News & Releases

Produce Broker Solution
Transloading and Trucking Company Automation
Document Management Solution
Carpet Sales and Manufacturing Company
Financials Automation

Produce Broker Solution

Customer: Produce Broker Company in the heart of Los Angeles’ Produce District with over 25 staff distributing over 4000 truckloads of fruits and vegetables per year.

Challenges: Very little automation, separate A/P, A/R and G/L. All purchase and sales orders recorded on paper and keyed into A/P and A/R. No integration between systems with a lot of redundant data entry.

Project(s): The initial project started and completed in 1995. Since then there have been several major upgrades, the most recent in 2011.

Primary Objectives: These objectives have grown and expanded since 1995 but here is a short list:

Get off of a paper system being used by the brokers to buy and sell.
Integrated Accounting
Warehouse Automation.
System Computed Commissions.
Document Management and Tracking

Struggling with paperwork and a myriad of small disconnected systems including a separate A/R, A/P, and G/L and with commissions compiled in Excel spreadsheets, this company was in need of help.

The produce commodities market is a volatile business with daily price swings and the need to be responsive in real-time.

We took their operations from very little automation to an integrated state of the art system that allows their business to thrive.

Brokers can compare commodity prices in real-time on screen with in-line GP calculations. Order status updated in real-time and proof of delivery documents are automatically scanned and cataloged and accessed by any user.

The owner no longer spends 40 hours ever payroll period compiling spreadsheets with the sales and costs to calculate commissions. This task is delegated to an employee wherein they use the system to compute commissions for their bi-weekly payroll in less than 1 minute.

Result: Today their operations are centered on the automation we provided them. Their business continues to expand and grow. Their systems are all integrated. In 2004 they had 6 brokers. By 2008 they had 11 brokers without adding any additional administrative support staff. And more of their accounting functions are being done in-house saving them CPA fees.

Transloading and Trucking Company Automation

Company: Mid-sized transloading and trucking company with 6 offices throughout the western United States.

Challenge: Replace the existing DOS-based application with a broader more comprehensive solution based on SQL Server and integrate it with their existing accounting system.

Solution: The solution is a comprehensive transloading application that handles railcar, warehouse, tank, silo, box car and other types of container inventories. The solution didn’t just replace their existing system, it is three to four times more comprehensive and it brought them current with the technologies it employs.

Results: This has resulted in broad system specifically designed for the transloading industry. It is scalable, extensible and customizable without deviating from the core system while leveraging the core functionality. There is no other software solution on the market specifically designed for the transloading industry.

Document Management Solution (1 of 2)

Company: Mid-size staffing agency with 3 companies and 10 branch offices and 10,000 payroll checks per week.

Challenge: Eliminating couriers that transfer signed times sheets, employment agreements and much more from 10 branches to corporate and signed payroll checks from corporate to each branch office.

Solution: Implement a virtual private (wide area) network with the Internet as the backbone. Install check printers and a scanning solution at each branch and a retrieval mechanism at corporate headquarters.

Results: The automation costs were recuperated in the first year through the saving of eliminating the outside couriers. Documents arrive at headquarters almost instantly (rather than the next business day) and are properly cataloged for each branch while being electronically filed in on-line archives. Payroll checks arrive at the branches sooner and check revisions and reprints are immediate rather than delayed one day.

Document Management Solution (2 of 2)

Challenge: Cataloging all manner of trucking documents that include things like work orders with weights, scale tickets, proof of deliver tickets and much more.

Solution: Most of these documents are initially printed with a bar code that includes the type of document and the transaction number it is for. Each document is scanned to a network folder. From there a process running in the background identifies the document, renames it according to the bar code, and catalogs and cross-references it the database so all users in our business application can see the documents related to a specific transaction.

No need to use OCR technology and program different positions on the document where the OCR reading can find transaction #. A bar code anywhere at any angle will be interpreted and processed correctly, all in the background. And there is a process for handling the rare document that doesn’t have a barcode or the barcode is unreadable.

Results: All pertinent documents are cataloged electronically and available for easy access. No more time spent sifting through stacks of paperwork to find the required supporting documents to collect a bill or comply with a customer’s or vendor’s request. Everything is right there, easily accessible and can quickly be e-mailed or faxed right from the user’s workstation.

Carpet Sales and Manufacturing Company

Customer: High-end custom carpet manufacturer and reseller located in West Hollywood, California, supplying custom interiors to prestigious residential and commercials clients.

Challenge: Take disparate independent systems for tracking cost sheets, price sheets, Proposals, Contracts, Purchase Orders, over 15,000 samples inventory, and an independent accounting system and replace them with one comprehensive and integrated system. In the process eliminate all of the double data entry that was occurring while providing real-time sales, commissions and profitability numbers to the owner.

Solution: A custom solution that includes every aspect of their business in an integrated system.

Results: This solution was gradually implemented over 3 years and has been in place for over 10. It is the life-blood of their operations and daily it gives them a return on their investment.

Financials Automation

Customer: Plastics manufacturer with about 150 employees.

Challenge: Create custom financials that the user can setup and revise without continued support from the IT department. The results should pull data from the corporate G/L database, allow for complex formulas, and output to Excel while maintaining the formulas within the output results

This tool would have to accommodate many different financials including: Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Manufacturing Overhead, Selling Expense, G & A Expense, and R & D Expense, Significant EBIT, Aged Accounts Receivables, Prepaid & Reserves, Orders & Sales by Product Line, Sales Analysis, Backlog Analysis, and Public Compliance Costs.

Reports would have to be compiled for specific divisions and conversely consolidated across three separate corporate entities. Budget figures and Best/Worst comparison can be optionally built into each financial report.

Solution: Provide a custom program that would allow financial forms definition to accommodate any account range, plus/minus subtotal previous lines, percentage formula or reference another financial report line item.

Output must be to Excel with imbedded formulas converted from the setup mechanism into formulas Excel will process. This allows the accounts to revise numbers and make corrections and adjustments on the spreadsheet and see the overall results before committing them to the G/L system.

Results: This solution was implemented in 2003 and continues to run today. It has required very few improvements because it is so comprehensive and easy for management to use and maintain even has their business changes and grows their financials can be further customized without the involvement of I.T.