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Category New: Software Migration

Optimizing Financial Operations Frees Additional Resources for the Mission

Children First is an essential resource for families of children with developmental delays or difficulties living in the City of Windsor and the surrounding county of Essex, Ontario. The organization’s family-centered approach pulls in a broad array of resources, including mental health services, speech and occupational therapy, childcare resources, parental support, and more — creating an individualized plan that optimizes every child’s opportunity to thrive.

While most of the organization rapidly invested in modern technology to support its client-facing mission, its accounting operations were getting by on an older system that required too much time and too many resources to maintain. “The rest of the organization has gone digital, and accounting was feeling a bit behind,” recalls Jane Patterson, Administration Manager at Children First. “We wanted the benefits and advantages modern technology provides — greater workflow efficiencies, less paper, and remote access for our team.” The pandemic accelerated the importance — and the urgency — of adopting such technology.

PANDEMIC MAGNIFIES TECHNOLOGY SHORTCOMINGS

Prior to the pandemic, Children First was not well positioned to support a work-from-home workforce with its decade-old, server-based Sage 300 application. “It served us well for years, but the pandemic really highlighted the shortcomings of a server-based application,” Jane says. “We couldn’t access the system remotely, which made our work very difficult.”

To enable it to move forward with its digital transformation, Children First turned to its trusted business partner and technology advisor, Net at Work. The New York-based consultancy serves over 6,000 small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) throughout North America by providing a complete offering of software solutions, services and expertise to properly support the entire organization. Through its extensive work with other not-for-profit organizations, the Net at Work team has gained a deep understanding of what matters most to the mission, and how to make change happen in practical, impactful, and measurable ways.

“They’ve been our partner for over a decade, and we trust Net at Work to provide us with the best advice and the best direction,” Jane says.

The organization had begun researching a cloud-based financial management solution to replace Sage 300 prior to the pandemic — but ran into a hurdle during its search. “Net at Work helped us identify the best options, and together we selected Sage Intacct as the ideal replacement. However, due to our not-for-profit status, we have data residency and privacy laws we must comply with, and initially, Sage Intacct didn’t have a Canadian presence. That put it out of our research for the time being.”

So, when Sage Intacct opened a Canadian data center in mid-2021, Net at Work and Children First acted quickly to make the transition.

STREAMLINE CORE FINANCIAL PROCESSES

Today, with its Sage Intacct-powered financial hub, Children First is streamlining core financial processes, building operational efficiencies and saving staff time. Purchase approvals, for example, used to be a cumbersome, paper-based process. “Before, employees would print out a purchase request and carry it to manager one for approval, then manager two, and then to the finance administrator,” explains Jane. “During the process there was no way to know where the request was or what status it was in.” This process was rendered ineffective once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and employees weren’t able to return to their desks to keep approval chains advancing.

Now, the purchase request and approval process is completely automated — and paperless. Net at Work helped the organization set up approval workflows that determine the correct routing for each request based on the purchase type and amount. The automation has cut the approval timeline in half and provides the finance team with greater insight into pending requests, which helps with budgeting and cashflow projections.

“Just this one step will save us hours every month — and real dollars too,” says Jane. “Finding an invoice or requisition used to mean heading to the file room and looking for the paper copy. Now, we store everything electronically within Sage Intacct. Plus, we were paying for off-site paper records storage that we’ll no longer need. Every little piece of efficiency means more money toward our mission.”

OVER-THE-TOP PROFESSIONALISM

Jane praises Net at Work for its over-the-top professionalism during the migration. “We needed to preserve a full seven years of history —likely millions of transactions,” she says. “Net at Work was outstanding throughout this process. They clearly understood our goals and objectives and created a solid plan that made the conversion a success.”

Net at Work used a proprietary tool its development team built to streamline and speed up the data conversion process. At the same time, a sandbox environment was granted so Children First could review, compare, and confirm data accuracy before it was imported into Sage Intacct.

Net at Work continues to be the organization’s first line of support for all things Sage Intacct. “I love their helpdesk team,” Jane says. “They are always very available, responsive, and quick. We feel like our account matters to them.”

