Customer Success with Acumatica: Hedstrom Fitness

In 2020, Hedstrom Fitness split off from its parent company, Hedstrom Entertainment, when the fitness unit exploded in popularity. The Ashland, Ohio-based company created a business solely focused on selling functional fitness equipment, becoming the sole licensor and distributor of BOSU® products (which are primarily used for improving balance, core strength, flexibility, and training).

The newly branded Hedstrom Fitness was ready to make its mark, and that included doing things differently than Hedstrom Entertainment. While the company distributes products globally from its Ashland, Ohio facility, it chose to manage its growing online order fulfillment internally rather than rely on a third-party logistics partner.

However, there were a few challenges they had to overcome first, the biggest of which was its reliance on Macola, an outdated, legacy financial management system for manufacturers. Macola’s deficiencies ranged from lack of visibility and access to data that led to manual processes resulting in errors and lackluster reporting.

“Macola was like a dinosaur, or maybe like using a floppy disk to me,” says Customer Service Manager Jillian Williams.

Unsurprisingly, the Hedstrom Fitness team decided to replace Macola with a new, more modern solution. The solution they chose? Acumatica.

Why Hedstrom Chose Acumatica

During Hedstrom Fitness’s transition from Hedstrom Entertainment, the team relied on the skills of Parallel Solutions LLC, ERP consultants for manufacturers and distributors. So, when it came time to find a Macola replacement, Hedstrom Fitness once again turned to Parallel Solutions for help.

Hedstrom Fitness wanted—and needed—a cloud-based solution that could streamline their processes, help them reduce their reliance on paper, and improve inventory management and shipping by bringing fulfillment and warehousing in-house. Parallel Solutions knew that Acumatica Distribution was the right choice for the growing company, and advised Hedstrom Fitness to take a look—which they did.

“When we demoed Acumatica, it just seemed very intuitive, which was very exciting to me,” says Seth McArdle, Hedstrom Fitness President. “I’m not a tech person; I just don’t function well in some of the Macola-type systems where there’s too many different layers of information that you have to specifically know how to get to.”

Acumatica’s open APIs (which make integrating with third-party applications a breeze), its simplicity of use, and its ability to let Hedstrom Fitness “start fresh” when it came to their data sealed the deal.

“We were able to pull out of Acumatica the data that we wanted, that we felt was clean and accurate,” says McArdle. “We were almost going on 20 years of data with Macola that I felt had been over-corrected to try to compensate for errors in the system.”

The Many Benefits of Choosing Acumatica

With Parallel Solutions by its side, Hedstrom Fitness implemented Acumatica and began experiencing the benefits of a cloud-based, ERP solution. Two of the many benefits include full visibility into its entire operations and instant access to data.

“Acumatica really allows me to have a very high-level view, and it’s very intuitive if I want to try to dig into some of the granular details,” says McArdle. “Previously, it required a lot of different people to pull data, create a report, and send it to me. Now I can monitor 95% of what I need to on a daily basis and not put any burden on anyone else.”

As a streamlined, user-friendly ERP solution that acts as the business’s centralized database, Acumatica has enabled Hedstrom Fitness to reduce the number of finance employees to run operations. Specifically, the company went from approximately eight to 10 people supporting finance from their larger company down to one person who handles accounts receivable and payable and to a part-time accountant who helps close the books monthly.

Says McArdle, “I’m able to oversee the financial piece of it throughout the month based on what’s coming in and what’s going out. I don’t believe anyone is overworked or overstressed unlike before doing the amount of work that we were.”

Additionally:

• Employees can work from home when needed.
• Manually inputting data is a thing of the past.
• Ordering doesn’t require multiple systems, just Acumatica.
• Looking up and verifying orders is fast and efficient, going from five minutes to less than 2 minutes, a 66% time savings.
• Entering inventory tickets is simple and fast.
• Counting inventory is an automated task, helping the company do inventory in 2.5 days with fewer people and reducing their out-of-stock scenarios.

Hedstrom Fitness also took charge of its own fulfillment processes, eliminating the need for a 3PL partner—something they wanted to do from the get-go. Shipping and logistics, which previously required nine people, now only requires two people in its warehouse and one person to handle routing and printing labels. The team can fulfill orders on the same day versus the four days it took the 3PL partner, and all its paperwork is stored digitally in Acumatica, making its printing and paper costs negligible.

Plus, Williams says with Acumatica, most orders now come through EDI. “I can just look and review orders, which has been a huge help to me. Once I see everything looks good, I just hit process and two minutes later I have 200 orders going to the warehouse and with confidence that we have everything we need to fulfill those orders.”

McArdle adds, “Acumatica has been an integral part in helping us move from a third-party logistics company that was managing our warehousing and shipping processes, to bringing that function in house. This has helped us grow our web sales as we are able to effectively communicate promotions and offer same-day shipping.”

Working Smarter, Not Harder with Acumatica

Thanks to Acumatica helping it improve efficiency, Hedstrom Fitness is growing. “We have more time to call on and service customers rather than be bogged down with tedious processes that do not generate sales.”

And according to Williams, other distribution companies would do well to consider Acumatica as their ERP of choice. “Acumatica is the way to go if you want to work smarter, not harder.”

To learn more about how Acumatica can help businesses thrive in today’s digital world, contact our team today.