Customer testimonial · pending client approval
“[Insert one approved testimonial from Burt Place here. Remove this box only after the client has confirmed the quote and consented to publication by email.]”
— [Name, designation], Burt Place
Burt Place, a fast-growing construction contractor, had outgrown the tools that once ran the business: spreadsheets, paper files, WhatsApp threads and a single accounting login. Nurture Spark built a custom construction ERP on Zoho Creator, connected to Zoho People, Zoho Payroll, Zoho Books and Zoho Analytics.
Client
Burt Place
Industry
Construction and contracting
Region
UAE
Zoho products
Creator, People, Payroll, Books, Analytics
8
interlocking ERP modules
5
Zoho apps connected
3
payroll approval levels: HR, Finance, Management
0
timesheets re-keyed between attendance and payroll
The Challenge: Running a Contracting Business on Spreadsheets
Every fast-growing contractor eventually hits the same wall. For Burt Place, HR, site operations, procurement, inventory and project cost control were manual and disconnected, and QuickBooks was used only for accounting after the fact. The finance team could say, weeks later, what a project had cost. Nobody could say what it was costing right now.
❌ Challenges before Zoho Creator
- Employee records, skills and performance history scattered across paper files and spreadsheets
- Payroll calculated outside the operational system and reconciled by hand every cycle
- Stock tracked per site in isolation, leading to duplicate purchases and idle material
- BOQs in Excel, disconnected from procurement and actual spend
- Procurement by phone calls and WhatsApp, with no enforced approval chain or audit trail
- Heavy equipment location and maintenance history untracked
- Client billing disconnected from certified project progress
- Management reports assembled by hand from several sources
What They Used Before
Before the build, Burt Place relied on spreadsheets and paper files for HR, inventory and BOQs, WhatsApp and phone calls for procurement approvals, and a single QuickBooks login for accounting and financial posting. None of these tools shared data with each other.
The Solution: A Custom Construction ERP on Zoho Creator
Rather than forcing the business into a generic ERP, Nurture Spark used Zoho Creator as the core of a custom-built system, then wired Zoho People, Zoho Payroll, Zoho Books and Analytics around it. Construction costs are tracked against projects and cost codes, and the Bill of Quantities acts as the operational budget throughout a job, so the software had to be shaped around the business and not the other way round.
The build was sequenced deliberately. HR and attendance came first because man-hour data underpins payroll and project costing. Payroll followed once attendance was flowing. Inventory, BOQ cost control and procurement were built as a connected trio. Asset management and client billing came next, and the management dashboard was built last, once every upstream module had live data.
Design principle: data is entered once, at its source, and flows automatically to every process that needs it.
The Eight Modules
Module A · HR: turning site headcount into provable data
Before: Employee records, skills and performance history lived on paper or in disconnected files, and nobody could see who was working on which project at a given time.
✅ What we built
- Core HR structure mirroring departments, sites, grades and reporting lines
- Employee master with visa and labour identifiers and a cost centre mapped to each project
- KPI framework: self-review, supervisor review and final approval
- Biometric device integration syncing attendance in real time into man-hour allocation
Result: Every hour a worker spends on a project is captured once, at the source, and flows to payroll and project costing without re-entry.
Module B · Payroll that already knows which project earned the hours
Before: Payroll ran outside the operational system, and finance reconciled attendance sheets, overtime and project allocations by hand every cycle.
✅ What we built
- Payroll structure aligned with UAE labour law and Burt Place’s internal pay rules
- Attendance and overtime pulled directly from Zoho People
- Labour cost allocated to projects automatically from approved man-hours
- WPS-ready structure with HR → Finance → Management approval and journals exported to accounting
Result: Labour cost stops being a month-end surprise. It lands on the right project as soon as attendance is approved.
Module C1 · Inventory: knowing what is in stock before you reorder
Before: Stock was tracked per site in isolation, if at all, so duplicate purchases happened while idle material sat unused elsewhere.
