Brookline Homes

Brookline Homes alleviates time-consuming, error prone double entry; closely monitors profitability with construction specific reports

“As a start-up, it’s crucial to offer innovative tools to strengthen our relationship with Suppliers, Subcontractors and Trades and improve efficiencies so we can grow and compete with bigger Builders. We love Hyphen Wallet because it’s a seamless feature in BRIX, includes an array of features we can use as our business grows and eliminates the need to rely on another vendor solution to automate payments.”
– Jennifer Johnson Clarke, Founder and President of Olivia Clarke Homes

Executive highlights from Brookline Homes success

• Growth from 16 homes a year to 200 homes a year in less than five years.
• Rapid expansion exceeded the capacity of Brookline Homes’ existing project management, purchasing and billing systems
• These systems required data to be imported and exported – this back and forth process was error prone and time consuming – limiting Brookline Homes’ growth potential
• 80% of the builds were townhomes, which often required lot-specific changes and adherence to specific building codes
• Lot and code complexities made native integration between the project management and the ERP solution even more important
• Alignment of project, purchasing and financial data from build start to delivery was achieved with less effort, cost and time by using BuildPro® – replacing disconnected back office tools.

Making the move to entrepreneurship is exciting, but it can also be daunting. Owners must know the health of the business at every moment – especially for high-growth, relatively new builders like Brookline Homes.

Scott Dirkschneider, CEO, founded Brookline Homes four years ago when he was invited by a local developer to build on a group of in-fill lots in key neighborhoods. Mr. Dirkschneider built eighteen homes that year and more than doubled in size the next. The company’s expansion made efficient back office processes a must.

However, the company rapidly exceeded their infrastructure’s capabilities. Manual tasks like exporting data from the project management system and importing it into their accounting system were consuming valuable time. These complexities combined with Brookline’s lean business methodology set Scott in search of a new solution.

Quick facts

• Started by 40 year industry Veteran to fulfill his dream of owning his own home building business
• Focus on building townhomes in key communities resulted in year-over-year, double digit growth
• Awarded a Home Builders Association of Greater Charlotte MAME Award
• Created “Everything Included” options to streamline the building process, accelerating the delivery timeframe and improving profitability
• Created open-architecture townhome designs, unlocked intense buyer demand.
• Alignment of project, purchasing and financial data from build start to delivery was achieved with less effort, cost and time by using BuildPro® – replacing disconnected back office tools.

“Starting Brookline Homes was the best decision I’ve ever made. I’m just thankful we found BuildPro and BRIX to make our back office run at the pace of our business.”
– Mr. Dirkschneider

Challenges Driving Change

A colleague recommended Mr. Dirkschneider drop by the Hyphen Solutions booth at the National Association of Home Builders conference. During his visit he shared these key challenges:

#1 In-house Systems Were Too Limited and Disconnected

Rapid growth exceeded the capability of BuildPlan®, the company’s existing project management system, and it was not connected with the purchasing and accounting systems – creating error prone double entry.

#2 Not Knowing When a Build Was Over Budget

With siloed data, it was an arduous task to determine if a build was on-budget. Brookline Homes needed a way to see how profitable their projects were at every step, not only after delivery.

#3 Existing Business Systems Were Not Tailored To The Construction Industry

The project management and back-office accounting tools they had in place did not integrate well. This made it difficult to see the status of home build progress and made accounts payables a time consuming chore.

Brookline Homes Chooses BuildPro® and BRIX To Seamlessly Integrate Formerly Siloed Data and Support Real-Time Project Profitability Reporting

In search of a new solution, Scott worked with Hyphen Solutions’ team to evaluate the feasibility of replacing his overburdened back office tools with BuildPro® and BRIX.

Mr. Dirkschneider’s lean operation used only one bookkeeper to manage over 180 or more builds a year. Their accounting system required her to perform multi-step data exports and imports, combined with time consuming “double checking” after imports were complete. Their reporting capabilities also fell short of his needs

Brookline Homes solved all of these issues with the BuildPro® and BRIX combination. Native data integration combined with powerful prebuilt construction-management reports gave their team the ability to do more with less. Mr. Dirkschneider appreciated the easy-to-use reports so he could instantly see how his company was performing without having to be a “software pro” or build reports from scratch.

KEY OUTCOMES FOR BROOKLINE HOMES

• 24/7/365 Insight—Reports dashboard shows up-to-themoment project status for cost control
• 100% Streamlined—Project management, purchasing and accounting are synchronized and data is instantly available to every function
• 150% Increase—In bookkeeper’s productivity due to improved processes and native data integration
• Zero Sleepless Nights—Complete confidence in operationalized processes, replacing data entry

“We cut our bookeeper’s time in half, and I have reports that show me everything in our budget that is tracked. Now I have peace of mind instead of sleepless nights because we can control our cost and exposure.”
– Scott Dirkschneider

Closing remarks on why it’s worth it to move to BuildPro® and BRIX

“Now whenever we want, we can create a report that will tell us the health of any build project. It’s so nice having peace of mind knowing that everything in our budget is tracked and the whole system just runs itself once it’s built.”
– Scott Dirkschneider — CEO, Founder Brookline Homes

About Brookline Homes

The story began with Brookline Homes’ President Scott Dirkschneider, a 40-year veteran of the home construction business. He started the company to fulfill his vision of delivering townhomes and single- family products with a new approach. Brookline Homes is unique because it combines visually appealing architectural design with a science-based building approach for optimal livability and value. This recipe proved successful, resulting in year-over- year growth to meet today’s discerning homebuyers’ demands.

Brookline Homes builds in key neighborhoods in North Carolina focusing on delivering excellent experiences for their buyers across several distinct neighborhoods. Brookline Homes is a winner of the Home Builders Association of Greater Charlotte MAME awards. Contact Brookline Homes today at www.BrooklineHome.com 980-277-1322.