PracticeMax needed:
- A financial management system to catch up with their growth
- Ability to expand system cost-effectively
- Better understanding of customers’ needs
- Enhanced financial reporting
PracticeMax needed:
After PracticeMax realized their first ERP system would not work, they scoured the market. Of the 10 ERP manufacturers contacted, six were disqualified as they did not meet PracticeMax’s requirements. Wilson says, “We had narrowed it down to SysPro, Oracle, SAP and Acumatica as four finalists we looked at. As we went deeper into the demo process, we disqualified SysPro simply because it was an older platform and we didn’t want to go back down that path.”
PracticeMax put Acumatica partner AIM Solutions, Inc. (AIM) through their paces, requiring numerous demos. In the end PracticeMax determined that Acumatica’s ERP system would be able do everything they needed, at a considerably lower price than the others. As for Oracle and SAP, Wilson says, “They probably could’ve pulled off everything we wanted them to do, but it would’ve cost us millions more… Their pricing model was user-based.”
Wilson notes that unlike other ERP implementation stories he’s heard, this one went fairly smoothly. For every challenge, he says, “every single time, they were there to work through it with us.” Wilson also praises the commitment of AIM to get the Financial Management Suite launched within 45 days of purchase.
Since PracticeMax offers its own SaaS applications to physicians and other companies in similar businesses, Wilson states, “Licensing is definitely the number one benefit [of choosing Acumatica]; it gives us the ability to do everything.” He also likes how customization makes the system work “exactly the way we need it to…. It facilitates us being able to do a lot of it ourselves.”
Wilson also appreciates being able to share data through the Cloud: “This way, every employee can get access to ERP data, from wherever they are when they’re traveling. Our customers can get access to ERP data. We’ve never had the capability to offer this before we had Acumatica. That is definitely a big plus for us.” Another benefit relates to giving the Board of Directors the financial data they had been asking for. “Acumatica has definitely improved our ability to track our financial position,” Wilson explains. “It’s also given us the ability to track the relationship we have with our customers and the open issues we have… Everyone in the company can see what’s going on.”
The Acumatica ERP system helps the company manage the entire business more efficiently, Wilson says. “That was the whole reason we chose to look at an ERP, because it can pull everything together, from our expenditures and our profitability to our relationship with our customers… [The Acumatica system] is doing what an ERP is supposed to do: enterprise resource planning.”