Infrastructure

Hill & Smith Infrastructure

4 challenges solved together, each with a different answer. The situation, the difficult part and the reasoning are set out below.

Dynamics 365 Finance
Project Management and Accounting
Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
Subscription billing

Hill & Smith Infrastructure customer story

The best I’ve ever experienced in over 20 years of collaboration.

Programme Manager, Hill & Smith Plc

Challenges we solved

The problems behind the platform.

Open one to see the situation, the part that was genuinely hard, and why we chose that answer rather than another.

When customer certification does not match the invoice

The problem: Work is delivered, an application for payment goes in, and the customer certifies a different amount to the one claimed.
What we did: Built application for payment handling into Dynamics 365 so certification, part-certification and the accounting behind them are handled in the finance system rather than in spreadsheets.
Why it mattered: Certified and uncertified value are visible in the ledger as the customer confirms them, instead of being reconstructed at month end.

Finance
Projects
FSCM
Extension

Connecting field activity straight to finance

The problem: What happened on site lived in Reflow. What finance could invoice lived in Dynamics. Somebody had to move it.
What we did: Connected Reflow to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations using InteliSense IDM, so operational activity arrives in finance as transactions rather than as a rekeying task.
Why it mattered: Field activity reaches the finance system without a manual handover, and failures surface as exceptions instead of being discovered later.

Integration
IDM
Field operations
FSCM

Paying suppliers from what actually happened

The problem: Supplier payment depended on supplier invoices arriving, matching and being chased when they did not.
What we did: Automated self-billing in Dynamics 365 so the payable is generated from recorded activity and agreed rates rather than from an inbound invoice.
Why it mattered: Purchase-side settlement follows the operational record, and accounts payable spends less time reconciling documents that disagree.

Finance
Procurement
Automation
FSCM

Pricing rental when the asset keeps ageing

The problem: Rental charges change with how long equipment has been out, and the contract position moves every period.
What we did: Made rental pricing and contract age part of the billing process in Dynamics 365, so charges reflect the current position of each contract rather than a manually maintained schedule.
Why it mattered: Rental revenue is calculated from the contract record, so the billing run reflects what is genuinely still on hire.

Commercial
Subscription billing
FSCM

Reading this evidence

What this record covers, and what it does not.

We publish what can be traced back to work we delivered or material the customer has already made public. Where a number has not been verified, we leave the gap visible.

How the work was scoped

Hill & Smith Infrastructure operates in infrastructure, and the work described here was shaped by that operating context rather than by a standard template.

4 challenges are published in full. Each sets out the situation as it stood, the part that was genuinely difficult, the decision we took and why another route was rejected. The answers were not all the same: this work used bespoke extension, automation, integration, intelisense ip, configuration and standard microsoft functionality.

A published customer video sits behind this page. Any words attributed to the customer come from that recording and nowhere else.

What it proves, and what it does not

It establishes delivery experience on Dynamics 365 Finance, Project Management and Accounting, Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Subscription billing, across Dynamics 365 FSCM and Azure / Integration.
It establishes that our own tooling (IDM) has been used in a live customer environment, not only demonstrated.
It does not establish a saving, a percentage or a timescale. No measured figure has been verified with a definition, a baseline and a period, so none is published.
It does not mean the same answer would suit your organisation. The reasoning is the transferable part, not the configuration.

Where this kind of work is described in more detail

Recognise the pattern?

Tell us what is not working and we will be straight with you.

If you are dealing with a similar process, integration or platform problem, we can help work out whether the right answer is configuration, an ISV, an integration or engineering.

All customer stories