
MultiCAT 2010 will
be released in late
April.
Over the next 4
weeks we will be
providing you with
information about
the new version.
This is a really
exciting development, MultiCAT is
better than ever and
has taken a real
step forward in
technology. There is
a focus on you
being able to use
and manipulate your
own data, defined by your
own criteria.
More intuitive
searching functions
makes data
retrieval fast and
friendly.
Naturally you will want to
have a look, so we will be running a
series of 15-30 minute webinars on
specific modules which you are
invited to attend selectively from the comfort
of your own desk.
|
SNIPPETS |
|
|
Trade Letting |
Trade Letting
has been stream
lined to allow
flexibility to suit
different styles of
operation and job
types. So whether
you use an on line
document management
system, do things
traditionally or a
mixture of both,
MultiCAT can rise to
the occasion and
streamline this
process and the
email interface is
excellent.
There are
also some great
tender tools such as
Pre-Letting Minutes,
Check Sheets,
Schedules,
Modifiable
Invitation and
Acceptance Letters
to name a few. Once
the estimator
identifies the
preferred price from
each trade
the price and your
allowances will
be added to the
estimate. |
|
Data Management |
Reports can now be
filtered and sorted
so you can view and
print data to suit
your own
criteria.
This is incredibly
powerful and offers
outstanding
flexibility. |
|
Consultant
Communication |
This module has
always been great
for managing the
ever increasing
volume of
RFI’s,
additional features
have been added for
logging response
documents on the fly
and providing a
hyperlink to
documents so you can
look up documents
quickly.
Putting a time claim
together has never
been so easy as all
information is
available at the
click of a button.
|
|
|
Emailing of documents and communication is now really fast and has so much more flexibility with copies to and bulk documents such as general project notices. |
|
Adding Contacts |
Add a new contact from project master or project team |
| Multiple Trades | Subcontractors can now be assigned to several trades |
| Multiple Relationships | Contacts can now have multiple relationships (ie: service provider and subcontractor) |
| Cost Codes | Grouping of cost codes provides much more flexibility with estimating, budgets and cost reports |
| Estimating Cross Check | Lead Management now has a forecasting tool which also serves as an estimate cross check |
| Insurance Tracking | Insurance tracking is now available from contacts and can be viewed individually or all, this is great. |
| Annual Contracts | Annual contracts tracking module has been added |
| Address | Update postal address from street address plus all post codes have been automated |
| Plant Costs | Plant and Equipment can now be charged to jobs in a very administratively friendly way. Any plant transferred to a job will be charged at the relevant day rate until it is transferred to another job or back to the yard. Managing plant charges is always difficult and often creates an administration nightmare also there is a need for jobs to off hire / return what they are not using, so being charged is a great incentive to being more efficient. There are some excellent reports on recharge and recovery. |
| Purchasing | Concrete and Hire equipment are now separated from purchasing and are treated as stand orders and their are schedules provided within project documentation for both these functions. |
| Subcontractor Administration | This module has always been excellent for managing subcontractor communication, variations, progress claims and compliance documentation. We have made the progress claims more user friendly and variation reporting is better than ever. All communication locks after one day. For those of you who do not do Recipient Billing you can now enter an invoice number against the payment claim. |
| Departments | Departments are now available and the handling of coding is great and the departments can have a different logo for external communication if required. We have kept this really simple and the only time an operations person needs to consider a department is at the time of job set up and thereafter every transaction will be automatically against the relevant department. |
| System Administration | Flexibility for titling of documents has been added such as Progress Claim Wording and Compliance wording. You can even add a follow on logo for schedules and reports. |
| Standing Orders | We have never been a great fan of standing orders as invariably there are too many "surprises" but popular consensus is that it is a required function. So standing orders are in. To provide job cost integrity an addition of a budget value based on agreed rates with a forecast quantity and a validity period is included. This way the job cost forecast has some integrity, site staff can phone order against a standing order with agreed rates and accounts can process quickly. So this function is great and adds value all round. |
| Committed Cost Schedule | This function is now in datasheet view and has more flexibility for grouping and sorting, there is also a summarised committed cost schedule which is sorted by code group. |
|
Approvals of
Creditor Invoices
|
Finally a solution that negates the need for invoices to be physically sent to operations staff for approval, no more invoices going on tour or left lying on some ones desk, all approval is electronic and this function is fully tracked and it is crystal clear on who did what and when. This process is great and really speeds up the process and ensure approval before the invoice is considered for payment. |
| Drawing Revision and Distribution | This process has been simplified and if you are using an on line system to distribute drawings then the revision management only can be dealt with if preferred by just emailing a notification. |