Commercial/Residential Electrica Contractor. Jonas was the right fit for us.

We have been live with Jonas for a little over a year. As with ANY software, it isn't perfect and will not suit every need. It is impossible for a software to please everyone as we all run our businesses differently. We shopped several software options, and for our medium size company with a service department, Jonas fit us best. I agree, the reports are very simplistic in format and do take some getting used to. I had to look beyond pretty pictures and format as what is really important to us is the data. The Pro and Con to Jonas is it is HIGHLY customizable. With that, there needs to be a very thoughtful process to how you set it up in the beginning. Which is a challenge since you won't know how some things work until you are using it. It is a very robust software for the price, in my opinion, and will take patience and time to learn all it can do. I found that the very basics such as entering A/P, work orders, creating jobs are very easy to learn. The complexity comes when you want/expect to rely less on outside software and spreadsheets. Our company borders two states, one with a multi-jurisdiction sales tax schedule. Every payroll or sales tax requirement Jonas has been able to handle. Jonas is able to handle multi-state, multi union payrolls. Something we found not very many programs could throw in a service department and it became very small unless I wanted to buy a program that equated us to driving a bus down the road for 3 people while spending 6 figures. No thank you.

Pros

My favorite is the Project Control screen. From there, our project managers can drill down and get all the information they need in one quick and easy place. Each person can customize some of the drill down screens to tailor to their individual needs. AIA/progress billing is easy with the step by step menu. It is also easy to go back and adjust if needed. The ability to set controls across the various modules. Your voice is heard. I have always been able to talk thru a challenge with support and management. They listen and if the demand is there they will put it in the next product update.

Cons

The stock payroll reports haven't fit very well for us. But Jonas is working on that. Cluttered menu items that hang in there because their long-time customers still use them. It is confusing when you are first learning.

I am Happy Long-term Client that has been using Jonas since 2001

Great trainers who are very knowledgeable and professional. They work with us to troubleshoot any issues we are having with prompt response time!

Pros

We found Jonas easy to learn because they have THE BEST trainers and customer support. We have gotten to know that staff over the years and they are awesome! Doesn’t matter if we have big or small questions - they are always willing to help us. We use the system for A/R, A/P, G/L, Payroll, Project Management, Service Management, Inventory, and Equipment. The reporting is the best part because we are able to fully drill down and see how all projects are doing at any point in time. We’ve also been able to grow our service management side because of their Dispatch Board and the mobile solution. We love it!!! And last but not least, the payroll makes my life so much easier, having both union and non-union – this makes it a breeze. As a Union Electrical Contractor working in over ten different locals in California, this is imperative to have this functionality. Jonas Software has changed the way the company operates, saving time, making things more organized, and more proficient. Jonas is always listening to clients and they truly care and live up to their promise of being a partner rather than just a provider. We are able to have full insight into our business and we’ve been able to grow because of the software!

Cons

At this time I can not think of any cons.

Excellent Company and Great Software

I think the largest benefit of Jonas is not the software itself, but the people you'll work with. They are a well run organization, and just by their example have helped us improve. The annual User Conference is a great way to interact with Jonas employees, give your input on future development, and meet other Jonas customers with similar concerns to your own.

Pros

We are an MEP contractor with a little over 100 employees in four operating locations. Jonas fits our needs very well. Our previous software did not provide the data we needed to be able to best run our business, especially when it came to multiple operating divisions in multiple locations. We can now easily see profitability on our construction jobs at any point in the project, we are more organized in our service department, and our A/R has improved.

Cons

As with any of these software products, it took us a while to get acclimated to Jonas. The test company they set up before we went live was helpful, but it still takes time to get used to how it all works. Now that we've had time, we are all comfortable with how to navigate the software and get the information we need.

Jonas Review

Jonas is our third ERP software program we have used in 20 years in business. Learned a lot about selection process' by knowing my experiences with the first two. I also learned none of them do everything, all of them will hiccup from time to time. So my selection of Jonas centered around: 1. Is their customer service responsive (yes), 2. Do they constantly try to improve the product based on customer input (yes), 3. Is the product fairly priced (yes). and is the annual fee structure reasonable (yes). We also needed a strong field mobile platform as we have used wireless field mobile solutions for many years. Jonas has worked very well for us, we continue to get training on new modules and features we can use to make our company process/ better.

Pros

Constantly looking for ways to improve a product and they do not wait until year end to release updates if they are ready they release them. Customer service is very responsive if you need immediate help. Training is very high quality, conversion from our old to the new system was without trouble and well planned.

Cons

Dispatch board does not schedule projects or long term service work well (works very well for day to day calls) but they developed a project scheduler that looks promising for that.

