Moving from Microsoft Dynamics GP to Acumatica: A Journey To a Single Version of the Truth
Customer: CAL Business Solutions, Inc.
Website: www.calszone.com
Location: Harwinton, CT
Industry: Professional Services
Former System: Microsoft Dynamics GP
New System: Acumatica
Customer Profile: CAL Business Solutions is an IT services organization of finance and technology professionals that supports customers nationwide.
The Challenge:
Nearly twenty years ago, CAL Business Solutions started to use Microsoft Dynamics GP because they needed a strong accounting and billing system. As the business grew, they kept the core system and added a second system for time entry and project accounting. Then a third system for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to track sales leads, pull marketing lists and analyze customer data. Then a fourth system for reporting. And, finally, a fifth system for case management to handle support call dispatching and service case management.
Each team at CAL had systems that worked for them and access to the information they needed to do their job, but there were some major challenges. The company had islands of disconnected information as the various systems did not connect with each other. This led to duplicate data entry and a lack of visibility of the entire team.
Everything was working, but the company was putting in a lot of extra effort and coming up with more and more workarounds. Although they knew this was not efficient, there never seemed to be enough time to focus on changing their path.
The Solution:
When CAL Business Solutions became an Acumatica partner, they decided that using Acumatica to run their own business would be the best opportunity to learn the system fully, and at the same time, start with a clean slate to fix all the processes they knew were inefficient. Acumatica was implemented in a phased approach, each stage eliminating one system, so that finally all functions were being done in Acumatica. The company went from five systems to one single version of the truth.
The Benefits:
Enter it Once
“Now that case management, project accounting, and financials are in one place, our team is so happy that they no longer have to do duplicate entry when they close a service case. And it makes time entry a much easier process.”
Dashboards
“With the new dashboards, we have a complete view of the business that we never had with any of the other systems that we’ve had to date. As a business owner, I can look at everything that’s going on, and I absolutely love it. Having those dashboards in the fabric of the Acumatica application without having to buy or learn additional tools is great.”
Real-Time Updates
“In the old days, we used to have a lot of spreadsheets. For example, when we had our upgrade meetings, the support team would run a report, we would review each entry, someone would make notes, and then we’d have to go back into that system to update the records. Now our meetings are not paper-based. We just go down the list in the Acumatica dashboard and make the updates in real-time.”
Complete Visibility
“Each team at CAL — sales, operations, and support — is viewing the same information. We can finally give everyone a complete view of our data in one location.”
Renewal Process
“We have more than 300 customers, and at least 90% of them have active annual support plans. In the past, we had one full-time person who would spend more than half their time each month on our customer renewal process. Amounts would be calculated manually, then each renewal email would be sent manually 60 days in advance, then resent, and tracked. Now, the entire process is automated in Acumatica. When we added the MaxQ Advanced Billing module to Acumatica, it is not an understatement to say that it has been one of the biggest business transformations we have seen in 30 years.”
Integrated Credit Card Processing
“We are now able to use integrated functionality inside Acumatica instead of using PayPal for credit card processing. We have already saved more than $3,000 a year in fees; all the transactions are in one system, and we can easily do ACH transfers.”
Improved Collections
“The ability to easily email Accounts Receivables statements that we can customize and format in a way that appeals to our customers greatly improved our collections process. Now customers can see a list of open invoices, payments, credits, and pre-paid balances.
This technology company now has a single version of the truth. The company is more efficient, and they can better advise their customers.
” George Mackiewicz, President, CAL Business Solutions
