Marty Hilsenteger

Singletouch was formed in 1997 to solve a serious challenge faced by a sub contractor that I had co founded in 1995. The challenge I faced as the partner responsible for finance, IT and Administration was accurate and timely invoicing and reporting on our projects. In some cases it would take up to 60 days following a project’s completion to determine if in fact we made any profit. It also meant a delay of 30 to 60 days receiving payment for work completed due to an extended invoice cycle. As a result, cash flow management was significant battle every month. Our biggest process issue was that we did manual time cards, manual purchase orders and manual invoices. All of these manual documents were often difficult to read and or decipher. These documents were also produced in the field and were sent to the office in a variety of ways. Bottom line was that the process was poor and was taking too long. Finally, by the time all of the information was aggregated it was too late to take corrective action on a project if required. This poor process also made my operating Partner's life difficult as it was nearly impossible for him to operate the company profitably.

After searching the market for a software solution for several months, I concluded the available software solutions were all accounting packages and not integrated project management software products. The other problem was that they all required numerous data entry points that lend themselves to time delays and errors. Having a background in business process excellence and building a contracting firm from the ground up, I decided the only way forward was to design and build our own integrated software platform. Our one guiding principle was that data had to be captured once at the source and then simply flow through our systems to the accounting back end. After 10 years of development we have finally arrived at this critical milestone, data is captured only once and Singletouch the company was born.

What the product can do
Singletouch can provide any sized contracting firm with real time information which makes managing the business very cost efficient. Customers are thrilled they receive timely information as they suffer from many of the same issues internally. In fact, one contracting company has won business many times simply because of their exceptional business processes and timely reporting on actual vs. budget. Bottom line is that contracting firms can now capture data electronically once for all on site activity and it is captured by the people who know the information, the field personnel.

What that can mean to the business
Singletouch can transform a contracting firm into a highly efficient organization. More importantly, it allows our clients to grow their business and not incur additional administrative expense as they grow. This is critical for contracting firms that are subject to peaks and valleys in their business and do not want to pay excess administrative overheads when they are slower. Conversely, they can ramp up quickly when the business cycle turns and they are suddenly much busier. Other benefits include faster cash turnover, timely project performance feedback, exceptional performance management tools, reduced G&A costs, accurate invoices and online feedback to our clients’ customers on project status, safety reports, performance vs. budget. Some companies will enjoy a 5% to 10% increase to their bottom line based on their total revenue dollars. This of course can be substantial.

What the future holds.
Singletouch’s primary goal is to change the business practices of contracting firms to help them become a better company to work for. By capturing data at the source and then simply controlling it through the Singletouch system, a company’s stress level is carefully managed. Regardless of how fast an organization is growing the system allows the administration of projects to progress smoothly.

Soon many of our clients will be able to attract the brightest and best tradesmen and tradeswomen in their markets because they will provide the best work environments and the most profitable companies. They will also be able to attract top professionals in IT, finance and project Management because they will have state of the art tools to do their jobs and go home on time in the evening.