Profile at a Glance: Premier Countertops was founded in 2002 as a provider of solid surface countertops in Omaha. Today the company has added quartz surfacing and natural stone to the product mix and has expanded into a 15,000 sq. ft. building. In addition to fabricating and installing approximately 20 jobs per week in Omaha, Premier also fabricates stone countertops for the Des Moines area and ships solid surface vanity tops to dealers across the Mid and Far West.
The Problem: The combination of Excel spreadsheets and a scheduling whiteboard simply couldn’t handle the rapid influx of jobs as Premier Countertops expanded. Making changes and updating schedules were cumbersome and required excessive manpower to maintain.
“It turned into a huge problem as we grew,” says Premier’s Mory Ludwick. “With the Excel system we had to paper file everything and if someone called up with questions we had to physically go and find the file. We had a grease board on the wall for scheduling. We went through a lot of Sharpies. We would put up a job, erase it, move it and then erase it again every time there was a change.”
The Moraware Solution: Although Premier Countertops originally bought JobTracker just for its scheduling feature, it has come to rely on the program for managing the entire business. Quotations, contact management, scheduling, inventory control and purchasing are all now handled through JobTracker.
“We could never do the kind of volume we have now without JobTracker,” Ludwick explains. “It is the easiest part of our operation and is the most valuable piece of software we have. It is the most used anything in our shop.”
“We have JobTracker on our own server. In our new location we built a room that is concrete block with steel doors that houses our communications equipment and servers. Someone could break in here and steal everything, but our software stays. That’s how important it is.”
“Another thing I like about JobTracker is if somebody comes in and says we quoted them a job a few weeks ago I can find it by typing in their address, their phone number or their last name. There are so many ways to search for someone in there. It is very powerful, but easy to understand. I wouldn’t have it if I couldn’t understand it.”
“The calendar is one of the biggest things for us. We move jobs so fast. Our calendar today is full and by tomorrow I guarantee you one or two jobs on there will get moved.”
“There is no other software for me. I have been at the shows and looked at the other software and for what it does, and for the price, you can’t go wrong. The support alone is worth the money. They are there for you all the time.”
“We could quadruple our volume and I think the software would keep up.”
“If we were to lose JobTracker we would be in trouble. We use it for everything.”
