EdilGest at a construction company: sites, budgets, purchasing and costs linked

The company used a management system based on ADempiere, customised over time for the specific needs of construction, with supplier orders, site document management, attendance, timesheets and site reports, works accounting, cost analysis and a site register.

The project set out to migrate to iDempiere and build an integrated system covering contracts/sites, warehouse, sales, purchasing and accounting, carrying over historical data, vertical extensions and customisations. The real challenge was not replacing a platform, but preserving and developing a management model built around the construction site.

1. 01

   Financial control of every site

   Estimates, budgets, orders, actual costs and final accounts must all be traceable to the same contract and its operational breakdown.

2. 02

   Sites structured on several levels

   Cost analysis requires a distinction between Site, Building and Phase, with the option to drill down to individual work items.

3. 03

   Purchasing linked to the budget

   Purchase requests and orders must be checked against budget items and availability, so that procurement and financial control do not run separately.

4. 04

   Construction price lists and units

   Regional price lists must be managed, data imported from specialist software such as Primus, and document units of measure matched with those in the budget.

5. 05

   Site operations in the ERP

   Site reports, hours, documents, internal delivery notes and subcontractor activities must feed directly into the financial view of the contract.

6. 06

   Continuous regulatory adaptation

   Contractual and regulatory changes must be reflected quickly in the documents the system produces.

Labinf Sistemi developed and evolved EdilGest, the vertical solution for construction companies and contract-based work built on the open-source ERP iDempiere, which integrates site management with sales, purchasing, warehouse and accounting, all linked to the contract dimension.

The construction site is at the heart of the system, organised in a Site, Building and Phase hierarchy to which the financial and operational data generated during the works is attached. The platform allows cost and revenue budgets to be set, invoicing by progress milestones or Time & Material, spending to be checked against the budget and resource timesheets to be recorded; an additional phase grouping level allows the site WBS to be read by macro-phase as well.

The solution includes

• Contracts and sites
• Cost and revenue budgets
• Purchase requests with approval workflow
• Supplier orders and goods receipts
• Regional price lists and Primus import
• Works accounting and progress statements
• Site reports and hours
• Subcontractor management
• Internal delivery notes and non-accounting records
• Site documents and images
• Purchasing cycle and general accounting
• Site Analysis and Cost Analysis
• Web apps linked to the ERP

The budget holds sector-specific data such as quantities, prices, rates, labour incidence and amount, safety costs and the regional price list reference, which feed directly into purchase order lines. Purchase requests are created already linked to the contract, with site, manager, suggested suppliers, attachments, budget lines, waste percentage and delivery date, and go through an approval workflow with a check against the available budget.

Supplier orders are generated from purchase requests or directly from the budget, carrying over Building, Phase and financial references; the budget reference continues into goods receipts and supplier invoices across the whole purchasing cycle. The Rate control level is propagated through accounting and operational documents.

Site reports bring what happens in the field into the system, including subcontractors with supplier, number of workers, total hours, date and description of the activity, with an export filterable by site, supplier and period. Reports show costs and values by site, building, phase, macro-phase and period, and several sites belonging to the same project can be aggregated and analysed as a single initiative with costs, revenues and deltas.

Web apps linked to the ERP cover supplier orders, site document management, attendance, timesheets and site reports, and stay consistent with the contract structure: for example, they prevent the selection of phases intended only for grouping. The system has also been adapted to new regulations, such as the wording on the Italian construction credit-based licence in contracts and orders, and to handling labour incidence and safety costs in purchasing documents.

The move from ADempiere to iDempiere preserved historical data, customisations developed over the years, external integrations and established vertical processes. Migration was carried out through several data conversions: one for testing and verification, one for training on company data and a final one before go-live.

After go-live, operational checks and optimisations continued on budgets, orders, goods receipts, site reports, works accounting and management control.

• The construction site at the centre of the information system
• Budgets, purchasing and actual costs linked
• Financial control by Site, Building and Phase
• Structured purchase requests with approval workflows
• Orders generated from the budget
• Regional price lists and Primus data integrated
• Subcontractor activities under control
• Analysis of estimates, actuals and variances
• Operational web apps linked directly to the ERP
• Continuous evolution without losing data or processes