Press Room
Journyx And Atelier Ten Partner To Unite Timesheet With Sage Accounts

UK customer develops and markets an integration solution for Timesheet and Sage.

AUSTIN, Texas, USA, January 28, 2004 Journyx announced today that longtime customer Atelier Ten has successfully integrated Journyx Timesheet with leading British accounting package Sage Line 50 to develop a job costing and office management system which has made a dramatic impact on their profitability.

Atelier Ten, an environmental engineering company founded in 1991, was facing an uphill struggle to turn a profit on many of their projects. "We wondered why our costs somehow always seemed to match our income," explained Steve Marshall, a partner in Atelier Ten. "Projects which appeared to be doing well often ended in a loss."

"The problems stemmed from having no real idea of when resources were being used wisely and when they were being squandered," Marshall continued. "The worst part was finding out that a project had made a huge loss when it was too late to do anything about it. That led to boardroom recriminations, which lowered morale and undermined confidence when taking on new jobs. Not a healthy situation, but we seemed powerless to prevent it."

Marshall realized that the first step towards getting a grip on Atelier Ten's finances was to find out exactly how and where resources were being spent. That meant getting staff to record time and expenses against specific projects and even categories of task within projects. The spreadsheet system they used for this at the start had become cumbersome and very time consuming to maintain, so a more elegant solution was sought.

"We looked at several timesheet systems and selected Journyx because of its adaptability. No other system could be so easily tailored to our requirements. It was also simple to administer and to use. The fact that it had a slick appearance and was very user friendly was an additional bonus," Marshall stated.

Atelier Ten was so impressed with the potential of Journyx that they began to investigate integrating it with the accounts package Sage Line 50 to produce added value. The resulting application, known as INFORM, retrieves information from both systems and presents it in a way that meets the real needs of today's professional practices.

The effectiveness of this system led to the creation of a new division at Atelier, Atelier-IT, to share their development with other professional firms with similar needs. Atelier-IT also now serves as a Timesheet reseller in the UK.

Brian Macfarland, IT Partnerships Manager at Atelier Ten, described how INFORM grew from an embryonic state into the sophisticated system it is today. "Once we had a good system for recording the data we started to think about extracting meaningful information, something that would give us a clearer picture of our business and help to run it more effectively," Macfarland said.

"INFORM taps into the databases of both Timesheet and Line 50, integrating data to produce real-time graphical reports of a project's status in both profit and cash-flow terms, which complement the excellent reporting facilities already incorporated in Timesheet", he explained. "This is accomplished without any re-keying of data or changing the way the client currently works."

"Most commercial job costing systems try to be a combination of both timesheet and accounts packages and end up doing neither particularly well," Macfarland continued. "We have based our application on two rock solid products, Timesheet and Line 50, each one excellent in their own area and also already geared to support extensive user bases."

This development represents a significant boon for businesses in the UK who are looking for a powerful solution for time and expense management as well as for an accounting suite that allows them to take control of their finances.

"We are very excited about this," said Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx. "Timesheet was designed to be open and adaptable, so our customers can build on the fundamental stability and proven performance of Timesheet to create solutions that meet their own specific business needs.

"The achievement of Atelier Ten in taking a home-grown integration and developing it into a highly-polished solution that can benefit others is living proof that this is more than just a concept - it is a reality."

"We salute Atelier Ten and are delighted to have them on our side," continued Finch. "INFORM is a major breakthrough for all our users in the UK, opening up the prospect of exploiting the full potential of Timesheet, an opportunity that might not have been possible before now."

Asked if INFORM has made any difference to the way the business is run, Steve Marshall was emphatic. "It certainly has," he said. "INFORM was designed to answer questions and solve problems that every business has to cope with. Apart from the obvious time-saving benefits of easily obtaining information, it's surprising how just keeping track of where the resources are being spent has several supplementary benefits."

"When project outgoings can be accurately compared with what's coming in, it helps us spot problems early, while there's still time to take action. When facts replace conjecture, boardroom discussions become more meaningful and everyone can share in the responsibility," he continued.

"Furthermore, accountability inevitably encourages people to use resources more prudently - not so much a case of Big Brother watching but as more of an incentive to make the extra effort when one feels it is being appreciated. Our costs no longer try to keep up with our income in the way that they used to. And that has led to a definite improvement in profits," he concluded.

Parties interested in INFORM, or with assistance in installing and configuring Journyx Timesheet, should contact Brian Macfarland of Atelier-IT at bm@ateliereng.com or visit Atelier-IT's web site at http://www.atelier-it.co.uk.

About Journyx Timesheet

Journyx Timesheet is a timesheet and expense management solution for the entire enterprise. Organizations can automate management of employee timesheets and expenses for project control, customer invoicing, and payroll processing with Journyx Timesheet. They can also easily integrate Timesheet into their existing systems, leveraging its open architecture and support for standards like XML and SOAP.

To experience the power of Journyx Timesheet first-hand download a free unlimited-use 10 user version from the Journyx web site at http://www.journyx.com/pr0401/gendl.html

About Atelier Ten

Atelier Ten are Consulting Environmental Engineers. They work with natural physical laws to produce buildings that consume less energy, and so function more economically. They have been committed to low energy principles since setting up in 1991 and have won many awards that reflect their success in putting these principles into practice.

More information is available at http://www.atelierten.com

About Journyx, Inc.

Journyx is fundamentally transforming how people do their daily jobs by automating labor-intensive, paper-based processes with a superior, web-based solution. Founded in 1996, Journyx provides web-based workforce management software and services. Journyx has thousands of customers worldwide, including IBM, American Airlines, GE, and Schlumberger. Journyx solutions are available both on an ASP and a standard license basis. For more information contact the Journyx Marketing Department at (512) 834-8888 or info@journyx.com.