Diona is one of Australia’s most respected civil engineering companies and a leading provider of utility infrastructure. They provide construction solutions for gas, power, water and wastewater, transport (including rails and roads) and renewable energy systems, such as solar power. 

As a leading engineering firm, they offer a complete range of services for utility companies and local councils, including project management, design and construction, testing, and commissioning. With complete turn-key solutions for all installation and construction needs, Diona has delivered over 2,500 projects in its 42 years of operation, logging over 13.5 million hours of employee time.

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The problem

With over 500 employees and numerous complex projects on the horizon, Diona needed a complete, industry-specific time and attendance system. The system would have to manage ongoing projects, integrate Diona’s data collection process and handle payroll with an easy, singular point of approval process.

As Carlos Gutierrez, Diona's Payroll Manager, explains:

"We were spending days chasing missing timesheets, completing data entry to determine EBA-based entitlements correctly and fixing data errors that were occurring due to the manual nature of our process."

There was also a lack of visibility for project managers over the collected data and payroll costs prior to the data being approved and processed in COINS Payroll."

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The setup.

COINS, a construction project management system, was the obvious choice for Diona. As long-standing partners of TimeFiler, COINS introduced the system as a collaborative software solution that could manage Diona’s time tracking and attendance with a single point of data entry. Together, the two software systems would eliminate the need for multiple data entry and physical or Excel spreadsheets.

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The solution.

Implementing COINS and TimeFiler took much of the headache out of the complex and time-consuming calculations that normally plagued project management. Easily configured software allows Diona to determine pay entitlements and award rates based on the Australian pay system. Alerts were set up to ensure that information was entered correctly and payments were updated in real-time, including any payroll queries or adjustments needed.

The added benefit of TimeFiler was that it could work with COINS payroll without needing excessive manual data entry.

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The outcome.

The joint TimeFiler and COINS system has significantly reduced the number of hours Diona spent processing payroll, from 30 to 8 hours per week, and dropped outstanding timesheets by 95%. Payroll processing time was also reduced by 65%, greatly increasing the visibility of upfront costs and reducing the time spent on award interpretations.

Carlos went on to say:

“We can also see a substantial saving with timesheet uploads, which now occur within a matter of seconds thanks to the integration with COINS."

I’m now able to perform my job as a Payroll Manager rather than spending all my time on data entry and chasing people for missing timesheets.

The new timesheet approval process also delivers other benefits across the business. Project managers now have upfront visibility on all payroll costs associated with their projects and an approval point for any related costs.

We can easily identify the missing information and send out automated reminders – before COINS TimeFiler, we wouldn’t even know a timesheet was late until a manual review of all received timesheets was done against the current list of employees.”

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The TimeFiler/COINS experience.

The collaborative experience, implementing COINS and TimeFiler, was also a huge success, as Carlos relates;

“The investment in COINS TimeFiler is one hundred per cent worthwhile and has improved efficiencies across the business far beyond our expectations. Looking at the cost of the saved time, the return on investment is clearly there.

We also couldn’t fault COINS' management of the implementation process. The team were pivotal to the success of the implementation, with an excellent level of communication and a solution-focused approach, delivering on time and on budget.”

If you’re looking for construction management software tailored for the Australian market, COINS offers a specialist product that provides complete project tracking capabilities, including end-to-end supply chain, labour and finance management. For more, check out their website here. 

Or book a time to talk to us at TimeFiler for a demonstration of how our system can streamline operations and ensure your people are paid correctly.

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