DIMENSIONS SIMPLIFY COMPLEXITY

The dimensional general ledger structure of Sage Intacct has proven transformative for Children First. “We had a very large, very cumbersome chart of accounts before,” notes Jane. “We needed accounts for each department and fund, for example. Now we use dimensions to hold those values, meaning our chart of accounts has shrunk to a manageable and meaningful size. And adding a new department no longer means adding an entire series of new accounts.”

In addition to simplifying the chart of accounts, dimensions allow for much richer and more granular reporting. “We’re able to look at our data from different perspectives much more easily than before,” says Jane. “We can quickly isolate data from specific funds, for example, or a list of departments, whereas our old system required exporting to Excel. We’ve just begun to realize all the benefits of the transition. But already, Sage Intacct is making a difference in how effectively we can share data with stakeholders and build collaboration across our teams.”

LOWER TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP

Previously, the burden of Children First’s dated technology kept the finance team in a reactive mode, as it lacked the tools and streamlined processes that promote better resource utilization. “As a not-for-profit, we are continually focused on maximizing stewardship and doing more with less,” explains Jane. “We now have an accounting application that supports us in those efforts and allows our finance team to be more proactive and effective in our tasks.”

In hindsight, Jane believes that successfully meeting the challenges of the previous two years has made the organization’s finance operations stronger and more agile. “We gained the impetus to go beyond the status quo and invest in internal efficiencies that free our staff’s time for more strategic, value-added tasks,” she concludes. As a result of those efficiency gains, Net at Work analysis points to an expected total cost of ownership (TCO) savings of over $20,000 over five years.

Power Curbers Companies Curbs Costs And Paves Road To Efficiency

For 70 years, Power Curbers Companies LLC has led the industry with its line of award-winning curb extrusion equipment. Today the industrial equipment manufacturer also designs and builds slip-form pavers, which extrude concrete slabs up to 30 feet wide and are disassembled, shipped and then reassembled on site by the company’s crews. All told, the companies sell products in over 100 countries. With complex, high-value projects to track and a field services crew to empower, Power Curbers needed concrete business management solutions to support its ongoing focus on lean manufacturing, waste reduction and an unmatched customer experience. Next Generation solutions, Sage X3 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service, are the rock-solid applications Power Curbers chose, and Net at Work is the technology advisor it leans on to keep its focus centered.

A CONSTRUCTIVE PARTNERSHIP

“Our previous Value-Added Reseller (VAR) didn’t have the necessary resources to support our Sage 500 application, and we had been struggling with integrating SalesLogix CRM and managing our global field service. To top it off, we were uncomfortable with the long-term prospects of relying on an application written in Visual Basic,” recalls Mark Hofer, CFO of Power Curbers. “When we decided to partner with Net at Work, we used the move as an opportunity to upgrade our ERP and CRM to run our operations the way we needed.”

The company considered Epicor and Acumatica before deciding on Sage X3. “We found that Sage X3 had the proven combination of core manufacturing and configuration to structure the system well for our business,” Hofer adds. “And with Net at Work, we feel we have the in-depth solution expertise and industry knowledge to assist us with cloud hosting, programming, accounting, manufacturing and whatever else crops up over time.”

Hofer says that the company’s relationship with Net at Work was a major factor in their decision. “We became familiar with the high degree of responsiveness and service from Net at Work’s management of our Sage 500 instance. We were confident in how they methodically approached system patches, report assistance and system outages with us – as a partner – so we trusted their process to evaluate, implement and host business applications. We liked knowing that, with Net at Work, there’s one set of experts in charge and one call to make in the event of a challenge.”

As a result of their investment in their Net at Work relationship and Next Generation applications, Hofer says, “We were successfully invoicing within a week of going live with Sage X3.”

KICKING DISCONNECTS TO THE CURB

To make Sage 500 work for the company, Power Curbers previously cobbled together multiple, add-on and disparate applications. There was a third-party warehouse management system (WMS), for example, and an elaborate workbook of spreadsheets that was maintained “forever.” In addition, they needed a terminal server application to provide access to the software from its two locations and to its mobile workforce. With no integration across the applications, many tasks were manual or redundant.

And then there was the whiteboard. “The whiteboard was our control panel—it was essential,” explains Hofer. “It’s where we’d track sales prospects, available parts, crews, and production dates. We had no single home for all that data in our business applications, so it lived on the whiteboard along with a sign warning people not to mess with it.”

