With Acumatica, the company improved its financial controls and customer service, streamlined its service contracts and fixed problems with inventory.
“We used to have $10,000 to $15,000 in write offs each year because people couldn’t track inventory properly to jobs, which would skew financials during the year,” Rowerdink says. “With Acumatica, we eliminated 99 percent of the problems with project inventory.”
Real-Time Information Improves Business
Rather than relying on historical data and manually creating spreadsheets, SSNW now has access to real-time information that saves executives time and is improving the company’s profitability.
For example, Rowerdink used to create a daily report he sent to five to 10 executives. “Now, anyone can get the information anytime they want it from a dashboard in Acumatica,” he says.
“Having opportunities in CRM gives us visibility into the sales project pipeline where we can see in real-time what’s close to closing as well as what’s in the pipeline,” Rowerdink adds, saying the company didn’t have that kind of visibility before.
Improved Field Service Operations, Billing
Acumatica provided remote access to the ERP for technicians on job sites, which has saved time, boosted data accuracy, and eliminated manual double entry.
Field technicians now clock in and out using a mobile application rather than hand-written timesheets. The internal office team doesn’t have to wait for paper-based information, nor do they need to key it into the system or remind technicians to bring them paperwork or help them decipher handwriting, processes which were prone to errors.
The back-office team no longer manually transfers that information into the financial system for billing either because Acumatica automatically routes information to where it needs to go. Having that information instantly means invoicing can be accomplished faster, Rowerdink says.
Better Contract Management
SSNW did not have a good way to track its accounts receivable service contracts in the prior system. If a contract was canceled, it required physically locating the paper-based contract and manual updates to the system. Now with contracts information in Acumatica, it’s easier to attach files and track the data, which saves time, Rowerdink says.
The company’s project accounting module, used to manage security installations, is much stronger and controlled in Acumatica, he adds.
“We have a job costing meeting once a week with all project managers, sales managers and tech managers,” Rowerdink explains. “As a job is closed out, we do job costing, which now is as simple as running a report.”
“In the old system, technicians wrote their time on paper and the admins would have to key the time entries into the system but that information didn’t flow to job costing,” he says. “The whole process was manual, and finance had to run reports in Excel and SQL, then key the information in somewhere else, which wasted time and was prone to errors.”
“With Acumatica, it just flows through the system faster, in real time, it’s controlled and much easier to use.”
Case Management Improves Customer Service
Acumatica has improved customer service for SSNW. “We had no system to track our internal systems support,” Rowerdink says. “We were tracking everything through work orders and there was no way to see if a technician was on site for two hours or who needed a code change. It often took us longer to process the paperwork than it did to change a code.”
Using the case functionality in Acumatica, customer support can be prioritized, put on a case log, and serviced faster thanks to the visibility into the system.
“Before, a customer might call in with a request, and a service technician would make a manual note. Well, imagine what would happen if the technician was sick or loses the note?” Rowerdink says. “Now with Acumatica, the entire department can see the support ticket, all technicians and support agents have the visibility needed to make sure customer issues aren’t getting lost. Our team is much more efficient.”
With better business processes in place, increased visibility and more automation, Security Solutions NW is planning for continued rapid growth. The company’s revenues and staff continue to expand growing now to more than 60 people. SSNW likes the fact that, with Acumatica, they don’t have to worry about paying out astronomical user licensing fees associated with adding users due to Acumatica’s consumption-based pricing model.
“It is nice for us as we grow rapidly that we’re not caught in the space where we worry about licensing a user who might need to access the solution once or twice a week for a small work function,” Rowerdink says. “With Acumatica, we don’t have to think about that or pay for a full user license because the licensing model allows everyone to use it without becoming too costly.”
Opportunity: Growing into Larger Markets
Security Solutions NW is expanding from the Bellingham WA based home office region into the greater Seattle area market, a move expected to significantly grow revenues. Executives are confident that Acumatica can scale with this growth, provide information they can trust, enable financial stability, control, and automation required to fulfill their mission to help their customers gain peace of mind with security solutions that work, while also building the company’s legacy of giving back to the community, both locally and globally.
“There are a ton of Acumatica features we’re not yet taking advantage of,” Rowerdink says. “We’re a small company but there’s no doubt this is the right solution as Security Solutions NW grows and for what we plan to accomplish with the business in the future.”
AcumatiCares
