A lot less administrative work

Willy Reynders Garden Architecture has been growing with digitisation for 11 years

From a garden contracting company with forty years of experience on the counter, you might initially expect an unwieldy structure, hidden behind piles of paper. A misplaced assumption, as Willy Reynders Tuinarchitectuur proves. The company, active in design, construction and maintenance of mainly private gardens, very consciously jumped on the bandwagon of digitalisation and, partly thanks to Groensoft, can count on a flourishing record of achievements from its Beringen hometown to beyond the borders of the Netherlands, Germany and even France.

Eleven years have passed since Willy Reynders Garden Architecture traded in the familiar Excel sheets for Groensoft. “It was my brother who encouraged me to do so,” recalls landscaper Piet Rietveld. “He was working with the related software package Bouwsoft and advised me to make the switch too. We have been loyal users ever since. More so, when we became part of the APK group two years ago and there was talk of migrating to another software package, common in the rest of that group, we stood firm and secured an exception.”

Full-colour plant frames

At the time Willy Reynders Tuinarchitectuur made the switch, there were already some administrative software packages on the market, but one thing was decisive for Rietveld: “I absolutely wanted the ability to print our plant lists with photos and in colour. Groensoft was unique in that back then, and even today it is still a distinguishing feature of the package.”

Consequently, there is a lot to mould to one's liking in the package's various libraries and modules. “We can put all the necessary information about certain materials, tools or rates in Groensoft. That in itself brings a special flexibility, in the sense that we can adapt the package perfectly to our operation. But on top of that, every change is also extrapolated to all related documents. That saves our administration a lot of work.”

Always and everywhere available

What once started with plant lists and quotations has now become a fully integrated work package. “In the first place, we use Groensoft for quotations, calculations, post-calculations and customer management, but, for example, our entire mail system is also linked to it. This has already proved a boon not only in the office, but also outside. For instance, thanks to the Mobile Pro app, I always have access to the system. Handy when I want to quickly check what is planned on site, but also for communication purposes. If I notice on Saturday that certain planned works cannot take place at the scheduled time due to weather conditions, for example, I can notify the customer directly via the app.”

However, Rietveld was somewhat hesitant when Groensoft switched from a local system to the cloud some four years ago. “I was indeed afraid that certain things would run less smoothly, but in the end that fear proved unjustified. Also, the fact that no local copies are made today helps to avoid errors and discussions and streamline everything.”

From desk to yard

Meanwhile, the next step, from desk to yard, is also being thoroughly prepared. Indeed, Groensoft recently introduced Didit, a digital work order app that allows works and materials to be checked off directly in the system from the site. “In principle, our teams receive a daily printout of the measurement sheet and pre-calculation, on which they indicate on site what has or has not been used. Today, however, we also let some teams test Didit. As such, it is too early to draw any conclusions, but we have high expectations. Because if everything is registered directly, the lists no longer have to be copied into the system manually, you reduce the number of administrative operations and thus save a lot of time. So to speak, you can then send out an invoice even before the team has arrived back at the office.”