Following the transition to Sage X3 and Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service, Hofer isn’t willing to say that Power Curbers has kicked the whiteboard to the curb, but it’s now used as more of a visual aid than the keeper of priceless corporate data. “Sage X3 and Dynamics CRM provide accurate, up-to-date data, and we share that data on the whiteboard.”

Power Curbers’ ultimate Digital Operations Platform (DOP), with Sage X3 at the helm, addresses each operational area and is accessible to everyone through a secure private cloud hosting environment. “We had limited IT resources and our local Managed Services Provider (MSP) was straining to support us. With Cloud at Work, we have a more reliable Internet connection and when we want to do something overnight, Cloud has the capability to take it on.”

By eliminating disconnected processes and bottlenecks, the company is able to focus on optimizing its manufacturing processes, improving quality and efficiency at every step.

LEANING FORWARD

Lean production techniques and Kanban methodologies are popular among forward-thinking manufacturers, and Power Curbers has embraced the techniques wholeheartedly.

Lean production eliminates waste in every production area, including customer relations, product design, supplier networks, and factory management. Hofer says that the company’s Next Generation ERP and CRM solutions have progressed Power Curber’s lean initiatives further by eliminating manual tasks and automating production workflows.

Kanban is aimed at optimizing the manufacturing process by regulating the supply of raw materials. “Sage X3 helps us stay out in front of this, too,” says Crystal Tollenaer, Parts and Production Control Manager for Power Curbers. “And with the current supply chain challenges, it’s especially important for us to have this level of visibility into our component parts.”

One Sage X3 feature, in particular, saves Power Curbers’ staff time and leads to more accurate sales orders and happier customers. “We use the configurator tool,” Tollenaer says. “It walks our sales staff through a series of questions that configure the machine to the customers’ specifications. When they get through the questions, we know precisely what to build. That process used to take a half-hour or more of a salesperson’s time. Now it takes less than five minutes.”

SIMPLIFY COMPLEXITIES

Another way Power Curbers promotes efficient operations is through the use of phantom bills of materials (BOMs). Phantom BOMs in Sage X3 simplify and streamline production by allowing the manufacturing process to drive requirements straight though the phantom item to its components, rather than requiring a separate work order for the phantom assemblies.

“Overall, our goal is to simplify a complex manufacturing cycle as much as possible by looking for up and downstream efficiencies,” explains Tollenaer. “The visibility we’ve gained with Sage X3 and our data analysis tools help us do that. As a result, we turn out a new machine every three days, taking thousands of parts from global suppliers and putting them into the hands of a well-trained, skilled workforce who understand the process.”

Both Hofer and Tollenaer credit the platform and Net at Work’s consulting team for enabling Power Curbers to respond more quickly to the supply chain challenges facing so many companies.

“We successfully relied on just-in-time for years, but that doesn’t work anymore,” explains Tollenaer. “Now we need to know where parts are in the system, if there are substitute parts or alternate suppliers, and what our order backlog looks like. Net at Work has helped us configure Sage X3 to give us those answers so we can remain agile and productive.”

Hofer adds, “We’re now double the size we were when we first started working with Net at Work. They’ve grown and scaled right along with us. We’re continually impressed with their depth of knowledge across various teams and with Sage development.”

He concludes, “I’d recommend Net at Work to other manufacturers with complex operations because of the breadth and depth of their expertise. It would be very difficult to find another partner like Net at Work.”

Hawaii Dental Service Takes a Bite Out of Inefficient Processes

HEALTHY SMILES AND LOCAL ROOTS

Hawaii Dental Service (HDS) has been supporting the oral health of its residents for more than 60 years. With more than one million members and 95% of the state’s practicing dentists participating, the nonprofit dental benefits provider is Hawaii’s largest and most experienced. HDS earns its customers’ trust by providing affordable, comprehensive dental plans that help them live well, smile more.

Like most insurance providers, HDS relies on several industry-specific software applications to support its business. But behind it all stands one agile, powerful, and integrable financial management application and one service-focused technology partner to help the organization meet the dental needs of the community — Sage Intacct and Net at Work.

