SDB Contracting Services goes beyond typical contracting work: They provide custom cabinetry, steel fabrication, scaffolding, and more. With workers spread across different states, each with unique needs for materials and support, they face a variety of challenges. Business solutions director Brad Thompson was tasked with finding solutions that worked for everyone.
Challenge: Inefficient expense reporting
Before implementing Center, SDB faced significant challenges with a manual expense reporting process. Employees would print receipts, tape them to paper forms, and submit them to the accounts payable department for manual entry into the accounting system. This labor-intensive workflow slowed down operations, costing the team 5 to 20 hours per week, and introduced multiple opportunities for errors—lost receipts, misplaced forms, and manual data entry mistakes.
The lack of visibility into the status of submitted expenses compounded these issues, leading to delays and frustration for both employees and the finance team. The lengthy approval process often made it difficult for the finance department to maintain accurate and timely financial records.
“Our previous process was frustrating and time-consuming,” Thompson said. “With so many manual steps involved, errors were inevitable, and month end close was delayed by the need to track down missing or incomplete expense entries.”
“Even though I sit in the office 20 feet away from accounting, I really disliked ever having to actually print a receipt or print a sheet and then tape my receipt to it. It was such a tedious process.” –Brad Thompson, Business Solutions Director
Solution: Transitioning to a real-time expense management system
To address these inefficiencies, SDB sought an expense management solution that would streamline their process. Within just three months, SDB rolled out Center to help employees capture receipts digitally, eliminating the need for paper and manual data entry.
With Center’s mobile app, employees—many of whom are frequently on job sites or traveling for field work—can snap a photo of a receipt and instantly submit it for approval, drastically reducing time spent on expense reporting. This streamlined process allows finance teams to focus on more strategic tasks, while real-time tracking enhances transparency, giving Thompson and his team full visibility into the status of expenses.
“The ease of capturing receipts with a photo and tracking expenses in real time has transformed our process,” Thompson said. “It’s much faster and far less error-prone.”
During deployment, Center’s dedicated deployment manager worked closely with SDB to customize the system, ensuring expenses were accurately tied to job numbers, phase codes, and cost centers. This 1:1 support enabled precise tracking and a filtering system that streamlined data flow into SDB’s accounting system.
“It was a great experience knowing pretty quickly whether something was possible or if there was a solution,” Thompson added.
Impact: More efficiency and greater financial visibility
Since adopting Center, SDB has drastically reduced the weekly time spent on expense reconciliation, eliminating the need to hire additional help. With improved financial visibility, the finance team can now quickly spot spending trends, make adjustments to stay on budget, and ensure costs are accurately tracked across projects.
“My favorite feature is real-time expense tracking. With over 150 people using Center, I get calls from people in the field asking about expenses, and I can instantly find their transaction, tell them how to code it, and resolve their issues on the spot.” –Brad Thompson, Business Solutions Director
By consolidating expenses onto a single platform, SDB can easily compare job-related expenses and identify areas of overspending or inefficiencies. This enhanced visibility has helped improve job profitability by enabling more informed decision-making and tighter budget management.
“With Center, we’ve gained invaluable insights into spending patterns, enabling quick, informed decision-making. The dedicated support and customized setup have significantly improved our entire process.”
As SDB continues to grow, Center’s flexible system easily adapts to evolving needs, ensuring expense management remains seamless and efficient.
Since implementing Center, Custom Home Exteriors has experienced significant benefits, including:
- Weekly reconciliation time reduced by up to 20 hours: Center’s digital solution eliminated paper-based reporting, freeing the finance team to focus on strategic tasks.
- Real-time visibility into spending trends: Center provides full transparency, enabling quick adjustments to stay on budget and track expenses accurately.
- Enhanced employee experience with streamlined reporting: Field service reps can now easily capture receipts on the go, making expense reporting faster and more user-friendly.
- Customized support and seamless integration: Center’s tailored setup ensures accurate tracking by job numbers, phase codes, and cost centers, simplifying data flow to SDB’s accounting system.
“Our old system was literally paperwork. Somebody would take a printed sheet, tape a receipt to it, and either send it manually or scan it to accounts payable, where our AP department would then manually enter everything into our accounting system—costing us up to 20 hours each week on data entry alone.” –Brad Thompson, Business Solutions Director