- After realizing that the previous enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution his company was using was more cumbersome and complex than he wanted it to be, David Reale, founder and vice-president of Avida Corp. made the switch to a Sage software solution with the help of Business Innovation Technologies, Inc.
Before seeking help from Toronto-based Business Innovation Technologies and implementing Simply Accounting by Sage, Enterprise Edition software, Avida was using Microsoft Navision, also known as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, as its ERP system. Reale said he wanted to switch to another ERP and management system that would allow for timelier financial reporting.
“We used Microsoft Navision to track our inventory and assets,” Reale said. “We also used it to manage all of our invoicing. It's a big and robust system, but we found it was cumbersome and it wasn't as easy to use as I wanted it to be for financial reporting.” It was the desire for creating and obtaining reports more quickly that led Avida, a software developer for the digital signage market, to start exploring other ERP options, Reale explained.
Dan Mason, president and CEO of Business Innovation, said that when it comes to ERP business practices, a lot of companies find these processes to be very complex and difficult. “Companies want to cut costs and they also want to get back to basics with something that's simple to use,” Mason said. Reale says he can get income statements, trial balances and bank reconciliations on-demand now that the new solution is in place. Because the software is so easy to use and user-friendly, he says employee productivity has also improved. With the Enterprise Edition of Simply Accounting, Avida can have up to 10 concurrent users on the system, which means faster results and increased efficiencies, Reale added.
“I don't need a full-time system admin for our ERP system,” he said. “Myself, inventory management, inventory control, accounts receivable, my controller and my general manager all use this solution. Pretty much everyone on the financial and operations side use it.” While Business Innovation did not run into any major hurdles or obstacles during the software implementation, Mason says perhaps the biggest challenge was being able to work in such a tight timeline, with only one-week. “We like to give… two weeks to implement any project to make sure the timing's right and everyone's trained,” Mason said. “We had to manage our time and divide our skills sets accordingly to make sure we were involving our end-users in training during this process.”
