Triode

The company wanted a nimble and flexible ERP system which would easily accommodate its existing processes. “We are a small company; we didn’t want to incur high integration or customization costs,” says Fairweather. It also wanted a web-based ERP, accessible from a browser, because it stored goods in Australia and staff there needed to access and upload information real-time.

After seven months of research, the company narrowed down the choice to Acumatica and SyteLine, a mid-sized ERP software package sold by Infor. Triode ultimately chose Acumatica in large part because of its integrated manufacturing software known as “JAMS” (for “JAAS Advanced Manufacturing Software”).

The other key reason for selecting Acumatica was the fact that the company would not have to pay for individual user licenses. As Fairweather points out, “For a small company like ours, we might start out with five licenses, but as we grow we will need more, and we don’t want to pay for every additional license.”

While staff numbers grew by 15 percent in 2012, output and sales grew by 20 percent. “This signals that our productivity definitely went up,” says Fairweather. “Now everyone has the same information and we are all looking at the same purchase orders and sales orders… It is critical for a small company to have the right information at the right time.”

One of the biggest pay-offs from the company’s investment in Acumatica was that it received its ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System certification in early 2013. Mr. Fairweather states, “Without the Acumatica suite, we would certainly not have gotten ISO-certified.” He particularly credits the JAMS module: “The integration of JAMS into Acumatica has been brilliant.”

A recent crisis illustrates how indispensable Acumatica has become to Triode. When their sprinkler system caused “massive flooding” in their offices, Fairweather reports, “The one fortunate thing was that throughout the chaos, I didn’t have to worry about our ERP system, our integrity of the data or the security of it, because that was all off-site.”