KT Power Systems is a leading commercial electrical contractor based in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Founded in 1973 with just two trucks, the company today accomplishes between $10 million and $15 million worth of electrical contracts, from large industrial projects to public works such as school and hospitals.

After more than 40 years, KT Power has achieved excellence in electrical contracting and a high degree of versatility, delivering the same safe and professional quality to small and large contracts alike.

As the business grew, KT Power needed a software solution that could handle the unique needs of a specialized construction contractor. The company used Maxwell Systems Management Suite for many years. However, as construction—like so many industries— became more digitally focused, KT Power realized the time for a new, more robust software solution had come. In September 2015, the company transitioned to ProContractor by Viewpoint.

Paperless Advantage

After Viewpoint purchased Maxwell, Elfrink knew that, eventually, KT Power might have to switch accounting systems. However, after seeing the features ProContractor had to offer, he pushed for the company to make the switch sooner rather than later. He wanted to take advantage of the new efficiencies the software offered as quickly as possible.

“After we looked at ProContractor—the enhancements over what we currently used—we just decided to go ahead and make the transition now rather than a couple of years from now,” Elfrink said. “We wanted to go ahead and take advantage of everything they had to offer.”

One of the advantages Elfrink was immediately drawn to was how well ProContractor supported paperless recordkeeping. The days of rooms filled with filing cabinets are nearly at an end, and KT Power wanted to be ahead of the curve in terms of digitally tracking the accounting needs of their projects.

“Both Maxwell and Viewpoint handled daily accounting functions—accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll—but ProContractor did all the same things plus allowing us to upload our paper invoices and store those within the program,” Elfrink said.

Digital recordkeeping became essential to KT Power as they started taking on larger projects, particularly working as a general contractor on multimillion-dollar electrical installments. Elfrink needed to track everything over the full life of a project, and with ProContractor, he could do that with a click of his mouse.

“You can look at a document a week, a month, or a year later from your desktop, instead of trying to dig through your files,” he said.

Smooth Transition

Viewpoint provided a transition consultant to help KT Power implement ProContractor. Decades of data had to be reconfigured to be compatible with the program—and Elfrink and his team had personal, on-site instruction at their disposal.

“The consultant stayed for a week to actually work through the conversion,” he said. “Once we had sent all of our data to Viewpoint, they converted it all for us into a compliant database.”

The consultant also shepherded Elfrink through the program’s basic functionalities. As a financial professional, Elfrink said he had been through “close to a dozen” different software product changes in his career. And ProContractor was, “by far, the smoothest.”

“Most of the time, product changes don’t go very smooth,” he said. “This one was probably the easiest and smoothest I’ve ever been through.”

All-in-One Solution

Every day, when Elfrink opens ProContractor, he can rely on seeing the same intuitive layout that first drew him to the program.

“Most programs, you have to figure out where you have to go to do this or that,” he said. “Once you get into ProContractor, it’s laid out right there for you. It’s much easier to navigate the program while still lending to a lot more flexibility to do exactly what you need to do without going outside the program.”

Before ProContractor, like many similar-sized contractors, KT Power had to go outside its accounting software for certain applications. Now, Elfrink can rely on ProContractor to handle all his needs within one software package.

“We used to do a lot of stuff outside our system manually in Excel,” he said. “But ProContractor is robust enough that we can set it up to process something like payroll—and all the calculations are there.” An all-in-one software solution protects the accuracy of KT Power’s financial data. Moving from system to system—or, for many contractors, from one Excel spreadsheet to the next— opens companies up to incorrect financial reporting.

“Once you pull data out into a manual system with your own formulas, cutting and pasting every time, there’s a lot more room for error,” Elfrink said. “Once you’ve got a system that has been tested and programmed, the integrity of the data coming out is much greater.”

While Elfrink can depend on ProContractor’s versatility, if a truly unique challenge comes across his desk, he can depend on the software’s clear outputting of data.

“Viewpoint has built into this product the ability to customize your input and output just the way you need it.”

Big Contract? No Problem

KT Power is proud to handle any-size contract—from a multimillion-dollar hospital to traffic-light replacement. The company values delivering the same quality on every job, and that consistency is reflected in how Elfrink can customize the versatile ProContractor.

“On every project, efficiencies have been gained,” he said. “Whether you have a big project or a project that lasts just a day, your reporting works just as fast and as accurate.”

KT Power latest large-scale project involved a local Missouri hospital—a contract valued between $3 million and $5 million—did not pose a problem for Elfrink and his team with ProContractor on their side.

“If you have a big project, it doesn’t become burdensome from a transactional perspective,” he said. “There might be 1,500 documents, but your reporting works just as fast as it would on a small job. Every time, you can rely on the data from the program just like it was a smaller contract.”

The consistency, the versatility, the forward-looking applications—ProContractor proved to be just the solution KT Power needed to optimize their accounting potential for whatever project comes their way.

“I’ve been doing this 30 years and using different accounting software,” Elfrink said. “There’s none that I would chose over this one.”