New Company, Increased Challenges
Since 1986, Quikserv Corp. based in Houston, Texas, has specialized in stainless steel and aluminum fabrication for drive–thru windows, transaction drawers, air curtains, deal trays/shelves and bullet-resistant products. During the 1990s, rapid sales growth, increasing customer call volume and an overflowing customer database combined to overwhelm the company’s existing spreadsheet-based system. Local computer consulting firm, Advanced Applications, Inc., resolved these issues by performing numerous enhancements to Quikserv’s highly flexible Sage 300cloud (formerly known as Sage Accpac) accounting system. Now armed with instant access to the latest sales, shipping and customer data, the company realized dramatically improved sales and product tracking, reporting, customer service performance and profitability.
With Advanced Applications, what used to take ten minutes now takes ten seconds.
Rapid Growth Forces Quikserv to Reevaluate Outdated Business Systems
When Quikserv was a small start–up company, it relied heavily upon a manual spreadsheet system to process orders and customer service requests. By the early 1990s, the company took on large corporate accounts, causing its database of contractors/middlemen who installed the products to swell into the thousands. The spreadsheet system proved incapable of managing all the data, creating a strain on Quikserv’s customer service reps. A seemingly simple repeat order proved to be a very time-consuming process. With business growing so quickly, it was clear that a more automated and customized system was needed to keep pace with growth.
Advanced Applications Uses Sage 300cloud’s (formerly known as Sage Accpac) Highly Flexible Architecture to Perform Numerous Time– and Money-Saving customizations
Quikserv’s controller, Jason Epps, called Scott McMillian, founder and president of Advanced Applications, to help implement a new business solution. Advanced Applications first upgraded Quikserv’s Accpac Plus accounting software to the Sage 300cloud system and performed numerous customizations, starting with enhancements to the software’s lookup function.
“After Advanced Applications created a special lookup function, Rapid Retrieve, using Sage 300cloud customization tools, what used to take ten minutes now takes only seconds,” Epps claims. “Having instant access to customer data has significantly elevated our customer service performance and saved our staff countless hours over the long haul.”
Quikserv sells its products to contractors who act as middlemen between the company and the end-user who ultimately pays for the products. Sage 300cloud’s Optional Fields add-on module enabled Advanced Applications to customize the system so that Quikserv could track sales to the middleman (contractor) and to the end-user.
With this super query tool, management can now look directly into the Sage 300cloud database and gather all the information it needs to perform comprehensive, multidimensional sales analysis, including historical comparisons. This immediate access to sales data has greatly enhanced forecasting and purchasing across the entire enterprise.
An outdated, inefficient shipping process was corrected when Advanced Applications set up and configured Sage 300cloud Optional Fields product in a manner that allowed Quikserv to capture key shipping information.
“With Sage 300cloud superior flexibility and comprehensive tools, plus Advanced Applications’ expertise and understanding of our business objectives, there is no limit to what they can do to optimize this system,” says Epps.
“Plus, if I can’t resolve an issue quickly on my own, one phone call leads to a quick resolution. Not once in the last nine years has there been a problem that they couldn’t solve. Together, Advanced Applications and Sage 300cloud give us a true competitive edge.”