A SERENDIPITOUS SWITCH

Cara Numasaki, as the Controller for HDS, knows the importance of a Digital Operations Platform (DOP), in which a Next Generation ERP, like Sage Intacct, serves as the hub. “Sage Intacct supports our general ledger, cash management, accounts payable, and budgeting functions,” she says. “And it’s capable of integrating with other business applications to provide us with a cohesive financial management platform.” For insurance organizations, a fully-fledged DOP enables them to adapt for fast-changing business needs, leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) for efficiency and innovation gains, and create accessibility for interactions beyond the browser.

“We had been using Sage 300 for years,” says Charise Shigeta, Accounting Manager for the company. “Honestly, we thought we had no reason to switch — Sage 300 worked great for us.”

However, the company was moving away from server-based applications to take advantage of the benefits offered by modern, cloud-based solutions. The HDS IT team gave Numasaki and Shigeta a deadline to find a hosted accounting application and find it quickly.

“We immediately reached out to our technology partner, Net at Work, for advice,” Numasaki says. “They laid out two options for us after a comprehensive assessment. They could either host our Sage 300 on a private cloud server, or we could upgrade to Sage Intacct to produce our own DOP.”

After careful consideration and consultation with Net at Work, HDS made the decision to migrate to Sage Intacct. “We quickly saw the comprehensive benefits Sage Intacct could provide,” Shigeta notes. “We saw opportunities to improve our budgeting process, speed up financial reporting, and simplify multi-company accounting tasks.”

Numasaki and Shigeta say the change has been nothing short of transformational. “We had simply gotten used to the slow VPN connection with frequent outages,” Shigeta says. “And the time it would take to compile and print reports. And the manual accounts payable workflows. Sage Intacct is super fast and always accessible. Simple tasks that used to take minutes — or even hours — are now instant.”

RAPID CONVERSION

With the decision made, HDS and Net at Work quickly sprang into action. While a typical ERP implementation might take upwards of a year from start to finish, HDS had only months in order to meet its commitment to IT.

“Net at Work is fabulous, and they completed the conversion remotely, on time and on budget,” recalls Numasaki. “We definitely have some unique aspects to our operation. They showed us how Sage Intacct is agile and configurable enough to support us.”

Almost immediately following its implementation of Sage Intacct, HDS went through an audit. “The auditors specifically looked at the security protocols and audit trails in Sage Intacct,” Numasaki notes. “We passed with flying colors.”

TAKING A BITE OUT OF INEFFICIENT PROCESSES

Another area where Cara and Charise see positive changes is in accounts payable processing. “Less paper,” Numasaki says. “We currently route invoices outside of Sage Intacct because of our structure and unique situation, however we know that Sage Intacct has the capability to approve invoices within the system and we are working toward using it for that purpose. One great change is that we can finally store invoices electronically in Sage Intacct along with the AP bill.”

“Previously, we’d scan paper documents but had no way of storing them with the accounting transactions,” adds Shigeta. “So, whether the receipts were stored in paper files or in electronic form — it was time-consuming to locate them when needed.”

Now Numasaki can view electronic images of invoices side-by-side with vendor information and general ledger account coding when approving the payment. “This functionality saves me about two hours of review time a month,” says Numasaki.

The company recently purchased additional licenses to provide managers and directors with view-only access to specific data in Sage Intacct related to their areas of control. “This will allow them to monitor their department’s expenses and research transactions on their own, without reaching out to accounting,” Numasaki notes.

In addition to time savings and efficiency gains, the company gains real-time visibility into its actual-to-budget values by managing purchasing requests in Sage Intacct. “We no longer have to wait until the invoice is received to begin tracking the expense,” explains Numasaki.

Combined, the new efficiencies in accounts payable processing save HDS more than five hours every month.

INTEGRATION SPEEDS RECONCILIATIONS

Sage Intacct also helps speed and simplify the reconciling of bank transactions and processing premium refunds.

The company receives bank files with this information and uses the import templates in Sage Intacct to bring the data into the application, saving time and improving overall accuracy.

BUDGETING SIMPLIFIED

More recently, the company added an additional tool, Sage Intacct Planning, with the assistance of Net at Work. This web-based budgeting and planning application is simple to use, quick to implement, and integrates tightly with Sage Intacct. It covers the entire budgeting and planning lifecycle and optimizes the dependency that businesses like HDS have on spreadsheets in the budgeting process.

