Streamlined Operations for Rapid Expansion
Acumatica helped Fidelux streamline operations, including commissions and inventory management and position it for rapid growth. The cloud-based system allows Fidelux to grant limited access to more than 30 distributors affordably.
Automating the commission process saved many hours of manual data entry and eliminated the need for a separate spreadsheet to track them. In Acumatica, Alt built a tab into the sales order process that integrates with accounts payable. When payment is received for an invoice associated with a sales order, the commission is paid.
“That way commissions are only paid after we have received the money,” says Alt, adding that part of that automation was a customization created by CAL Business Solutions. “It has definitely been a big time saver for us, and the sales teams are happy because they get paid faster.”
What used to take a full day’s work to review and pay out commissions now only takes “an hour to view the report to make sure there are no errors,” she adds.
Improved Inventory
Fidelux saw a big improvement in the way it handles and accounts for its inventory. The company imports parts from China and assembles the commercial lighting fixtures in the U.S. With Acumatica, the company not only has better visibility into what it has in inventory but also provides a way to track individual parts.
“Acumatica helps us make sure all components are reflected accurately in inventory,” says Raval. “It also makes sure we know what each component is related to what light and accurately reflects the true cost of a kit assembly.”
Acumatica is so user friendly that anyone can easily update a sales order with the new information when parts are replaced, she adds. That’s not something they could do in QuickBooks. In fact, the whole order process took two people to perform in QuickBooks. “Now we only need one person to process an order,” Raval says.
“That’s because Acumatica is integrated,” adds Alt. “All the modules are connected and from start to finish we can do everything in one place, and it’s automated so we don’t have to do a lot of duplication.”
Flexible Software
Alt loves Acumatica’s ease of use and flexibility, which allows her to customize and adapt the software to the way Fidelux does business. “I am not a developer, but I can understand how it is built, and I can do as much customization as I want,” she says. “For example, I can click on a field, see what it is and how it opens so I can understand it.”
Acumatica’s generic inquiry function is invaluable, Alt adds. “Whatever Fidelux Executives need to see as a snapshot, I can build it,” she says. “We love Acumatica’s dashboards. We are in the process of integrating Microsoft’s Power BI to pull information for our sales team reports to send to our distributor agencies, and the overall transparency of Acumatica has been very helpful to me.”
Raval praised Acumatica’s ease of use and easy to understand navigation, which extends throughout the entire system. “I manage several teams from customer service to the warehouse to accounting and finance and everyone has access to Acumatica, understands it and can see what is happening during an entire cycle,” she says. “Its transparency allows anyone to track problems with a customer order and figure out what happened.”
Poised to Enter New Markets & Grow
With Acumatica, Sindhu Natarajan, President of Fidelux, has an agile platform for growth to continue increasing market share, advancing Fidelux’s position as one of the premier LED lighting solution companies in the nation while continuing to innovate, modernize and spearhead industry-leading product reliability and quality.
In addition to offering commercial LED interior lighting, Natarajan has started pilot projects to retrofit and/or replace streetlights in many towns and municipalities, a potentially huge market.
“We’ve tripled our distribution rep agencies since we started,” says Raval. “As we move into new markets, Acumatica gives us the confidence that we can handle the increase in transactions and growth with ease for many years.”
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