Delivering quality solutions to large-scale construction businesses for over ten years, project cost management software company Lentune has become integral to the expansion of real estate developer Williams Corporation.
Since adopting Lentune in September 2019, Williams Corporation has seen a large reduction in labour hours on invoicing and reduced human error. Lentune has also saved them having to hire additional staff. These factors have been crucial to the success of the real estate developer’s recent expansion.
Founded in New Zealand in 2012 by Matthew William Horncastle and Blair William Chappell, Williams Corporation grew out of the duo’s passion for efficiency and productivity. Prior to finding their niche in property development, the pair owned and managed a range of businesses across different sectors including contract building, temporary fencing, waste management, solar panels and composite decking.
Their vision to build better cities and a more liveable country quickly saw Williams Corporation position itself as one of the leading real estate developers in New Zealand.
Chappell says when Lentune approached the business, Williams Corporation was still in its early growth phase. “We were at a stage where we were seeing huge company growth in the New Zealand market, and we saw the value in Lentune software helping us be more efficient during our planned expansion into Australia,” he says.
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“Driving efficiencies is a key value of Lentune, closely aligning with our commitment to continuously improving Williams Corporation, whether it be in efficiency or improving business functionality.”
Before Lentune, the Williams Corporation team had frustrations around their manual invoicing process. Laborious data entry added to their already busy workload, there was very little visibility around invoices, and paper-based purchase orders not only created data entry for the accounts team but also created a long process when matching invoices with written purchase orders.
After going live with Lentune in late 2019, Williams Corporation has since expanded its operations from Christchurch and Wellington to Auckland, Nelson and Tauranga in New Zealand. They have opened offices in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia; and expanded internationally with offices in Singapore and the Philippines.
Jono Bonifant, Director and CEO of Lentune explains how the software has been an essential foundation to Williams Corporation’s expansion. “For the rapid growth of their company it was essential to be able to easily replicate their processes in new regions,” he says. “You can’t be reinventing the wheel each time – Lentune has become a key part of this.”
Williams Corporation also uses Xero as its finance platform which Lentune seamlessly integrates with.
“With these two systems they had greater visibility and control and generated significant time savings across the businesses,” says Bonifant.
Chappell notes that each of their building property developments are in their own individual environment in Xero, but they can manage the whole of the city or area from one Lentune which can feed into each of their Xero environments.
“It has made it much more efficient for us to get a more granular overview of our spend across all of the different facets of our business,” he says. “All purchase orders are found in our Lentune platform providing visible and accurate information as soon as the document is received from the supplier – each purchase order is then automatically matched to the corresponding invoice.
“The software has enabled us to view a running total of each of our projects spend, [to] easily review the status of invoices and gain real-time insights into invoicing data.”
Williams Corporation, as a whole, has an emphasis on making affordable places for people to live rather than simply creating investment properties on which to capitalise. The company has an investment arm, but its main focus is on making the right product, at the right price, so people can afford to buy, afford to live and afford to maintain where they live.
“Williams Corporation is making their product accessible to people, they’re an agile and quick-thinking organisation, and they’re trying to make a difference,” says Bonifant. “These are qualities that resonate with Lentune’s goals.”
In business since 2012, Williams Corporation also has a detailed plan to keep the company trading until at least 2110.
Chappell says: “With our principles followed and decisions made with a long-term vision in mind – like our decision to integrate Lentune into the business – Williams Corporation will trade successfully with a continuous 100-year plan.”
By removing data entry and automating admin processes, Williams Corporation has more time to focus on its continued growth and innovative vision of building a more liveable country.