“Our directors love it,” says Numasaki. “They all prefer creating their budgets in Excel. With Sage Intacct Planning, we can easily import those files into the application. We then transfer actuals from Sage Intacct to allow for comparisons and forecasts. It requires much less work and provides our stakeholders with current information they can use for planning. It allows them to ‘own’ their budgets in a way they couldn’t previously.”

AUTOMATED REPORTING SAVES 12 HOURS EVERY MONTH

HDS is also realizing tremendous time savings surrounding its financial reporting tasks. Previously, staff would need to generate individual reports from each Sage 300 company, export the reports to Excel, and spend time formatting the financial statements. “Any time there was a change to a transaction, all the input sheets and reports needed to be refreshed,” recalls Shigeta. “Now, we get the reports we need directly from Sage Intacct and changes are updated in real time.”

The company’s multi-company accounting structure used to mean that the accounting staff wasted time logging out of one company in Sage 300 and into another. With Sage Intacct, they can easily access each of the different companies from a single drop-down menu. And reporting and check printing tasks across entities are as simple as selecting the entities to include.

“We estimate that across all our staff time, we’re saving an additional 12 hours every month,” says Numasaki. “It’s time we can spend analyzing the data, spotting trends, and looking for cost saving opportunities — tasks that add real value to the organization.”

Hawaii Dental Service looks at its move to Sage Intacct with the help of Net at Work as a fortunate one, even if it wasn’t originally initiated by the accounting team. “We weren’t seeking out a new system, but now that it’s here, we couldn’t go back,” concludes Numasaki with a smile.

Fortifying A Design Legacy Through Digital Transformation

Sometimes you just know. You can tell when you see or touch something clearly unique and exceptional. That’s the feeling Artistic Tile invokes in its sophisticated clientele as they peruse one of the company’s nine nationwide showrooms, its vast dealer and retailer network or shop its online site in pursuit of the most beautiful tile to grace homes, hotels and other modern spaces.

The Secaucus, NJ-based company sources, designs, finishes and distributes luxury tile and stone around the world — taking creative inspiration from nature, antiquities, and even everyday objects. While the family-owned and operated company is rich with generational traditions and pride, the Artistic Tile legacy was at risk. Its dated business software technology was posing data concerns and requiring daily server resets.

WRITING ON THE [TILED] WALL

Michael Epstein, Artistic Tile’s Chief Marketing Officer, explains, “We were operating on an antiquated system that was no longer being actively developed, and which the development community had lost interest in. It was becoming more and more expensive to maintain, and it was significantly inflexible and difficult to extend. We need a more flexible, stable system – one we could iterate upon, and which wouldn’t leave a single vendor holding the keys to our business. To top it off, Artistic Tile’s eCommerce website was running on a platform about to become obsolete.”

Artistic Tile Chief Executive Officer Joshua Levinson knew exactly how the company had reached this juncture. “We had continued to upgrade our legacy ERP software through numerous versions over the years,” he recalls. “Ultimately, we ended up with a highly-customized version of a stagnant, 30-year-old software system. Every time there was a new release, we had to have a programmer re-write customizations to a system that lacked new functional advancements. It was no longer worth the upgrade just to maintain data stability. We knew we needed to make a bold, strategic move. That’s when we contacted Net at Work.”

PERFECT PAIRING

A technology consultancy to small-to-mid-sized (SMB) organizations throughout North America, Net at Work serves as a digital transformation strategist, guiding leaders through 360-degree business assessments, IT governance and operations management through software selection, implementation and vendor management.

After many years of looking under the hood of various ERP systems, Artistic Tile engaged with Net at Work to perform a business health assessment. “They recommended that we move to the cloud,” recalls Levinson. “We took some time to continue exploring our options, including other cloud based systems, but ultimately decided to implement a cloud-based ERP with Net at Work as our partner. Now we all wish we would have made the move sooner since it’s been so successful.”

Through the Net at Work business health assessment, Artistic Tile leadership was able to vet multiple ERP solutions based on their strategic priorities and business environment. “The solution we selected is the de facto standard in the marketplace, with a large ecosystem, active development, and a community that ensures it will continue to be developed into the foreseeable future,” says Epstein. “It is highly extensible, and highly configurable. We explored working directly with the vendor’s team to implement their software, but realized after a few discussions that the out-of- the-box implementation they offered would not address the deeper customizations we required. Net at Work was able to provide the implementation expertise to ensure we covered those bases, and launched successfully.”