✅ What we built
- Inventory master covering stock, assets and service items across projects, sites and stores
- GRN, material issue and return transactions with real-time stock impact
- Inter-project transfer workflow with cost reallocation and PM / cost-control approval
- Rental-versus-owned check before any rental material request is approved
Result: A material request now checks what the group already owns before anyone can raise a purchase.
Module C2 · BOQ and cost control: the Bill of Quantities as a live budget
Before: BOQs lived in Excel, disconnected from procurement and actuals, so overruns were found at reconciliation, after the spend had happened.
✅ What we built
- BOQ hierarchy by project, trade, activity and sub-activity, with an Excel import utility for large bills
- Cost-code mapping and BOQ-driven procurement
- Real-time budget-versus-actual tracking with threshold alerts and escalation
- Price-deviation control that triggers approval when a quote exceeds the BOQ target rate
Result: Budget overruns become an alert on the BOQ line itself, while the project is still running.
Module C3 · Procurement: one auditable trail from request to paid invoice
Before: Material requests, RFQs and purchase orders moved by phone call and WhatsApp, with no quotation comparison, no enforced approvals and no link to what was actually delivered.
✅ What we built
- Role-based material requests with a configurable approval chain
- Supplier master, RFQ issuance and quotation comparison against the BOQ target price
- Multi-level LPO approval up to CEO sign-off on larger orders, with dispatch and delivery tracking
- GRN with optional QC inspection and an invoice approval flow linked back to the purchase order
Result: Every purchase order traces back to its material request, its BOQ line and the approver at each stage.
Module C4 · Assets and equipment: where every crane, generator and vehicle is
Before: Asset location, condition and maintenance history were not tracked centrally, so renting versus moving an idle owned asset was a guess.
✅ What we built
- Asset master for generators, cranes, compressors, tower cranes, vehicles and other major equipment
- Asset-to-project allocation with effective dates and audited movement tracking
- Depreciation allocated to projects by actual usage period
- Preventive maintenance scheduling with automated overdue alerts and a full history log
Result: Utilisation data now sits behind every rental decision, and depreciation lands on the projects that actually used the asset.
Module C5 · Client billing tied to what was actually built
Before: QuickBooks handled accounting entries, but nothing upstream connected client invoices, supplier bills or retention to real project progress.
✅ What we built
- Project financial structure built on cost codes, budget heads and revenue tracking
- Progress billing against BOQ completion, milestones or formal payment certificates
- Advance and retention handling, with supplier invoices linked to the PO, GRN, delivery note and cost code
- Creator integrated with QuickBooks or Zoho Books for automated posting, with VAT captured per transaction
Result: A client invoice traces directly to the certified BOQ quantities behind it and posts to accounting once approved.
Module D · Management dashboard: one view of everything above
Before: Management assembled numbers by hand from several sources, always producing a snapshot of the past.
✅ What we built
- Consolidated project cost view: material, labour, equipment, subcontract and overhead
- Committed-cost tracking that counts approved purchase orders before the invoice arrives
- Real-time budget-versus-actual and gross margin by project and cost code
- Monthly reporting with automatic variance and exception highlighting
Result: Management gets a live answer to the question that matters most: is this project making money right now?
Benefits Achieved
✅ What changed for Burt Place
- One entry, many uses: an attendance swipe on site becomes a payroll entry and a project cost without anyone retyping a number
- Spend control before spend happens: a material request checks group-wide stock first, and a BOQ line flags a price deviation the moment it occurs
- Auditable approvals: every purchase order traces to its request, BOQ line and approver, with CEO sign-off on larger orders
- Real-time margin visibility: committed and actual cost by project and cost code, instead of a month-end reconstruction
- Faster, defensible billing: client invoices tied to certified BOQ quantities and posted straight to accounting
Note: this case study describes the operational change delivered. Quantified results (for example hours saved per payroll cycle or reduction in duplicate purchases) will be added here once Burt Place confirms them.
Conclusion
Burt Place moved from reactive, after-the-fact reporting to real-time, connected operational visibility, with a data architecture that can support further growth, deeper analytics and continued automation. If your contracting or project business still runs on spreadsheets and phone calls, the same approach can work for you.