Case Study – National Fire Protection Services Provider
Industry: Fire protection systems installation, inspection and maintenance
Region: Australia, operating across multiple legal entities
Scale: 150+ field staff plus a national subcontractor network
The Challenge
As a fast-growing, project-driven business, this fire protection provider had outgrown its patchwork of spreadsheets and disconnected tools. Project managers had no real-time visibility into job profitability, cost-to-complete or work-in-progress status, making it difficult to catch cost overruns early. Labour cost allocation, procurement tracking and revenue recognition were largely manual, and operating across multiple legal entities added consolidation complexity the existing systems couldn’t handle. As the business grew through acquisition, onboarding each new entity required significant rework.
The Solution
Austral Dynamics implemented Dynamics 365 Business Central as a unified financial and project platform, with entity-specific configuration for tax, posting rules and reporting. The core of the engagement was the Jobs module, extended with custom forecasting logic for estimate-to-complete and estimate-at-completion, tailored work-in-progress calculations aligned to the business’s revenue recognition model, and purpose-built functionality for progress claims and contract retention. The platform was also integrated with five external systems spanning field service, payroll, time and attendance, project management and document capture, turning it into a genuine operational hub rather than a standalone finance tool.
The Results
Project managers now have live visibility into budgets, actuals, forecasts and work in progress across every job. Custom revenue recognition and retention functionality means margin and billing are now accurate and audit-ready. Automated timesheet integration has removed manual labour cost entry, and consolidated dashboards give leadership real-time insight into performance across the group. As the business has continued to grow through acquisition, new entities have been brought onto the platform quickly using established templates — keeping the group consistent without slowing down integration.