Epstein and Levinson saw value in working with a technology specialist, a firm with broad resources and experience with SMBs. “With our old system, we were tied to the one guy who wrote our customizations,” says Epstein. “This time, we wanted a larger, established company that could really help direct our transformation. Net at Work is that partner for us.”

Artistic Tile went all in, embracing the new solution’s extensive capabilities from the back office to its warehouses, retail stores, and production floors. “Our teams were committed to making this work, and Net at Work did a fabulous job executing the implementation,” says Levinson. “They learned our business and designed a solution that supports every aspect of our operation.”

A FLEXIBLE DESIGN

Artistic Tile was initially concerned that their unique business model — one that had previously required extensive customization to support — would not fit within the new ERP. While many of its customizations were no longer necessary due to the native functionality of the solution, the consulting experts at Net at Work were able to configure the software to accommodate Artistic Tile’s exclusive business processes.

“We dreaded the first scheduled software update,” Levinson recalls. “Honestly, I was stressed about it. But our Net at Work consultant talked me off the ledge, reassuring me it would be just fine. I was out of town on the weekend of the update and — it went perfectly! To me this is one of the most amazing things about the product. We can adapt it to how we do business, yet keep running the most current version. It’s outstanding.”

True cloud ERP platforms use a unified data model in which the entire system and its elements are built on a single source of code. The modern platform makes configurations and add-ons more secure and simplified. And, as Artistic Tile has discovered, its configured workflows remain intact after software updates.

THE SIMPLICITY EFFECT

The family ownership division of Artistic Tile previously had the business operating more like several smaller companies, requiring large volumes of regular intercompany transactions. The company’s switch to a modern, cloud-based ERP allowed Artistic Tile to consolidate the entities, eliminating the crushing administrative load of intercompany transfers — while gaining the ability to see a cohesive, comprehensive view of the entire operation.

“We went from a business with multiple bottom lines and complex financials to one, streamlined business with one, solid and healthy bottom line,” notes Levinson.

Similar efficiencies are happening on the warehouse floor. Before, when a salesperson wanted to know the status of a customer’s order, they’d have to make a phone call and wait for someone to physically check the status. Now, workers update work order statuses in real time. When an order is marked “complete,” the software automatically sends an email informing the salesperson.

Net at Work also worked with Artistic Tile to integrate the ERP with Shopify, the company’s eCommerce platform and launched a “pay now” option to allow customers to pay their invoices online via credit card. The combination saves staff time, speeds order processing, and accelerates the order-to-cash cycle.

“The changes have been transformational for Artistic Tile,” says Levinson. “We used to spend a lot of time checking with the credit card processors to see if a customer had paid for an order. That’s no more.”

EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES

The company started with 115 users and has grown that count to 175. “We hire new employees as our sales grow, and we’ve also extended the application to additional users in our warehouse.” It’s a move that Levinson says makes sense on multiple levels. “It’s empowering for the employees to interact with the technology and understand more about our operation. Many have learned so much that they’re advancing in their roles within the company.”

Walk into Artistic Tile’s warehouse today and you’ll see large, flat-screen monitors mounted on the wall displaying open work orders, statuses, and due dates from the ERP. It’s another way the company is keeping warehouse teams informed, involved, and empowered.

THE DURABILITY TEST

With Net at Work’s help and guidance, Artistic Tile changed course and adopted next-generation, high-performance technology and services that deliver stability, agility, and visibility.

“Sales hit an all-time high in 2021 and we’ve already surpassed that volume this year,” says Levinson. “If we had waited to update our technology, I’m not sure the news would be so good.”

Epstein agrees. “Net at Work has helped us future-proof the operation,” he adds. “Innovation has always been the driving force behind our products, but our old technology was holding us back. We’ve successfully combined our traditional business approach with cutting-edge technology. It’s exciting and rewarding to know that Artistic Tile is well prepared for the growth we expect in the coming years.”

Net at Work and Sage Intacct Fuel Successful Projects for Alteris Group

Alteris Group, LLC helps its clients communicate better and more easily with their employees and their customers. The company specializes in developing customized employee training programs and marketing communication campaigns that engage their audiences and deliver results. When the company sought to integrate its timesheet and client billing workflows, it found one cloud-based Next-Generation Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution capable of the task, and one partner with the skills and expertise to make it happen. Alteris Group selected Net at Work to implement and support Sage Intacct as its new business management solution.

