If your business is still running on spreadsheets, legacy software with no integrations, and a cobbled-together approach to cybersecurity, you’re not alone. Thousands of small and mid-sized businesses across Calgary are in exactly the same spot.
The good news? The numbers show that investing in managed IT services in Calgary doesn’t just solve tech headaches. It generates a measurable, documented return on investment.
Here’s exactly what we found, what we did about it, and what the numbers looked like on the other side.
What Does a Calgary Business Look Like Before Managed IT Services?
This particular client was a well-established Alberta general contractor focused on multi-family residential development. With 60 employees and roughly $16 million in annual revenue, they weren’t a tiny startup; they were a real, growing company.
But their technology? It was holding them back in four very specific ways:
No project management software. Every job was tracked in Excel. That meant hours wasted every week manually updating spreadsheets, hunting for the latest version of a file, and reconciling numbers that didn’t match.
Outdated financial software with zero integrations. Their accounting platform was a legacy client-server product, Sage 100, that had no API, no cloud capability, and no way to connect with any other system. Every accounts payable and accounts receivable transaction tied to a project had to be entered twice: once in the project tracking sheet and again in the financial system.
A medium-severity cybersecurity risk profile. The business had some good practices in place, but critical gaps, like no mobile device management, no strong password policy, and no disaster response plan, which left them exposed.
Gaps in Microsoft 365 utilization. The team was using Office 365 but only scratching the surface of what it could do. SharePoint workflows weren’t being used, meta tagging was absent, and training videos didn’t exist.
Sound familiar? If you’re a Calgary business owner nodding along right now, keep reading.
Did you know – Tursa Group provides free managed IT service consultations to Calgary-based organizations. Check out our IT services here.
How Did Tursa Group Approach the Problem?
Before recommending a single piece of software, Tursa Group conducted a full professional IT assessment, mapping out the current state of the business’s technology, identifying gaps, and scoring each area by financial impact, implementation complexity, and change management requirements.
They identified six focus areas:
- Construction management software
- Financial software
- Software integration between the two platforms
- Cybersecurity hardening
- Microsoft 365 optimization
- Digital strategy (excluded from this post’s scope)
Each solution was then scored across four dimensions: speed of impact, savings opportunity, ease of implementation, and change management burden. What drove the prioritization was telling the client what to tackle immediately, what to build toward in three months, and what to plan for over the next year.
This is the kind of structured thinking that separates a real managed IT services provider from someone who just sells you software and disappears.
What Software Did Tursa Group Recommend, and Why?
Construction Management: Procore
After analyzing more than 20 construction management platforms, Tursa Group recommended Procore as the operational core of the business. The deciding factors:
- A robust public API and a large marketplace of third-party integrations
- Industry-wide adoption with strong peer recommendations
- Handles job costing, project management, subcontractor management, scheduling, RFIs, submittals, and client/vendor portals all in one platform
- Compatible with Zapier and other automation connectors
For a business that had been managing all of this in Excel, Procore represented a step change in visibility, accountability, and efficiency.
Financial Software: QuickBooks Online Advanced
Rather than replacing one complex system with another, Tursa Group took a deliberate approach: since Procore would handle all the detailed financial work at the project level (job costing, budgeting, billing), the financial software just needed to handle accounting.
QuickBooks Online Advanced was selected because:
- It integrates directly with Procore via a third-party connector
- Its public API allows future integrations as the business grows
- Its marketplace includes ready-to-connect apps for payroll, payments, and expense management
- It’s rated 4.5/5 overall across nearly 20,000 reviews, with an “Easy” ease-of-setup rating vs. competitors
This replaced Sage 100, a platform with no integrations, no cloud capability, and no clear upgrade path from its vendor.
The Integration Layer: Smoothlink
Connecting Procore and QuickBooks Online is where the double data entry problem gets eliminated.
Tursa Group recommended Smoothlink as the integration platform for one key reason: it’s more robust than Procore’s own native QuickBooks integration. Smoothlink syncs projects, cost codes, companies, employees, invoices, payments, and commitments bi-directionally between the two systems. Sales and payment data flows automatically.
The result: no more entering the same transaction in two places. Ever.
Additional automation tools recommended include Plooto for electronic payments with approval workflows, and Dext for receipt and expense capture, which eliminates manual data entry from both ends of the accounts payable process.
Cybersecurity: Closing the Gaps
A formal {{internal link: cybersecurity services}}cybersecurity audit{{/internal link}} revealed a mixed picture. Several strong practices were already in place:
But three significant gaps needed immediate attention:
- No mobile device management: meaning company data on employee phones had no remote wipe capability
- Weak password practices: passwords stored in browsers, not unique per account, not 20+ characters
- No disaster/compromise response plan: nobody knew who to call in an emergency
Tursa Group used the NIST Cybersecurity Framework maturity model to map the business’s current state and prioritize remediation steps. The immediate action was addressing medium-severity issues through the outsourced IT team already in place.
