SLAM

Top-ranking Architecture Firm Improves Collections With Its Third Elevia Financial Product

Prouct Used:

A/R Management & Collections

Company Overview

SLAM is an architecture firm with integrated construction services, landscape architecture, structural engineering, and interior design. We have an infinite drive to unlock and solve complex design problems. We strive to design exceptional places that inspire the people who inhabit them. Our design thinkers have a never-ending flow of ideas and energy. In short, we’re built around the exact services our clients need to take a building project from concept to completion, and to do it beautifully.

Having a lot of business is a good thing, except when you get so busy that your staff has little time to pursue collection of past-due invoices. That’s what has happened the past few years at The SLAM Collaborative, a top-ranking planning and design firm.

“Our DSO has been steadily increasing over the last few years,” said Lucy Conway, SLAM Controller. “We had to do something to improve our collections performance, and found the solution in EleVia A/R Management & Collections software, which integrates seamlessly with our Deltek Vision ERP system. We were already using two other EleVia add-on products for Vision, so we knew that this one would be just as easy to use.”

EleVia A/R Management & Collections allows firms to set up a communication schedule and email templates. The system then notifies the appropriate person when a client is past due and an email needs to be sent. With a click of a button, the email is generated and attaches the relevant invoice and documentation pulled from Deltek Vision. “The product does all the work for you,” Conway explained, “so you can focus on collections without a lot of effort.”

Why EleVia Software

Collections dashboard keeps projects on track

SLAM’s project principals will be able to use the product’s dashboard to track key collections metrics for their various projects. In addition to DSO, they can see Weighted Average Days Late (WADL) and Collection Effectiveness Index (CEI).

“Right now, we’re tracking the default metrics, but with the flexibility of EleVia products, we can adjust them to meet our needs. Down the road, we could add additional metrics, like Work in Progress (WIP), if we want,” Conway added.

First EleVia product shaved a week off invoice reviews

SLAM first starting using EleVia products back in 2010, when the firm implemented EleVia Electronic Invoicing. “We had a very labor-intensive invoice review process, and the fact that we have multiple offices made the process even more inefficient,” Conway said.

“Our Accounting team rarely knew where an invoice was in the review process and had to hunt down the project managers. Once we started using EleVia Electronic Invoicing, we reduced the monthly review process by a full week,” she noted.

“Once we started using EleVia Electronic Invoicing, we reduced the monthly review process by a full week.”

“That’s because project managers can now login from anywhere, open up an invoice to approve, mark it up online and they’re done. It’s so easy to use. And those of us in Accounting like it because we know the status of all invoices.”

Second EleVia product eliminated spreadsheets

Impressed by the efficiency of EleVia’s invoicing product, SLAM purchased another EleVia product two years later to streamline its payables process.“We receive over 3,800 invoices each year and had been keeping track of them manually on spreadsheets, which took about an hour each day to update,” Conway said. “EleVia Payables Approval & Tracking automatically tracks our payables and makes it easy for reviewers to mark-up invoices; the time savings is tremendous.”

“Our PMs appreciate that EleVia products let them process invoices and payables on the road, so they can be more efficient.

Asked to sum up the benefits of EleVia products, Conway said there were two key benefits. “One, our PMs appreciate that EleVia products let them process invoices and payables on the road, so they can be more efficient. And two, Accounting loves the transparency they gain, of being able to see the status of invoices at any given time.”

“Once we started using EleVia Electronic Invoicing, we reduced the monthly review process by a full week.”
Lucy Conway, SLAM Controller