Our Jonas experience has been an excellent move for our business.

We have experienced increased productivity on the administrative side of our business and higher accuracy in all areas.

Pros

eMobile and Dispatch Scheduler have helped us to respond to customer service requests in a more organized and timely manner. The integration part of this software has increased our productivity enormously. No more paper work orders! And has made the accounting side of our business seamless from service tech to customer invoice. Payroll accuracy has increased and timeliness of getting invoices out to customers has increased because of the techs ability to use devices to complete work orders and we are not waiting for them to be turned into the office.

Cons

I find the Job Costing module very cumbersome. The job invoicing is a little arduous. When doing multiple customers for monthly draws, it is very time consuming to have to go in and out of each job to invoice. Also, if you do not have a bill to set up in accounts receivable you have to exit the job master, then go to AR to set up the bill to and back into the job master to finish your set up.

We have used Jonas for over 1 1/2 years. However, we have recently changed to another software company. The reason we went to Jonas was because our previous system was DOS based and did not have a strong service package. We have a fast growing service department which has increased from approximately 15 techs to over 30 techs in the last 5 years. After reviewing multiple companies we felt Jonas was the best selection for service. However, there was a problem with Jonas on the contracting side. We could not "trust" our numbers. The program would give us different amounts for the same project. It really had problems in retention amounts that differed from 10% retention. I think that some of the problem was our input. It was not easy and for whatever reason we decided (for Jonas) that we should have decentralized inputting of information. Therefore we had project managers inputting information. In the past that was always a function of support staff. Another negative is that they are a Canadian company and the way they perform some of their business practices are different than what we perform. The function and terminology is different. The people are extremely helpful, however. The positives about Jonas is that our service liked the service options available. If you have a service company that does not have a large contracting base I think they would be OK. There is a lot of information in Jonas that can be used to analyze your company. There are also some very good items like the hand held devices and customer information feed back loops, customer scheduling and a very good dispatch board.

Very Satisfied User

Our company switched software products to Jonas just over 1 year ago. We had outgrown our old system. We've been extremely pleased with both the Jonas software and the Jonas staff we've interacted with. Our company has just over 100 employees in four office locations. This system can handle our multiple divisions without being too complicated or cumbersome to use.

Pros

The primary issue with our last software was an inability to get good reporting and data from the system, especially for our multi-divisional operation. The report writer in Jonas is a very useful tool, and the financial drill-down capabilities are excellent. We also now have real-time job cost data, and more detailed P&Ls, which has helped our ability to manage construction work.

Cons

No software product is perfect. We've had to adapt a few of our internal processes to fit the way Jonas is made to operate, but nothing has come up that we haven't been able to work around. The Jonas trainers are also an excellent resource we've utilized to make the system work as best it can for us.

Seems to be lots of issues that are unexplainable by service department.

I hate getting the answer of we will fix it but can't explain why it happened. I am the type of person that likes to know why something is happening. Payroll fixes are one of those issues. When I remove something it should be removed not partly removed and then have to have a Jonas tech take the information out completely and start over. Also when I call in it seems that the people that call back are new and have no idea what they are doing and I have to waste time looking for the payroll individual when time is a factor.

Pros

Easy to get around for the most part. Search function works good but needs more detail. Easy to start a case.

Cons

Fixes seem harder than they should be and when I call in for help on a time sensitive matter the person helping doesn't seem to know what I am talking about.

Flooring contractor / reseller - after 6 years of Jonas experience

Pros

The software handles WIP reporting very well. The subcontractor module provides good controls. The design of sales tax location codes provides good flexibility in sales tax reporting. The product has well-integrated applications. The F2 lookup ability in modules is consistently designed and very helpful.

Cons

1) I would like more standard reporting capabilities. Some reports need Report Generator reports to create. Others require DataMart. DataMart can obtain good results, but it is too complex for anyone but a programmer to design. Almost all contractors have to deal with reporting workers comp and sales taxes, so these reports should be part of a standard product and not need custom programming.
2) During conversion in 2008, it was difficult to fully convert existing data into Jonas and also tie everything to jobs.
3) Portions of the programming have fields with too few characters available. Examples are the Customer PO field in Job Cost and A/R, along with the part number field in inventory.

Small construction/service company.

Pros

Lots of features and fairly easy to use.
Customer support, when we've needed it, has be good and typically provided in a timely manner.

Cons

Old interface. 15 character limit on inventory items (and having to use alternate part numbers) needs to be fixed. Even the alternate part numbers are too small for many of our parts.
Purchase order numbers, and cheque numbers are too short.
New modules seem like add-ons to the base program, rather than a complete integrated solution.
Inability to access some fields for custom reports. Some built in reports are poorly implemented.