ERP Accounting System Development for Kvartservice Real Estate Agency
The main task set by the real estate agency's leaders was «creating a remote monitoring tool for the situation». So that any top manager could quickly view key indicators in real time and understand the current state of affairs in the company from anywhere in the world.
To achieve this, we first had to very meticulously compile a list of those very indicators that should exist both in the CRM system and in the external ERP accounting system.
What metrics will help see the big picture? What metrics will point to clear existing problems at the current moment, and in which department of the company? And what indicators will suggest that a problem might appear in 1-2 months down the line? What tools can be introduced into the company to facilitate current operational activities and analytics? We discussed all of this extensively and thoroughly in face-to-face meetings and regular planning sessions twice a week, and then proceeded to implementation.
In our many years of experience, no standard analytics system in off-the-shelf CRM systems meets the needs of a real business. Either the company owner has to adapt to the constraints of the CRM system they're using, or write custom analytics solutions to see the metrics they need, in the breakdown they need. In other words — two different companies, even in the same industry, will still want to calculate slightly different metrics. Or the same numbers, but in different ways. Thus, we arrived at the need for a custom accounting system for the Kvartservice real estate agency.
First and foremost, we needed to develop a so-called Ledger. Simplifying greatly — it's a list of all current deals, by month/year. With the ability to filter by the metrics management needs.
To develop such a tool, we needed to connect to the source data stored in the Topnlab CRM system. And also configure and set up the CRM system so that it could physically capture all the metrics we needed at the right time and in the right data format.
So, the Deal Ledger.
It represents basic financial accounting, assembled in a convenient format and taking into account the metrics and parameters needed by the Client. The heart of the entire project and the accountant's first assistant when calculating salaries at the end of the month.
- employee
- department
- deal type
- source
- filters by responsible parties for each key stage of the «sales funnel»
- commission amounts
- advance payment amounts
- expense recording
- revenue
Also implemented are a bunch of additional perks with automatic verification of correct completion of required key fields in deals in the CRM system. Highlighting of any incorrectly filled parameter directly from the ledger. You can quickly see where employees have filled in data insufficiently carefully, immediately navigate to the corresponding deal, and fix the shortcoming.
Statistics block. Automatic calculation of internal KPIs for employees, departments, and groups. We capture and calculate metrics in real time such as:
- Number of meetings
- contracts
- deals
- advance payments
- rejections
- deals at risk of falling through
- ability to calculate conversion rates by stages (in development)
Plan vs. actual by indicators (in development).
A separate KPI block for the Sales Department, a separate metrics block for the Legal Department, and its own set for the Mortgage Department.
All numbers are clickable. All metrics are labeled — what is calculated and from what.
At the Client's request, we made smart exports of all current reports to Excel. Sometimes this is needed for specific data manipulations.
Excel export works for each report individually. You can export the report in «basic form». You can apply any existing filters and then export the data to Excel with the applied filters preserved.
First, make the desired data selection in the report, then click export to Excel — you get a file you can manipulate as you wish.
At the request of the company director, who simultaneously oversees the legal department's work, a separate edition of the Ledger was created, a variation of it, so to speak. The lawyer workload section is necessary to determine which lawyers are currently more loaded and which are less.
So this can be done quickly, easily, and visually, for distributing current deals to the least loaded employees.
Changed settlement dates for deals. A list of all deals where key settlement dates have been changed during the work for one reason or another. For additional control — why this happened in each specific case.
Automated monitoring for potential dishonest employee actions in different blocks of the CRM system.
Access rights differentiation by levels. Admin sees everything. Sales department head sees everything about the sales department. Legal department head sees all metrics and figures for lawyers. Mortgage head sees everything about Mortgages. Group head within the sales department — sees statistics and metrics only for their group.
Team Composition
What our work included
Currently, the Client has a working interactive tool for calculating key metrics. Plans include improving a number of sections and automating routine processes, such as monthly salary calculation taking into account the specialist grid and all necessary KPIs, building a 'Forecast Model' system for forming approximate expectations for future months and comparing them with current actual indicators, and much more.
