Case Study: Riverside Homes
Riverside Homes Automated 88% of Their Check Run Process Using Adaptive’s Financial Management Software
Riverside Homes is a custom homebuilder in Austin, Texas that leverages Adaptive’s software solutions to automate manual financial processes, freeing up employees to work on more productive tasks
Riverside Homes of Austin, Texas has been a community-building force for over 20 years. Led by its founder Scott Turner, the company specializes in building modern, custom homes and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and has become a market leader in green construction techniques. Turner’s sustainable and cost-efficient approach to homebuilding, which has led to Riverside being named Austin’s Green Builder of the Year award twice, doesn’t only exist at the job site – it extends to his back-office operation as well.
Riverside’s growth in the last several years, coupled with a more intense focus on cost during the COVID-19 pandemic, created an opportunity for Turner to evaluate his company’s administrative processes and identify ways to cut costs or increase productivity.
“Our top priority during the COVID-19 pandemic was to keep our workers employed and keep them safe while on the job,” Turner commented. “Once we were confident we could do that, we wondered if there was a way to save money in other parts of the organization – that’s when we met the team at Adaptive.”
Adaptive is an easy-to-use, automated software platform that saves construction companies time and money by combining simple software and artificial intelligence technology to automate back-office financial management workflows. The company was founded in 2021 and has raised $7.25 million in funding from financial investors, construction companies, and a diverse group of individual construction and financial executives.
It only takes a few minutes for customers to sign up for Adaptive and get access to the company’s full suite of automated financial management tools: automated budgets and draws, automated data entry, debit/credit card transaction reconciliation, approval workflows, and vendor management.
Ellenise Guerra, Director of Operations at Riverside Homes, said that Adaptive had an immediate impact on her ability to process checks. Before using Adaptive, the check run process was predominantly manual and slow-moving because it involved coordination of multiple individuals at the company.
Now, Guerra can email or scan incoming bills and receipts into the Adaptive platform… and let Adaptive do the rest. Adaptive uses AI technology to automate job-costing, populate accounting entries, and create a collaborative approval process that sends alerts directly to project managers’ phone.
Using Adaptive, “the process took three hours, whereas before it was three days,” Guerra said, “I saved 20 hours of time.”
Adaptive also makes life easier for the rest of Riverside’s supporting staff by connecting directly with bank account information and accounting software (like QuickBooks) to make sure these expenses and payments get reflected everywhere the company manages its financials. These financials can be integrated across project budgets, giving customers a better sense of profitability, and help automate draw requests to get customers paid faster.
For Riverside, these operational improvements have translated into real financial benefit. In addition to costs savings from automating error-prone, manual expense management processes, Adaptive empowers employees like Guerra to focus on more productive activities, like marketing, vendor negotiations, and business development.
An added benefit is that as Riverside continues to grow, it won’t have to hire another AP clerk to manage the growth in expenses. Adaptive allows it to scale its business efficiently.
Adaptive believes the impact their software has had at Riverside extends across the entire construction industry. According to McKinsey, productivity has stagnated in construction but accelerating in other industries (for example, manufacturing productivity has doubled since 1990s). By automating manual processes, Adaptive’s software can help companies turn unproductive time into productive time.
