A Secret for Success
One the secrets to success has been a long-standing willingness to embrace technology to find ways to grow and keep up with business operations.
Sheila Eck is an officer at Sparkle Painting and has been there since day one, as aunt to the current owners and sister to the founders. “There’s been a tremendous amount of change and growth and sometimes it’s difficult,” she said. “How do you balance the labor force with getting the things that you need done on a day-to-day basis?”
In 2017 Arcoro became part of Sparkle Painting’s extended family and a key workforce technology partner, helping Sparkle Painting scale their operations with streamlined HR software.
The past
Like many others, Sparkle Painting had too many disparate solutions for HR management. They used a different program for each HR management function, leading to confusion within the siloed systems. Much of the work was manual, and Sparkle Painting relied on paper for sign in, timesheets, and other payroll.
“Doing job costing [in previous roles] was painful,” said Rosa Ashby, HR/payroll manager at Sparkle Painting. “It was all manual.”
“As we’ve grown, we’ve realized we can’t use paper sheets [anymore],” explained Lakesha Coates, manager of the accounting department at Sparkle Painting and resident technology maven. “We need something to track time off and disciplinary issues.” With 20 years of experience implementing tech in construction (and named one of Construtech’s 2016 Women in Construction), Lakesha was determined to find a solution and began researching the right technology partners.
The present
In 2017, Sparkle partnered with Arcoro for timekeeping needs with ExakTime. What started as 90 users skyrocketed to 360 as the HR team put their entire field on ExakTime, including subcontractors.
“It’s been so much more efficient to use ExakTime than a sign-in sheet,” said Jennifer Prada, head of accounts receivable billing at Sparkle Painting. “I’m no longer constantly flipping through papers, trying to figure out someone’s signature.” Jennifer particularly appreciates the accuracy and reduction of human error, plus the photo feature that ensures users are at the right job site. “It’s easy to correct if there’s a real problem,” she said, noting that ExakTime prevents users from manipulating or falsifying hours. “Now we’re doing it with a system that can do the calculations and note red flags for me.”
Sparkle Painting discovered other Arcoro features that rendered many of their current platforms redundant. The ExakTime Scheduler feature was identical to the scheduling platform, which they paid a hefty monthly fee for. By moving to ExakTime, they were able to cancel this platform, saving nearly $25,000 annually with that single feature.
Sparkle Painting used an external company for payroll and found the process painful. Systems were disparate, training was sparse, and the implementation felt “fly by night,” said Lakesha. They canceled after two months, and instead went with Arcoro’s Sage 300 integration for payroll, after the success of ExakTime.
“We’ve always used Sage 300, so something compatible with that has been a blessing,” said Lakesha. “We moved to systems that are simple enough so that people in the field can do what we need them to do, and we can get enough info on the back end.”
“The fact that [Arcoro] communicates to Sage is a huge plus because it keeps all of us close to using ExakTime and not a brand-new application,” said Rosa. “If we can keep [the software] the same for the people in the field, it’s easier. It’s their everyday application and it’ll work out in making payroll and the HR features a lot smoother.”
The future
Sparkle Painting continues to add Arcoro solutions – they are in the midst of adding Core HR and performance management.
“We will end up using more features that Arcoro has to offer,” said Rosa. “Having one system that can do multiple things is ultimate the goal, instead of six systems that do different things. We want to consolidate things into one software that keeps us moving ahead. Tech continues to grow and we have to keep up with it.”
Arcoro is proud to be part of the Sparkle Painting family, where the company still has the heart of that original three-painter business but to continues to grow in leaps and bounds. You can see the Sparkle Painting touch on the Amazon data centers popping up around northern Virginia, but they’ve also taken on projects like cultural museums and even Lakesha’s home church.
“We’re immensely proud that even through the pandemic and some of the downturns that happened with new construction, we still keep up,” said Lakesha, whose son now works at Sparkle Painting. “With a family-owned company, it feels like you’re family.”
