Customer Success Story
Aardvark Drilling, Inc.
Deltek Vision® Helps International Drill Rig Operation Build a Strong Foundation for Future Growth
The Challenge
From checking ground conditions for office building sites to searching for reliable groundwater sources, Aardvark Drilling helps customers in engineering, mining and exploration from Canada to the shores of Bermuda. Founded in 2002 with two drill rigs, Aardvark has grown to 8 drills and 24 employees.
While QuickBooks served their needs as a small operation, the accounting application was not robust enough to keep up with Aardvark’s growth. Management was unable to measure their most profitable clients, projects or even employees. Data needed to be exported to Excel spreadsheets and manipulated there to get an understanding of how the business was performing.
Due to the limitations within QuickBooks, the organization was beginning to suffer operationally – hours were wasted, projects were underbid, and efficiency and profitability were hard to measure. “We knew there had to be a better way to generate reports and track where the money was, so that we didn’t have to spend our time exporting, importing and writing macros,” said Darren Juneau, CEO of Aardvark Drilling.
Mr. Juneau continued, “I wanted to be able to choose new projects based on past profitability with the same clients, especially when I only had one rig to spare. Instead I was spending tons of time trying to decipher it all using Excel.” Aardvark needed a strong accounting solution with real-time reporting tools, and also one that had powerful forecasting and project management capabilities.
The Solution
Before moving to Deltek Vision, the Aardvark management team explored several other options. “To be honest, a lot of what we looked at sounded like QuickBooks,” Mr. Juneau said, “then we met with Deltek partner Kennedy Vomberg. Any way I wanted to slice up the information, they showed me how to do it with Vision. Kennedy Vomberg explained how it would help now and help us grow in the future. All in all, it was a great product and a great pitch.”
Within a month, Aardvark and Kennedy Vomberg were able to implement Vision and deploy the accounting, project management, and time and expense modules.
Aardvark now has the ability and transparency to compile, sort and report on financial, client, and project data. This level of insight allows Aardvark to target the most profitable opportunities based on existing and historical project billings. “We can do the same work, for the same clients, but smarter and more profitably,” Mr. Juneau said.
“It’s our entire accounting system now, and we use it for everything,” Mr. Juneau added. “I didn’t want a stopgap measure. I wanted something that could easily grow with us, and Vision was it.”
The Benefit
In its first year using Vision, Aardvark experienced an increase to their bottom line of more than double their initial investment in the solution. This occurred because Vision now allows Aardvark to target their most profitable opportunities. Aardvark has also seen substantial increases in efficiency from automated reporting, which has allowed Aardvark to focus more on analyzing and acting on information in reports, rather than spending hours generating them. In addition, the project management module has given Aardvark increased visibility into the operations and profitability of each of its eight drill rigs.
Additionally, Aardvark has used Vision’s customized, ad-hoc reporting to help develop a bonus structure for the most profitable employees and plans on adding the resource management module as their growth continues.
“We’re saving time, saving paper, and working smarter,” Mr. Juneau concluded. “Best of all, as non-accountants, we were able to pick it up pretty quickly.”
Aardvark Drilling, Inc. At A Glance
Company Name: Aardvark Drilling, Inc.
Headquarters: Guelph, Ontario
Primary Business: Aardvark Drilling is a
Canada-based drill rig operator serving
engineering, environmental, planning, and
mining firms. Aardvark owns and operates drill
rigs in Ontario and Bermuda and maintains a full
fleet of service and support equipment.
URL: www.aardvarkdrillinginc.com
Implementation Partner
Kennedy Vomberg
Kennedy Vomberg Inc. is based in Toronto, Canada and provides business advisory and software consulting services to the professional services industry throughout Ontario and beyond. In partnership with Deltek, Kennedy Vomberg markets and implements the Vision line of business management solutions to organizations that sell and deliver formally constituted projects.
| The Deltek Advantage |
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The implementation of Deltek Vision enabled Aardvark to:
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