kühn & weyh Software GmbH Success Story

kühn & weyh Software GmbH
Success Story

An end for Excel

2020 was a challenging year for companies worldwide. For the Freiburg-based IT company ^kwsoft®, it was also the starting signal for a new software era with projectfacts. The 130-strong team has been a leader in the field of customer communication management (CCM) for 40 years. There is much more to the term than just generating documents.

^kwsoft® advises companies along the entire document process – from creation to output. Companies with a high volume of communication, such as banks and insurance companies, benefit in particular from systematic CCM. “Around 75 percent of the German population receives documents that have previously gone through our software,” explains Jochen Schorn, Project Manager in Consulting.

Due to the focus on consulting, project work with customers characterizes the business. Many employee hours have to be documented and accounted for. Previously, Excel sheets were used for this, which employees had to access online via a VPN connection. “Not exactly state of the art,” admits Schorn with amusement.

A new tool for project time recording

Time recording with Excel worked reasonably reliably for small teams, but above a certain size it was no longer manageable, according to the summary. Due to the many problems that arose over time, it quickly became clear in consulting: “We need a tool for time recording”.

Three main requirements were at the forefront of the search for a solution:

Simple operability
High availability (online and mobile)
Uncomplicated reporting

After considering various software systems, the choice quickly fell on projectfacts.

“projectfacts convinced us in the presentation.”

“Requests such as blocking retroactive time recording only developed over time,” adds Schorn, “when we saw that the software could do this.” Ultimately, the decisive factor for Schorn was how easily times can be recorded. A point that was also decisive for the employees in Consulting.

“Time recording is much easier and more convenient than in Excel.”

Project management in projectfacts seemed almost too powerful for Schorn at the beginning. But in terms of perspective, the decision was deliberately made to offer more options. He considers projectfacts to be a very good tool for all project-related topics, particularly because of its scope. Compared to Microsoft Project, the software also offers the advantage that time recording is directly integrated. This is another reason why Schorn comes to a positive conclusion.

projectfacts successfully in use

Jochen Schorn found the implementation process very pleasant: “The planning was uncomplicated, the advice was competent and it was also a good fit on a human level,” summarizes Schorn. “At the beginning, some colleagues felt that their freedom was being curtailed, but the software has now been fully accepted.” The employees particularly appreciate the fact that time recording is easier and quicker than before.

“The set-up process was very simple and the system deployment was also quick.”

In addition to time recording, employees also use the CRM and finance module to create customer data and orders, which are required for project time recording and proof of performance for the customer. This allows the entire workflow from order creation to project time billing to be mapped digitally. Thanks to systematic time recording, projectfacts also creates timesheets automatically. A practical function in consulting: “We can easily generate a performance record for our customers and send it as an attachment to the invoice,” explains Schorn.

“projectfacts makes life easier for everyone involved.”

In the meantime, projectfacts has become the billing basis for a large part of the consulting turnover. “It’s a very strategic tool,” says Schorn. In addition, project time recording facilitates the work in controlling. Thanks to projectfacts, all data is available in good time for invoicing and the quality of the data entered has also improved.

The future for ^kwsoft® with projectfacts

In future, the topic of “vacation” is also to be completely mapped with projectfacts. “We had someone present it to us and everyone was very enthusiastic,” says Schorn, “so the decision was quickly made.” That’s why the number of licenses was recently increased.

Capacity planning is also soon to be fully mapped in projectfacts. “We have always had the problem: How do we allocate people to projects?” projectfacts offers a semi-automatic solution that allows ^kwsoft® to plan appropriately.

Overall, Jochen Schorn draws a very positive conclusion from his work with projectfacts so far. Time recording in particular has become much easier and more convenient. Schorn also considers the different hosting options (cloud, on-premises) to be an advantage of the software. His advice for those interested in the software is:

“I would recommend projectfacts to anyone who needs a good project management tool with simple time recording. projectfacts is the billing basis for a large part of the consulting turnover at ^kwsoft® .It is a very strategic tool for us.”

– Jochen Schorn, Project Manager in Consulting