Following completion of a project to upgrade its back-office accounting system and implement an ACCPAC add-on product targeted at the services industry, Grintek Electronics has realised dramatically improved efficiencies and increased customer satisfaction.
According to Martin Gouws, Financial Manager at Grintek Electronics, the project began in November 2001 with the preparation of the company's DOS-based ACCPAC Plus data for conversion into the Windows-based ACCPAC Advantage Series.
"That conversion and test upgrade took two months because we had to wait for the completion of the interim results before we could move our live data across," he says.
Following successful completion of the first phase of the project, Grintek business partner and ACCPAC reseller, Synergy Accounting, then began the installation of Technisoft's Service Manager - an ACCPAC vertical market solution devised specifically to meet the complex needs of project and service oriented organisations.
Thandi James, Sales Director at Synergy, says the project effectively combined the functionality of three disparate systems into one, causing a dramatic improvement in operational efficiencies and, consequently, greater satisfaction for Grintek's client-base.
Gouws agrees: "We previously used one system to track equipment faults, another to monitor serial numbers and the third, the ACCPAC Plus system, to handle billing as well as another ACCPAC add-on product to handle work-in-progress. This meant that if our sales people required a report on how many units came in for repair in a particular month, for example, we had to draw data from three different sources, import it into Excel, massage it, and then only could we provide the final report.
"We can now respond to such requests directly because Service Manager replaces two of the previous systems and is tightly integrated with the ACCPAC Advanced Series back-office accounting system. The result is definitely more efficient," he comments.
"If we have equipment in for repair, we need to be able to instantly provide information about where it is in the cycle and, while the previous system could to this, it was a cumbersome process to obtain the correct data. Now we can do it while the customer is still on the telephone."
James says this is one of the strengths of Service Manager. "It enables staff to always have up-to-date knowledge of the progress of different jobs. The information is, literally, a mouse-click away."
According to Gouws, services organisations are constantly under pressure from customers to improve their efficiencies. "And, if you can find the correct system to do it, you have a win-win situation because you can satisfy customer demands while reducing the costs associated with responding to their queries," he notes.
An aspect of Service Manager that has proven particularly useful for Grintek is functionality that improves quality assurance. "We can now keep track of equipment in the field by serial number, maintain fault and service records and monitor warranty information on each unit, do time-sheet tracking and schedule labour on the basis of availability. "This has improved our efficiencies in terms of the allocation of resources. And since this is accomplished within a single product that is tightly integrated with our back-office accounts system, it allows for improved internal efficiencies which can only result in greater customer satisfaction," adds Gouws.
Implementation time for the new system also impressed Grintek. "A sister company recently installed a product which took 14 months to roll-out. The mere four months ours took was a bonus," he says.
Jeremy Waterman, MD of ACCPAC Africa, notes that short implementation times are a feature of ACCPAC-based systems. "Because the system runs on industry-standard hardware and provides native support for a variety of relational database systems, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2 and Pervasive SQL, it can slot into virtually any existing infrastructure with little or no hassle," he says.
In the case of Grintek, the underlying database system is Pervasive SQL on top of Microsoft Windows 2000. ACCPAC modules implemented by the company include accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, order entry, inventory control and purchase orders. The company has installed a large number of non-ACCPAC add-ons, in addition to Technisoft Service Manager.
"A hallmark of the ACCPAC suite is the number of independent software vendors writing complementary software to sit on top of the basic business accounting product. This extends its functionality and reach into a wide variety of industries," adds Waterman.
Looking ahead, Gouws foresees further development in the area of reporting. "Synergy have been helping us use Crystal Reports to extend reporting functionality of Service Manager and the broader ACCPAC financial suite. We expect to see more demand in this area as our users become accustomed to the benefits and potential of the new system," says Gouws.
Since Service Manager centralises the various functions of a service organisation he believes it will, in the long run, allow service personnel to anticipate problems before they occur.
"We are awaiting the next release of Service Manager, as some functionality that we require like committed costs and a link to purchase orders, are not available in the current version," Gouws adds. "According to Synergy, they have received a beta copy of the proposed upgrade from Technisoft recently with a large list of additions and features being added, including the link to purchase orders.
"Over time, we will also deploy the fault diagnosis feature of the product, which is a database of all previously reported faults and how they were resolved. This will improve efficiencies still further by reducing turnaround time," he says.
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