were worried that the initial set up would be very time consuming, but it was as simple as creating each project, inputting the budget information on each stage, and importing out price lists for each supplier straight from Excel.
During the first few weeks we noticed that we needed some way of tracking individual house numbers on each order / PO. We asked LiveCosts for a solution to this, and LiveCosts got the Reference line inserted in. This saves us from duplicating orders and allows us to find orders quickly when searching back a few months down the line.
As we have gotten busier, we have figured out what works and doesn’t work for us. We’ve to change the way that we use small parts of the LiveCosts system. For example, stock tracking from our own unit stock i.e. both stock we purchase direct and store in our unit, and also unused items returned from completed sites. This ensures that all costs are fully added to each project.
We can, at a glance, see what each project budget costs are at and produce materials and labour reports within the press of a few buttons. This lets us get our invoices sent out quicker.
Which LiveCosts Feature Do You Find Most Beneficial To Your Business?
The Catalogue is my life saver, it keeps track of all our prices for materials, it allows me to set special material prices against certain projects and I also add in all my sub-contractor rates, as with multiple house types and multiple sites we have different rates for every location.
Having the invoices loaded straight against the POs has been so beneficial as on one-off houses we would always have to look back on a house we may have done a year or 2 ago and check what stock went into a house so we can re-order that for a similar house type.
LiveCosts also gives us the benefit of sending our invoices for VAT straight from the PO system so that cuts down on us having to print and input hundreds of invoices on a separate system which ended up saving days on admin hours and saving on the cost of printing and storing.
For online support we get a response to any questions we have within a few minutes, the system is always improving with new updates.
Advice
What would you say to other people considering LiveCosts?
I would recommend LiveCosts for anyone who wants to see project budget costs at a glance. And if you are worried about the initial set up being very time consuming, don’t be, it is simple to create each project and the online support team respond with a few minutes to any queries. Plus the system is always improving with new updates.
