At Hydrosteer, a specialist steering and technical service company, business growth had become constrained by a combination of an outmoded DOS-based system plus separate databases which required data to be re-entered, thus compromising the integrity of business information.

Darryl Martyn, the company’s managing director, explains that the key requirements for a new financials solution were “for a solid accounting package, excellent inventory management, the ability to handle foreign currency for purchasing and sales, manufacturing control, a strong Customer Relations module and above all, sufficient flexibility to allow a degree of tailoring to suit our particular needs.”

Phillip White, general manager, explained that due to long supplier lead times – up to six months – the old DOS-based system could not provide sufficient order tracking information; one stock item may have four active purchase orders with different ship dates.

To adequately manage trading stock purchases a separate database had to be run recording stock items on order, the cost in foreign currency and shipping information. Once the shipment was received costing was done using a spreadsheet. Greentree now ties this altogether allowing the seamless transition from supplier currency to Australian dollars.

Improved inventory management accuracy
White explained that because of the need to run up to three systems to track stock purchases, it was difficult for all sales staff to know exactly when to expect shipments of a particular stock item - this was a real problem for sales staff at the Perth and Laverton branches.

In addition, the stock order process required the entry of one part number 7 times from when the purchase order was raised to when the item was costed and entered into inventory.

Greentree has replaced the 3 software packages previously used to manage stock resulting in a significant saving on workload with the added benefit of current order data being available to all sales staff. White also stated that due to Greentree’s ability to record supplier stock codes and to automatically use these codes on purchase orders, transposition errors were eliminated.

The big time savings were realised in the processing of invoices to customers who required them in foreign currency. In the old system, White describes a laborious process which required staff to create an invoice in the DOS system then recreate a foreign currency version in Word which was sent to the customer for payment.

Again, things became chaotic if a customer wanted a replacement invoice or was inadvertently sent the local currency version and attempted to convert this into foreign currency themselves. If figures were transposed from one version to another, it was a time-consuming process to track backwards to find the error.

White added “you can imagine the impact this had on the accuracy of GST reporting requiring manually amended monthly GST reports”. All that has changed since Greentree’s Foreign Currency module enables invoicing in overseas currencies hence the dramatic drop in processing time from 45 minutes to just 2-3 minutes.

This was an interesting point made by White when he explained the old system created an environment for proprietary knowledge among users.

Because a lot of information was contained in paper files, users became experts in a particular process and anyone needing to view paper-based information needed to listen to the expert’s explanation or spend lots of time studying and trying to make sense of someone else’s filing system.

Greentree enables all relevant documents to be scanned into and attached to a customer’s file so anyone viewing it can see the full picture. Effectively, Greentree facilitates the knowledge sharing process.

From Post-it notes to a structured workflow process
The manufacturing process White describes was somewhat convoluted at best, relying heavily on post-it notes in ‘stand-out’ yellow. With Greentree’s single data entry point, a job starts with a requisition which effectively flows through the various inventory, job costing and financial systems. This has enforced adherence to a structured manufacturing process with not a post-it note in sight.

Preparing a report in Greentree and being able to email this to the branches has been a significant improvement in communication which White says, has improved sales. He explains that “when branches don’t get the right information, or get awkward information requiring interpretation, there’s a lot of misunderstanding and frustration.”

Now, everyone knows what’s going on and what the company is trying to achieve and Greentree’s easy reporting format enables White to present relevant information for feedback to branches which means all sales efforts are focused on the same goal.

Since Job Costing is an integrated module, there’s no need to keep paper files or refer to separate databases as all the information about jobs from six months ago, is a mouse-click away.

Jobs often require many parts with sub-parts and White says he finds the ‘binoculars’ in the Job Costing and Inventory modules tremendous for drilling down to manufacturer’s part numbers and other detailed information. Job Costing information is now highly visible in Greentree so White has ditched the obsolete filing cabinets.

Greentree partner delivers ‘star’ performance
White concedes that Hydrosteer had to make a quantum psychological leap in its approach to doing business in a modern environment but they had lots of help.

They can’t speak highly enough of the patient and committed role the Greentree business partner played in helping Hydrosteer make the quantum leap in modernising the information architecture of the business and the stellar support during implementation which continues today.

Both White and Martyn agree, Greentree presented them with a plethora of business decisions about how they wanted to run Hydrosteer which, White says, they had never had to think about before.

He says that having to think hard about exactly how they wanted to run the business has resulted in an overall improvement in the quality of the business rules and processes put in place. This has enabled them to slash huge amounts of time and cost off every aspect of the business.

For more information

Greentree
Graham Hill, Channel Manager
Email: graham.hill@greentree.com
Ph: 0800 313 313
Fax: 09 366 3889
Web: www.greentree.com

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