StepStone Realty has built a successful business around creative real estate. They provide a number of services to help their investor agents close deals more effectively, from short sale processing to mentoring to training. StepStone prides itself on the flexibility it can offer to its agents, compared to more traditional real estate firms.

Problem

However, one consequence of all this flexibility and variety of services is a rather complex fee structure.  Some closings include multiple levels of referral fees, while others have fees for extra processing services or discounts based on sales volume.

Some of the fees and commissions are flat amounts, while others are a percentage commission.  Sometimes the commission converts to a flat fee after a certain threshold is met.  Some fees differ based on prior sales volume.  Suffice it to say, the calculations are somewhat complex.

The StepStone team was calculating all this manually, but the process was time-consuming and error-prone, and most importantly, as the company grew, the manual calculations wouldn’t scale.

Solution

To begin with, we spent time recording all the written rules and their logical flow.  StepStone already had a custom-built application for managing their agents and other key aspects of their business, and we knew we wanted this solution to fit in seamlessly with the existing application.

We built them a form that allows them to enter the key details about each closing (property, agent, sale price, date completed, services used, etc.), and store the details, allowing them to be linked to the agent data already stored in their database.

We converted all the rules for their fee structure to a set of functions within the app, which could take the provided data, look up previous sales, and calculate all the other related fees.  Once this logic was in place, we were also able to provide a preview functionality, where the user could see how the fees would calculate out based on the selected options, and determine if changes needed to be made before saving the entry.

After a few tests runs, we found that no matter how robust the fee calculation logic was, there would always be exceptions.  Maybe a custom service was being provided, or a special discount.  So we added an option to override any of the calculated values in the fee structure.  However, changing the value of one fee required the updating of another fee, so we structured the overrides so that each value could be overridden individually, and the overridden values could be used in the calculation of any related fees.  Thus, even if some fees or commissions did not adhere to the standard formula, we could still calculate the remainder of the structure, rather than forcing the user to manually run all the calculations.

Result

The module allowed each closing to be viewed as an individual report, but we also provide a list view that could be filtered and sorted, as well as exported to a spreadsheet.

In the end, the tedious task of calculating fees and commissions was lifted off the shoulders of the StepStone team, and they were able to focus their energy on what they do best: helping agents and investors close real estate deals.

Our client is a market leader in oil field logistics and transload services.  They own and manage a nationwide network of transload terminals where they store and move millions of pounds of bulk sand, crude, and other materials to and from trucks, railcars, silos, and other containers.  Their services are a critical element in the energy supply chain in North America.

This client operates transload facilities, where they transfer products between trucks, railcars, and on-site storage containers. They specialize in transloading frac sand for the oil and gas industry, particularly in the Southwest, although they handle a variety of materials at locations all over the country.

Problem

The railcars, trucks, and materials they handle do not belong to the logistics service provider, but rather belong to their clients, who either produce and sell materials or consume them. Either way, they need to move large quantities of bulk materials using multiple modes of transport, which our client facilitates.

The client’s business is not based on the products they handle, but on the handling itself. As such, they bill their clients based on the weight transported, with rates varying based on location, customer, mode of transport, material type, container type (silo, hopper, warehouse, etc.), and various other factors. Some of these rates are set on a sliding scale based on volume. Some include minimum volumes that must be achieved within a certain time frame.

They also bill demurrage fees for railcars stored at their facilities, which vary based on the type of car. Most of these are actually charged by the railroad and passed through to the client. They typically have a certain number of free days, with a charge daily for each day after that threshold.

Many of our client’s customers are multi-billion dollar companies, and their requirements can vary greatly. As such, each contract is negotiated separately and will have different terms.

Because of all this, calculating exactly what each customer owes them at the end of the month is an extremely complex task. Data on every truck to visit each facility was being exported into a spreadsheet, and the accounting department would add all the various calculations, manually entering the more complex variations. But as the business grew, this became too time-consuming, and they simply could not keep up.

Solution

We built them a system where they could enter all the complex details of the billing agreement for each contract. Then we built a report generation system where they could grab all the transactions for each customer, have the fees automatically calculated, and quickly review them. Once reviewed, they would click a button and all the transactions would be exported to their accounting software, and an invoice would be generated. Later, as the client’s business grew, we modified the export to send the transactions to an enterprise ERP system instead.

Result

This system allowed them to recoup lost revenue that would have been missed by the manual process, and easily generate accurate invoices for all their clients with only a couple of accountants, instead of an army of analysts, which they would need at this point.

