Thermal Engineering Increases Project Visibility with Spreadsheet Server

• Viewpoint Vista integrates with Spreadsheet Server to complement its native reporting

• Spreadsheet Server cut report creation time by 90%.

• Thermal Engineering can make more confident, data-driven decisions.

• The company has improved collaboration and gained greater visibility on project status.

Thermal Engineering is a Salt Lake City-based firm that specializes in radiant heating, snowmelt, HVAC, and plumbing systems, with expertise in high-end custom heating systems that are built to last. For more than 20 years, Thermal Engineering has been using engineering and practical experience to engineer and build the best radiant heating systems that provide a convenient, reliable means of warming homes and buildings.

With expertise in heating, air conditioning, and plumbing in high-end homes and buildings, the project management and finance teams at Thermal Engineering are no strangers to managing high-stakes projects. But prior to 2022, they struggled with time-consuming manual reporting in QuickBooks. Realizing the need for a more streamlined, data-driven approach, Senior Engineer Aron Frailey decided to transform the company’s project management strategy. “I approach business very methodically through the numbers because I’m good at math,” Frailey said. “I like to see how projects are performing based on budget vs. actual data. I like to see things in graphical form in ways where I can interpret and analyze the project.” However, running reports manually was growing cumbersome, especially when contending with both financial and project-based reports. “Since I do plumbing, radiant heating, gas pipe, and HVAC, I like to track them independently of each other so I can analyze, ‘How did the plumbing do? How did the HVAC do?’ Then, I look at it as an overall whole,” Frailey said. His team was burning valuable time manually exporting, manipulating, and reporting in QuickBooks, which would take 30 minutes each time before they had to double and triple-check to ensure the information was correct. Frailey also valued ease of use. He needed an ERP system and reporting tools that were intuitive to use and easy to interpret for both him and the construction teams he works alongside. “Software is a tough sell in construction,” Frailey explained. “A lot of people in my industry are hands-on. They come up in the trades and are very good at working with their hands and are highly skilled that way. They’re incredibly smart and understand the dynamics of those systems, but they struggle with computers. That’s a big challenge for my industry–trying to nail the power of automation and software capabilities to do some of the tasks–the reporting, the bookkeeping, up to design.” To overcome this challenge, Thermal Engineering partnered with Trimble, an industry leader in construction-specific, cloud-based solutions. Trimble’s purpose-built construction ERP, Viewpoint Vista, offered the company the ability to deploy in the cloud with managed hosting, giving Frailey’s team greater flexibility. Its native Crystal Reports also made gathering financial insights significantly easier and more efficient; however, custom project reporting still posed a hurdle. To enhance their system further, Trimble suggested Thermal Engineering consider Spreadsheet Server from insightsoftware, the most comprehensive provider of solutions for the office of the CFO.

Upon switching to the new ERP, Thermal Engineering’s Trimble representative recommended Spreadsheet Server for reporting out of the business’s general ledger. Initially, Frailey was hesitant to adopt another piece of technology, but that was before he discovered what Spreadsheet Server was capable of. “At first, I thought, ‘I don’t need another software system,’ but I didn’t know what I do now,” Frailey pointed out. “When I started poking around, that’s when the lights started going on.” While Viewpoint Vista’s native Crystal Reports helped Thermal Engineering gather financial insights more efficiently, Spreadsheet Server added new dimensions of reporting efficiency by automating project reporting with the ability to create customized reports to fit the company’s unique needs. The powerful combination of Viewpoint Vista and Spreadsheet Server allowed Thermal Engineering to augment its project management capabilities dramatically. The company now enjoys time-efficient report generation, easy access to current and historical data, and the ability to identify and respond to trends—all within a single, user-friendly report. “If I want to automate a project, I click one button and it brings up all our jobs,” Frailey explained. “I can pick any job and run it. Rather than having to go into Vista or tracking down where my costs are, Spreadsheet Server automatically runs the report and tabulates everything right in Excel.”

Among the various features that Spreadsheet Server offers, Thermal Engineering found the Query Designer tool particularly useful. With it, Frailey can create customized reports, providing both a comprehensive overview of ongoing projects and in-depth insights into their specifics. The reports he creates allow him to rest easy with up-to-date supply chain knowledge and detailed project status. “I’m not worried about supply chain as much as tracking what’s purchased for a specific job,” Frailey said. “In Spreadsheet Server, I can click on a cost drilldown, see the labor that was spent on the job, who has done what, and at what time. From a materials standpoint, I can check where things are at. I don’t even have to worry about supply chain issues.” With the visibility he’s gained from using Spreadsheet Server, Frailey is confident that his choices are based on solid, accurate information. “I have enough data at my fingertips to make confident business decisions.” This information is shared with the company management team so they can make informed decisions.

Before adopting Spreadsheet Server, Frailey’s reporting process consisted of building a spreadsheet by pulling numbers from QuickBooks, reporting on the data, and then importing it back. The entire process would take four to six hours per report. These reports also weren’t interactive or refreshable–if Frailey needed to generate a new report, he’d have to start from scratch. But with Spreadsheet Server’s Viewpoint Vista integration, creating a custom report in Excel now takes Frailey less than 10 minutes. When he needs to update the same report, all he needs to do is refresh and it will be ready within minutes. He also works closely with his insightsoftware consultant to create new custom reports and learn more about how to best leverage Spreadsheet Server with Viewpoint Vista. “Once I began working with our rep, the progress we’ve made just snowballed. It used to take me a lot of time to pull the information out of QuickBooks and make it just so,” Frailey explained. “Reporting with Spreadsheet Server is as seamless as it is convenient.”

As a project-based company, Thermal Engineering needs to generate more than financial reports to monitor business health. Keeping track of individual projects is essential for ensuring success. With the reports Frailey creates with Query Designer, he and his team can keep track of projects more efficiently. “I can see immediately how a project is doing without having to go in and see the individual numbers,” he said. When Frailey needs up-to-the-minute data on project status or an individual employee, he can access it at the click of a button. “When a guy clocks in, it will show me how many hours they’ve clocked in during this pay period that hasn’t been posted to Viewpoint yet,” said Frailey. “What I see is a focus on the numbers–labor numbers, material numbers, travel numbers–which give my managers more visibility on projects to help make them make decisions more quickly.” Thanks to the partnership between Trimble’s Viewpoint Vista and Spreadsheet Server from insightsoftware, Thermal Engineering was able to achieve unprecedented levels of project transparency. Detailed project status updates, a thorough understanding of the supply chain, and enhanced faith in data-backed decision-making all became a part of their everyday operations. Request a demo to see how Spreadsheet Server can help your business achieve significant time savings with month-end financial reporting and greater visibility into essential projects for data-driven decisions and better business outcomes.