More Solution Ideas

Over the years we have solved a number of problems for our customers. Some of these are outlined on the list below. If you find something here that interests you, give us a call to learn more about how we can build it for you.

Keep in mind that these systems can be designed to integrate with the information that is already in your accounting and other line-of-business systems.

Executive Management

Digital Dashboard -- Reports and graphs that extract information from multiple business systems for a daily accounting of business activity.
Management Reports -- Businesses are run on reports. Your accounting or ERP system came with a number of standard reports, but chances are that they don't meet your needs. Talk to us about creating custom reports from the data that is already in your system.

Sales and Customer Service

Extended Customer Information -- Access more information about your customers than your accounting system is designed to handle.
Specialized Order Entry System -- Many companies need more from their order entry system than can be provided by their accounting package. These requirements might include:
- Extended descriptions
- Pictures
- The ability to configure products
- Multi-level inventory checks (if you sell assemblies)
- Cross-selling
- Substitutes
- Multi-tier pricing
- Promotional Pricing
Specialized Billing System -- Most accounting packages do not handle billing for services well. We can create a billing system that exactly meets your needs.
Progress Billing System -- Do you need a system that allows you to bill for projects based on percentage complete or milestones? We'll bet that your accounting system does not handle this one well at all.
Estimating and Quoting -- Whatever your business, finding a software package that adequately handles estimating and quoting is darned near impossible. Estimating and quoting is your competitive advantage, don't loose it to generic software that was designed without an understanding of your business.
Pricing Management -- Do you find product pricing to be such a pain that you don't do it very often? We can help you maximize profitability with a product pricing system that will use your rules and interact with your accounting system.
Warranty and Service Contract Tracking -- If your business engages in warranty work or sells service contracts, you need a good way to track customer eligibility, contract costs and renewal opportunities.
Field Service Dispatching -- While there are a number of field service software packages available, they are frequently expensive and complex. If your service dispatching needs are simple, an Access based solution might make more sense.
Lead Management -- Effective lead management is frequently key to getting the sale. Whatever your lead follow up program is, you can do it more effectively and with less cost by automating letter and email generation as well as phone call tracking. When you want lead follow up to "just happen," nothing beats a specialized solution.

Workflow Management

Forms Completion -- Even 50 years into the computer age, many businesses are required to complete paper forms, often with the same information. You can make your forms completion simpler and more accurate by using a "software based typewriter."
Contract Management -- Does your business need to ensure you are in compliance with a number of contract terms? If so, we can help. Simple custom systems that are designed to track YOUR contracts are often better than large, complex systems designed to track EVERYONE's contracts.
Document Management -- Many businesses accumulate and need to access, large numbers of documents. We can design a simple custom system that is designed to help you track documents. Whether you are looking to track scanned documents, or you simply wish to have a computerized index to your paper-based documents, call us.

Inventory

Pick, Pack and Ship -- Do you find that your accounting or inventory management system does not understand your warehouse very well? In most businesses that ship goods, the distribution process accounts for significant labor costs. We can help make your warehouse operations more efficient by using simple techniques such as cross-docking, batch and cluster picking to organize your pick, pack and shipping operations.
Physical Inventory and Cycle Counting -- Do you need a more efficient physical inventory mechanism, or the ability to implement cycle counting? If your accounting or inventory control system does not support these requirements, call us.
Bar-coding -- Implementing a bar-coded inventory system does not have to be hard, nor terribly expensive. Call us we can help you implement a bar-code inventory system that is appropriate to your business.
Inventory Backflushing -- If you manufacture or assemble products chances are, your inventory or accounting system works against you. If your system requires you to issue components to every job or sales order entered, talk to us about designing a backflushing system to automatically issue component items when an order is completed or ships.
Requisitions -- Most accounting and inventory control systems do not support even the most basic business requirements for requisitions. We can design a system that meets your specific requirements for requisition control from form completion to purchase order generation and all of the approval steps in between.

