Integral Landscapes are based on Sydney’s North Shore and have been in existence for seven years, primarily specialising in residential work.  Integral Landscapes pride themselves on having a large percentage of clients stemming from referrals, and they strive to ensure the clients needs and desires are achieved every time.

However, the high attention to detail and to clients’ needs means estimating can become tricky and time consuming, as no one job is the same as the last.  And this is where Integral is benefiting from the use of Benchmark.

Integral customises Benchmark to suit their business

James Simpson-Lee, Director of Integral Landscapes, says “the landscaping industry is so wide and varied; there are so many things you have to consider like concreting, plumbing, paving, brickworks; no two jobs are the same.”  Despite this, Integral are now producing estimates in 20% to 30% of the time it took before they had Benchmark.  And they are doing these estimates with confidence. 

Benchmark’s Item Library stores all of the Items you will regularly use in your business, and stores the resource build up behind them.  Because of this, James says “we are confident that we won’t leave anything out of our estimate”.  You can easily bring these Items into a project as they are, or you can customise them to suit a particular job.  You can also simply duplicate customised Items to your Item Library if you think  you will need them for future estimates.  James adds “It just stops you having to recreate the wheel every time, you’re confident all the details are in the estimate, and the Item is easily customisable to suit any particular job.”

Benchmark has also provided Integral Landscapes with greater control and transparency over their profits and final submission prices.  James says “we can manipulate our profits and overheads in the Extras screen depending on the nature of the job, and  add contingencies to difficult jobs or to cover unknowns.  Also, with the upcoming Project Review Export to Excel, we will be able to follow our actual costs from start to finish, which will help us to both control our projects, and to give us an analysis of our estimate versus our actual figures.”

Getting confidence and control; Save time and increase profitability

James can see first hand that the entire residential landscaping industry is becoming more and more professional.  And he believes that as this happens more and more people will be looking for ways to save time and enhance their profitability, and he has no hesitation recommending Benchmark; “the ability to customise and store all of your Items to save time and to suit your business, combined with the ability to adjust your profit margins to suit particular jobs, means that Benchmark gives you confidence in, and control of, the tenders you produce.  They provide great after sales service and the package is very easy to use.  Benchmark should absolutely take off in the landscape industry.”

Go to Integral Landscapes website

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