NEXT-GENERATION PROJECT MANAGEMENT

“We’d been using Microsoft Dynamics SL for nearly two decades,” recalls Hannah Rees, Senior Project Manager for Alteris Group. “While elements of it still worked fine, too many processes were being handled manually or in the other, disconnected applications. Timesheets were a particular problem for us. We had a custom timesheet system in house, but it didn’t integrate with our billing system. Overall, it was inefficient to maintain and cut into our staff members’ productivity.”

Rees says the company zeroed in on Sage Intacct as its next-generation solution early on. Alteris Group also considered Microsoft applications it felt could have worked, but selected Sage Intacct, largely because of the Net at Work consulting team. “Net at Work is the kind of partner we try to be to our own clients,” explains Rees. “They’ve been invaluable to us. They listen to what we need and offer best practice suggestions for getting us there. Throughout the implementation process, they asked questions to understand our goals and even prompted us to rethink and revise some of our old ways. I think, together with Net at Work, we are a terrific team.”

MAKING SMART USE OF TIME

The company has two offices, one in Michigan and the other in Ontario. Previously, each office had separate timesheet systems but all the invoicing was performed in the U.S. office. “We had to re-enter all the timesheet data from the Canadian system into the U.S. system and then export the whole thing to Excel to create the invoices, and then re-enter the invoice data into Dynamics,” explains Rees. “It sounds confusing because it was. Lots of duplicate data entry, lots of time wasted, and of course, more potential for human error.”

Today more than 80 of Alteris Group employees and contractors use the Time and Expense feature within the Sage Intacct Project Costing and Billing module to record their time. It offers an intuitive, user-friendly interface that sped adoption rates and is generating positive reviews from users.

SPEED THE BILLING CYCLE

Many of Alteris Group’s customers ask to receive invoices in a particular format. “We used to have to create them manually in Excel each month,” recalls Rees. “But we can customize the Sage Intacct project invoices to provide the right data in the right format for each of our customers. That results in a huge time savings.”

With Sage Intacct, Alteris Group’s finance team can focus on preparing invoices, reviewing key metrics, and closing the books. The team no longer needs to spend time following up on professional staff for late timesheets or nudging managers to complete their approvals. Instead, Sage Intacct automatically alerts the team of a late or rejected time entry to keep the process driving forward.

GAINING DAYS OF BILLABLE TIME

Rees says that while time savings wasn’t the principal reason for moving to Sage Intacct, Alteris Group is saving a significant number of hours each month. “We’re saving nearly two full days each month on billing tasks and another two days of savings by not re-entering timesheet data,” she says. “That’s four days’ worth of billable hours we gain every month.”

Rees says this overall efficiency increase was the company’s main goal in moving to Sage Intacct.
“The company’s management team understands that to scale the business profitably, we need to make use of technology tools that help people work smarter and focus more time on billable work.”

VISIBILITY PROMOTES ACCOUNTABILITY

One of the biggest benefits Alteris Group sees with Sage Intacct is related to the visibility into its projects. “Before, we only had updated project cost data once a month, during billing,” explains Rees. “So, literally, a month would go by before we accurately knew that we were close to budget or over budget. Now, with Sage Intacct, this information is available in real time. It means we can start having conversations with customers earlier, letting them know where the project stands. It means we’re proactive, not reactive and are more accountable as an organization.”

Project managers and their teams stay in the loop through access to project dashboards and reports that deliver insights into all the critical aspects of their projects, allowing for proactive collaboration and action.

VALUE DELIVERED

Rees concludes, “With Sage Intacct and Net at Work we’ve gone from multiple, disconnected applications sitting on an in-house server to a completely integrated project management, time tracking, and billing solution that lives in the cloud. Access is fast, reliable, and secure, and the support we receive from Net at Work helps us to continue to derive more value from the solution.”

Automated ERP for Discrete Manufacturers: Streamline Operations from Start to Finish

Discrete manufacturers are being asked to do more with less while managing growing product complexity, tighter margins, and higher customer expectations. Companies operating legacy ERP systems often struggle to meet these demands due to limited operational visibility and slower decision making as a result.