Manufacturing Management

Bill-of-Materials -- Does your accounting system handle your Bills-of-Material well? We understand BOM's and how they can benefit your manufacturing or assembly business.
Scheduling -- There are a huge number of computerized manufacturing scheduling systems in the marketplace and they all share one characteristic, they are almost impossible to implement. Whether you are looking for Finite, Infinite, Manpower Requirements Planning, Rate-Based, Kanban or some hybrid manufacturing scheduling system, call us. We will design something simple and appropriate to your needs, not some pie-in-the-sky-everything-needs-to-be-perfect-scheduling-system.

Engineering & Product Data

Extended Product Attributes -- Does your accounting system provide a sufficient number of attributes for engineering and other departments to understand your products? If not, call us we can design a system that will integrate to your existing data, yet provide the required information in a format that you can use.
Part Number Generation -- If there is one issue that seems to consume engineering departments and part-oriented businesses in general, it is the issue of part numbering. We can help, whether you want to implement sequential, rules-based or commodity based part numbering, we can design a system that will ensure that your rules are followed to the letter (or number).

Quality Control

Serial Number and Lot Control -- Does your ISO/QS certification depend upon accurate serial number or lot traceability? If so, we can help. Whether your need is for source traceability and certification management or you simply need to track vendor serialization information we can design a simple system for capturing and tracking that information.
Corrective Action Management -- Key to effective quality control is the ability to manage corrective action requests and ensure that they are implemented. We will help design a simple system, customized to meet your specific needs, for accomplishing this important goal.
Procedure Tracking -- Most companies that go through the ISO process quickly develop a number of procedure binders that need to be updated every time a change in procedures is made. This is a process that is wasteful of time and money. Computerizing your procedures so that they are available on-line (either in a database or web-based format) is key to eliminating these costs.

Equipment & Maintenance Tracking

Preventative Maintenance -- For any business that relies on equipment, an effective preventative maintenance program is essential to ensuring that the equipment remains productive. We can design a system that meets your business' needs for effective preventative maintenance.
Maintenance Tracking -- In addition to understanding when maintenance is required, it is also important to understand when it was done and how much it cost. We can design a system that tracks maintenance activities in as much or as little detail as you require.
Equipment Use Tracking -- Whether you are in construction or manufacturing, knowing where to find the equipment or tool that you need is vital to keeping people working and projects on schedule. We can design a simple equipment tracking system that will tell you how to find what you need to get the job done.

Human Resources

Manpower Planning and Work Schedule Preparation -- In most businesses, this is a huge management time waster. We can design a simple system to help you plan your employee schedules and ensure that you are covered for all important contingencies.
Vacation Calculator -- If vacation tracking is not a day at the beach in your business, we can help. Custom vacation eligibility rules and exceptions mean that there is almost no commercial software available to help with this problem. We will design a system that understands your vacation policies and ensures that you enforce them fairly and consistently.
Expense Report -- Do expense reports cost your company money? You bet, from policies that aren't followed to expense reports that aren't filed in a timely manner, business expense reports are a huge pain for many companies. Get some control over your business' expense reporting and reimbursement with a custom system that understands and enforces your business' rules.

Accounting

Budgeting System -- Budgets are time consuming and error prone in most businesses. We can help by designing systems that assist as much or as little as you need throughout the budgeting process.
Cash Planning -- Cash forecasting and planning is important for most businesses, yet it is frequently so time consuming and error prone that many businesses don't do it. We can design systems that use the data your business already possesses to generate useful and actionable cash projections.

Data Sharing

Whether you need to share information between business systems, such as payroll and timekeeping, or with your vendors and customers we can help design solutions that are appropriate to your needs and budget. Your employees should never have to key the same piece of data twice. Every time data is handled the costs and opportunities for error increase. Let us show you how make your business more efficient by exchanging data electronically.