Our client is a market leader in oil field logistics and transload services.  They own and manage a nationwide network of transload terminals where they store and move millions of pounds of bulk sand, crude, and other materials to and from trucks, railcars, silos, and other containers.  Their services are a critical element in the energy supply chain in North America.

Problem

The client has a proprietary cloud-based operations management application they use to track all material and asset movements at each of their facilities.  A key part of this process requires capturing bill of lading signatures from truck drivers before they leave the facility. Different facilities require different configurations, based on available equipment, facilities, and staffing.  Some facilities use desktop PCs with a USB signature pad, while others use a ruggedized mobile device with a touchscreen.  Still others use custom-built kiosks with larger touchscreens.  No matter the hardware used, signatures need to be captured and stored in a consistent format, and must be easily retrieved later for auditing and verification purposes.

Solution

Using an open source jQuery signature plugin, and the proprietary SDK from the device manufacturer, we built a single, reusable component which allows signatures to be captured via any method: signature pad, touch screen, mouse drawing, and saved to the app’s datastore as a PNG file.

If the signature pad is installed, impressions are captured in real time, and rendered on the screen.  If the signature pad is not installed, the system will fall back gracefully.  A message informing the user on how to install the signature pad can be displayed.  Meanwhile, the other signature methods are still available.

Result

Our client no longer has to be concerned about signatures when planning deployments.  Any possible situation can be handled with minimal overhead, whether they are using desktop computers or mobile handhelds.  Not only that but some time after this solution was deployed, the transload company began installing kiosks with a large desktop-sized touch screen at certain facilities.  Because of the flexibility of the signature solution, the kiosks were able to support on-screen signature capture without any additional development.  Whether the facility uses touch screen kiosks, handheld devices, or a signature pad attached to a desktop PC, the application is able to handle it seamlessly.  Digital signature capture for Bill of Lading documents will be available in any scenario.

For this project, we worked with a local IT staffing agency that placed contractors with major employers in need of supplemental technical talent and specialized expertise.  They work with businesses of all sizes, filling short- and long-term vacancies.

Problem

Our client was having a hard time requesting, receiving, sorting, and overall managing invoices from their vendors and contractors. They needed a solution to allow their vendors and contractors to submit and manage invoices, all the while having back-office access in case any unforeseen circumstances happen.  They also needed to be able to correlate these invoices with their clients, to make sure they bill properly for everything.

Solution

In order to allow our client’s vendors and contractors to create and manage their invoices that can be accessed by multiple people at the same time remotely, we created a small web app that provided a web interface for third-party vendors to access, as well as a FileMaker interface for back-office access, all backed by a MySQL database. For this project, we used PHP, MySQL, Symfony, JavaScript, jQuery, Twitter Bootstrap, and FileMaker Pro.

Results

The web app has enabled our clients’ vendors and contractors to not only create but also manage invoices on just a single platform and has been rid of the worry that they may have missed the last month’s invoice somewhere in an email thread. 

Client

Locals Know is a social travel application for the iOS and Android platforms. They provide a multimedia virtual tour guide experience for visitors to a new city.  The user has a map view to see all the points of interest and attractions in their vicinity.  Each location has audio, video, and text content to help users get unique insights into the place they are visiting.

Problem

Our client already had robust mobile apps for Android and iOS, which received data from their servers.  However, they were trying to get more users involved who had not yet installed the app.  They needed a way for existing users to share content from the app and have it viewable by their friends in a web browser.

Solution

We worked on a web-based RESTful API used by the mobile applications to pull data from the server.  Much of the structure for the API was already built by a previous developer.  However, the existing code base had several outstanding issues.  First of all, the database schema did not match the intended design of the app, and there were some other issues.  We restructured the database, wrote migrations, modified the API responses, and fixed several other bugs.  Beyond bug fixes, we also added additional API endpoints for new features and helped troubleshoot some issues with the API requests from the iOS application.

As well as dealing with the RESTful API, we built a client-facing web interface to allow users to view this content outside of the native mobile apps.  Using the responsive design features in the Bootstrap Framework, we built this web interface to render on desktop web browsers, tablets, and mobile browsers.

In addition, to support this web interface, and the social nature of the app, we built a custom URL shortener system to aid in sharing content via Twitter and Facebook.  The URL shortener created compact URLs, uniform in length, with no discernible pattern, guaranteed to be unique.

For this project, we made use of PHP, MySQL, Yii MVC Framework, JavaScript, jQuery, Google Maps API, and Bootstrap Framework.

Results

With the improvements we made to the API, the mobile development teams were better able to build out new features for their users.  The web UI and short URLs made it easy for app users to share content from the app with their friends, facilitating a form of viral marketing to help grow the brand.