ZEP for project management and invoicing support
LBBW Asset Management Investmentgesellschaft mbH in Stuttgart employs 165 people. It offers various fund products for institutional and private clients. Intra-group projects are also part of the everyday life of asset managers. Since 2005, the company has been using the time recording and project management solution ZEP to manage projects and support invoicing.
The advantages of the software are particularly evident in cross-departmental projects: in the form of a constantly updated overview of employee resources and budget, which reveals potential synergies at a glance. With ZEP, “fine-tuning funds” can be billed transparently and in a project-oriented manner.
Recommendation for ZEP by employees
The main reason for choosing ZEP was a recommendation from our own ranks. One of the employees had come to appreciate the time recording and project management solution from a previous employer and recommended it. “We don't have a large IT department, all roads are short to our IT manager”, says project manager Markus Schweizer. When Schweizer joined LBBW Asset Management in November 2010, he had already found ZEP. His main task lies in an extensive corporate project, in which he is responsible for the part of the investment company as project manager. The ZEP version “Professional” is in use, which allows projects to be planned, carried out, monitored and billed.
Employee times are recorded transparently
Before ZEP, there was no IT-based time recording for project staff. Project management was based on Excel spreadsheets, and the services could only be incompletely traced and billed — especially with cross-departmental project teams.
In order to introduce ZEP, no special requirements had to be created by IT or in process design. It took just five days to install, set up employee accounts and projects in the software. Some employees were initially skeptical, feared greater control, but then quickly became familiar with the system. Schweizer explains: “The system is easy to use due to the good user interface. ” Today, there are no more reservations in the company, “only the effort required to regularly enter the time information in the software is still considered high. ”
Synergies in projects are becoming apparent
With ZEP, time and effort recording and preparation for invoicing can now be carried out in one go. Depending on the customer agreement, the billing mode can be stored as an hourly or daily rate or as a flat rate. Markus Schweizer uses the advantages of the system, particularly for the group-wide service project. Since this project is a highly networked activity, the individual processes must be carried out in a particularly targeted manner. To date, 30 participants have been using the software intensively. The overall process involves providing a service and breaking down individual services. Schweizer mentions a big plus: “Today, where several people/colleagues are working on the same project, you can see synergies and dual activities at a glance. ”
In principle, projects are always created anew in the system: project name and data are assigned, employees are assigned to the project and appropriate access rights set up, the billing mode — whether according to hours, daily rates or flat rates — is defined; standard periods, vacation entitlement, “everything you have to take into account for invoicing” is stored. This means that all the data you need for project management is always at hand. “It takes 45 minutes, a maximum of one hour, to train new colleagues”, according to Schweizer. The software is “self-explanatory and you don't have to read up much. ”
Low administrative costs and high stability
The low administrative burden is particularly important to Schweizer: “We have a very detailed overview of which employees have been deployed where and for how long and what the project status is. ” With the software, overviews can be created quickly — and resources can be replanned as required in accordance with customer consultation.
The most frequently used evaluations are “Project Time Evaluation and Verification”, “Project Status” and “Project Accounting”. The high reliability of the data is essential here. The short response times and the high stability of the software as well as the range of functions guarantee a high level of transparency of project data at all times. If you have any questions, the provantis support team is always easy to reach.
“Expanding our own horizons is also a very important requirement for us in our daily work with our customers,” says the LBBW Asset Management website. In the future, employees should also be able to use ZEP on the go and record their time and expenses while on the go using their laptop.