Microsoft 365: Getting More From What You’re Already Paying For
The audit of the client’s Microsoft 365 environment found a well-functioning setup with one significant untapped opportunity: SharePoint workflows.
The business wasn’t using automated approval workflows, which meant documents, purchase orders, and other items requiring sign-off were being handled manually via email. Implementing workflows here could eliminate another layer of administrative friction without adding any new software costs.
Additional quick wins identified: adding SharePoint meta tags to improve document searchability, and creating short internal training videos (2–4 minutes each) to document processes and onboard new staff, that was stored directly in SharePoint for role-based access.
What Did the Technology Stack Look Like After Implementation?
The recommended tech stack connected everything into a single, integrated system:
- Procore as the operational hub (project management, job costing, billing, client and vendor portals)
- QuickBooks Online Advanced as the accounting backbone
- Smoothlink syncing the two platforms in real time
- Dext for receipt capture and expense coding
- Plooto for electronic payment workflows
- CRM/Marketing automation system for client relationship tracking
- Office 365 / SharePoint as the document and collaboration layer, with workflows activated
For a business that was running on Excel and a legacy accounting system with no connections, this represents a complete transformation of how the company operates day to day.
What Did It Cost, and What Was the Return?
Tursa Group built a full cost and ROI model. Here’s what it looked like:
Investment Summary
| SOLUTION | SETUP | ONGOING | YEAR 1 | 6 YEAR | RESOURCE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Construction Software | $51,000.00 | $2,800.00 | $84,600.00 | $252,600.00 | Outsourced |
| Financial Software | $5,000.00 | $200.00 | $7,400.00 | $19,400.00 | Outsourced |
| KPIs and Reporting | $2,000.00 | $100.00 | $3,200.00 | $9,200.00 | Outsourced |
| Digital Strategy | $500.00 | $500.00 | $6,500.00 | $36,500.00 | Outsourced |
| Cyber Security Optimization | $0.00 | $4,250.00 | $51,000.00 | $306,000.00 | Outsourced |
| Office 365 Optimization | $16,000.00 | $800.00 | $25,600.00 | $73,600.00 | – |
| TOTAL | $74,500.00 | $8,650.00 | $178,300.00 | $697,300.00 | – |
Labour Savings and ROI From Managed IT Support
Here is the projected labour savings for the Calgary-based company
| PROJECT | DEPARTMENT | # | AVG. | PROJ. HOURLY | TOTAL | TOTAL VALUE ANNUALLY | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Financial Software | Finance | 4 | $33 | 20 | $2,640 | $137,280 | $823,680 |
| Construction Software | PM | 2 | $32 | 8 | $512 | $26,624 | $159,744 |
| KPIs and Reporting | Management | 2 | $65 | 4 | $520 | $27,040 | $162,240 |
| Digital Strategy | Business Development | 1 | $25 | 4 | $100 | $5,200 | $31,200 |
| Office 365 Optimization | – | 0 | – | – | – | – | – |
| Cyber Security Optimization | – | 0 | $25 | 6 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| TOTALS | – | – | – | 42 | $3,672 | $190,944 | $954,720 |
| RETURN ON INVESTMENT ON LABOUR SAVINGS | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1.37 |
| Gross Revenue: $16,000,000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| # Employees: 50 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Revenue Per Headcount: $320,000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| – | – | – | – | – | Total | Gross Margin | Total Gross Margin |
| Increased Revenue without increasing office head count | – | – | – | – | $8,000,000.00 | $1,200,000.00 | $7,200,000.00 |
| Return on Investment Due to Increased Revenue | – | – | – | – | – | – | 10.33 |
Revenue Growth ROI
Beyond time savings, the model captured something even bigger: with the same back-office headcount, the business could handle significantly more revenue. With 50 employees each generating $320,000 in revenue on a $16M gross revenue base, the model projects that recovering 42 hours of wasted admin work per week could unlock up to $8 million in additional revenue capacity, yielding an estimated $1.2 million in gross margin, all without adding headcount.
The model projects that this freed-up capacity could support up to $8 million in additional revenue, yielding an estimated $1.2 million in gross margin.
ROI including revenue growth potential: 10.33x over six years
Total projected value over six years: $7.2 million.
Is Your Calgary Business Leaving Money on the Table?
The scenario above is remarkably common among Calgary businesses in the $2M–$25M revenue range, businesses that have grown past the point where Excel and legacy software work, but haven’t yet made the move to an integrated, cloud-based technology stack.
Duplicate data entry, manual reconciliation, version-control chaos, and cybersecurity gaps can cap your growth and expose your business to serious risk.
The right Calgary managed IT services partner should map out a prioritized, phased plan, quantify the financial return, and manage the implementation, so your team isn’t left to figure it out alone.
That’s exactly what Tursa Group did here, and what they do for Canadian businesses every day.
FAQ: Managed Services
Ready to find out where your business’s technology gaps are costing you the most? Contact Tursa Group to book a no-obligation IT assessment.
Tursa Group is a managed IT support and technology consulting company helping small and medium-sized businesses in Calgary get more from their technology.