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Flooring Supplier Dramatically Improves Inventory Valuation and Order Accuracy Using AccountMate Software
Customer
Gold Coast Flooring
www.goldcoastflooring.com
Corporate Headquarters
Hicksville, Long Island
New York
Type of Business
Wood flooring supplier
Number of Locations: 1
Number of Employees: 14
Number of Users: 10
Software Installed:
Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Bank Reconciliation
General Ledger
Inventory Control
Sales Order
Payroll
Purchase Order
"We have control of orders and delivery dates. Now I see the beauty of this AccountMate system–we can do anything we want."
- Mike Mahoski,
Co-Owner
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In business since 1997, Gold Coast Flooring provides specialty hardwood flooring, laminate, floating
floors and exotic specialty items to tradesmen, contractors and customers. With headquarters in
New York, the company supplies a vast assortment of hardwood flooring tools and accessories
that produce the flooring creations their customers’ desire.
Providing personal, one-on-one customer service with a knowledgeable team of experienced flooring
specialists is the foundation of their success. Reporting eight figure annual revenues with only 14
employees, the company knows how to build a solid, profitable business from the ground up.
The Challenge
Since Gold Coast Flooring’s inception, its continual growth plus complexity in their transaction
processing of regular and custom orders provided several business challenges which
significantly impacted their internal operations.
Processing flooring requirements and delivery dates was challenging for most customer orders.
Flooring materials are ordered by customers in square feet but orders are delivered in full
cartons or wrapped bundles which required time-consuming hand calculations to determine the
final order quantity in square feet. Another problem was managing order delivery dates. Delivery
dates could not be changed systematically and adjusted to customer requirements. This
resulted in costly delivery inaccuracies.
Handling custom orders added further complication for the company. Costs for non-stock
inventory items were entered at zero dollars which inaccurately skewed inventory valuations and
inflated year-end profits. Also, custom orders required up-front deposits but did not result in the
generation of the internal paper-trail needed to place, track and follow-up appropriately.
As a result, employees spent valuable time and human resources each month managing orders.
Mike Mahoski, Co-Owner of Gold Coast Flooring explains, “We didn’t spend enough time focused
on growing our business because we spent so much time solving day-to-day problems.” With a
perpetual bottleneck in processing customer orders, Gold Coast Flooring required a smart
business solution for managing its growing infrastructure.
The Solution
After conducting a thorough needs assessment, AccountMate Business Partner, Digital Strategies,
recommended upgrading the company to the latest version of AccountMate SQL accounting system.
“Gold Coast Flooring had numerous industry-specific operating challenges and they needed specific
solutions that fit their business requirements and growth objectives,” said Paul Joinnides, President of
Digital Strategies. By upgrading and customizing their AccountMate system, Gold Coast Flooring could
leverage their original investment with this modifiable solution that provided superior scalability for their
growing business.
Digital Strategies implemented the company’s new solution and
trained its staff thoroughly to maximize the system’s benefits. The
resolution for inaccurate inventory valuations and inflated year-end
profits was to eliminate the need for employees to enter costs for
all non-stock inventory items.
The next step in the company’s technology make-over included an
overhaul in the placement, tracking and management of custom
orders requiring prepaid deposits. To handle these transactions,
Digital Strategies built a highly customized system within
AccountMate to insure deposit money collected would be applied
appropriately as a “pre-payment” instead of “open credit”. As a
result, the necessary internal paperwork required to place, track
and follow-up on custom orders was automatically generated. This
change has enabled Gold Coast Flooring to effectively manage
custom orders with minimum effort.
Another company hurdle involved calculating the conversion ratios
for flooring materials. Employees had used manual calculations to
convert customer flooring requirements from feet to cartons (prefinished
materials) or wrapped bundles (unfinished materials).
Flooring requirements had to be adjusted to include waste and
prevent partial carton or wrapped bundles from being ordered. This
process was complicated, time consuming and error prone. To solve
this business complexity, Digital Strategies customized AccountMate
logic to convert square footage into full cartons or bundles and place
the revised quantity in square footage in the Sales Order. Similar
logic was added to insure that partial cartons or wrapped bundles
did not ship. Automating the conversion process now saves the
company resources by eliminating manual calculations while
increasing order accuracies and improving accurate inventory levels.
The final step for them involved revamping delivery date options.
Contractors accept flooring deliveries on specific dates, and orders
delivered early were returned to the warehouse and re-delivered on
a revised delivery date. With increasing fuel and vehicle maintenance
costs, this process was financially inefficient. To solve this challenge,
Digital Strategies created a customized solution for Gold Coast
Flooring to manage pre-determined delivery dates. Employees now
enter a specific delivery date which appears on all reports: invoices,
sales orders, pick lists and packing lists. Delivery dates can be
systematically updated as needed and multiple delivery dates can
appear on customer orders. This enhanced delivery date process
builds in system flexibility that dramatically increases accuracy of
costs, resources and deliveries.
The Results
After working with Digital Strategies to implement these customized
solutions, Gold Coast Flooring’s accounting, order processing and
delivery scheduling have significantly stabilized.
The systemizing and streamlining of the transaction process with
AccountMate’s software now allows the company to spend less
time solving internal business problems and more time growing
their business. “We have control of orders and delivery dates,” says
Mahoski. “Now I see the beauty of this system—we can do
anything we want”.
About AccountMate Software Corporation
Founded in 1984, AccountMate develops and markets fully
modifiable business accounting software. Systems range from
single user versions to those that support over hundreds of users
simultaneously. AccountMate software is distributed exclusively
through a worldwide channel of authorized business partners.
AccountMate can be reached at (415-883-8873) or at
www.accountmate.com.
About Digital Strategies, Inc.
Since 1987, Digital Strategies has provided high quality, customized
business applications to large and small businesses. With an
experienced team, AccountMate Business Partner, Digital Strategies
provides custom, seamless business solutions that increase
productivity and profit for their clients. Digital Strategies can be
reached at (908) 273-8983 or at www.digitalstrategies.com.
About Gold Coast Flooring
Located in New York, Gold Coast Flooring is a large wood flooring
supplier to flooring tradesmen, contractors and customers. Founded
in 1997, Gold Coast Flooring is a member of the National Wood
Flooring Association. Gold Coast Flooring can be reached at
(516) 932-0434 or at www.goldcoastflooring.com.
3rd Party Applications in Operation:
Executive Concepts: Accurate Direct Access Remote Terminal
system (ACCU-DART) wirelessly connects warehouse operations
in real-time to record shipping and receiving.
Carrera Computers: Freight Plus imports shipping and delivery
information directly to Sales Orders/Invoices in real-time.
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