By joining our upcoming session, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of why manufacturers are moving away from disconnected ERP environments and the advantages of migrating to modern, AI-enabled platforms designed by industry experts and tailored to each company’s unique requirements.

Key topics we will cover include:

  • End to end planning automation to better align demand, supply, and production
  • Comprehensive inventory traceability with built in quality management
  • Controlled and flexible work order execution across production environments
  • Accurate bill of materials management with time-based component control

VCOM IMC: Net at Work Amplifies The Long-Term Success Of VCOM IMC

While you may not be familiar with the name Vcom IMC, at least one of this company’s innovative products is in use in virtually every school building, university, government agency and broadcast facility in the country. Vcom IMC is a multimedia corporation whose well-known brands, including HamiltonBuhl, Comprehensive Cable and Alltec Screens, address diverse audio-visual, lighting, digital signage and connectivity needs. With 85 employees and over $25 million in annual revenues, Vcom IMC needs a powerful business management solution to power its operations—and for over a decade, Net at Work has been the company’s solution provider.

A CLEAR SUCCESSOR

The company originally implemented Sage 500 as its ERP solution, engaging Net at Work as its technology partner. “Sage 500 worked well for us for a long time, but the product ultimately reached the end of its useful life,” recalls Randy Cole, CFO for Vcom IMC. “We were facing integration challenges, performance issues and we weren’t able to take advantage of new interfaces and technologies.”

Vcom IMC consulted with Net at Work about its options going forward and a clear successor emerged: Sage X3. “We trust Net at Work to help us make the right decisions,” says Cole. “They suggested we evaluate Sage X3. Once we saw it in action we knew it would be our best option.”

Net at Work’s consulting team spearheaded the conversion process, assisting in the migration of essential product, customer, supplier and general ledger data from Sage 500 to Sage X3. “The conversion went very smoothly,” Cole notes. “We went through an extensive test phase and then went live on Sage X3.”

SUPPORT FOR COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

With multiple brand divisions all operating under Sage X3, Cole appreciates the solution’s sophisticated multicompany and multidivision capabilities. “Allocations and consolidations are both straight forward and powerful,” he says. “Handling multiple entities can be complex, but Sage X3 minimizes that complexity while still supporting the functionality we need.”

INSIGHT AND VISIBILITY

Workflows within Sage X3 are easily configurable to fit Vcom IMC’s unique processes.

“The whole system works for us, providing the insights and visibility we need,” Cole says. “I can drill down and around to connect distinct areas of information, giving me the complete picture of every transaction.”

For example, staff can review a sales transaction from the supplier purchase order to shipping documents, to invoicing and on through package tracking. “Also, throughout the application, we can attach related electronic documents to better inform our processes,” Cole adds. “This feature alone has been a game changer for us.”

INTEGRATION ADDS VALUE

Using Sage X3, Vcom IMC is digitally transforming its operations. Net at Work help vet and implement multiple third-party and Sage Endorsed applications that are proving invaluable, including Sage Sales Tax, along with solutions for credit card processing via their sister company Swype, EDI and shipping carrier integration.

“Sage X3 is powerful on its own, but the real value is in its integration capabilities,” explains Cole. “Previously we had synchronization issues with some third-party apps. With Sage X3, the integrations are seamless and occur in real time.”

It is this real time data accessibility and add-on functionality that Cole says is boosting productivity, automating previously-manual tasks and driving efficiency throughout the company’s operations.

STREAMLINED TASKS

Using the holistic view of business data Sage X3 provides, customer service staff responding to support calls can easily start by reviewing a shipment record, convert it into a return order and ultimately convert the return into a credit memo. “It’s intuitive and eliminates a lot of manual steps,” explains Cole. “We can service our customers more quickly and more accurately now.”

Vcom IMC performs light manufacturing and assembly of its audio-visual equipment, and has added Sage X3 manufacturing capabilities to support the activities. Staff creates work orders to communicate to the production team the products to be made, quantities and components needed as well as work centers involved.

EARNED TRUST

“Over the course of two major implementations, Net at Work has earned our trust,” concludes Cole. “Net at Work has a deep understanding of our business, expert product knowledge and are complete professionals in every interaction. We value their recommendations and appreciate their contributions to our success.”