Credit card information received at the compa-
ny’s websites had to be rekeyed. Each location ran its own trucks with different kinds of information entered at each depot i.e. accounts receivable (AR), GL and payroll at one spot, propane at another and a third center dealing with c-stores, commercial customers and fuel deliveries. That led to lengthy delays in data arriving from one office to another. Weekly reports were printed and mailed to the other locations. “Entry into GL was a nightmare and AR reports
couldn’t be accessed elsewhere,” said McDonald. “It took working through four screens to access accounts data, which meant customers having to be placed on hold while we drilled down into the system.” The company evaluated several vendors before purchasing a unified package by Summit Software which offered a wide breadth of features without requiring investment in pricey computing gear. The solution replaced the original accounting, pro- pane and payroll programs, with plans to phase out the legacy fixed asset system in the near future. The
benefits were immediate. Quality Oil and Gas saves about five minutes per customer call when looking for customer information. “About two days of data reentry per month is
no longer needed,” said McDonald. “Having an integrated system also means we can close out the month by the fifth instead of the fifteenth.” Another two days per month of data entry has
been eradicated by integrating the propane system with GL. Credit card data is automatically down- loaded to the accounting package—another two to three hours per week of savings. An extensive set of monthly reports means that McDonald knows the exact profit per item and overall profits per month. This wasn’t possible before. The com- pany can now maintain tight control on inventory, which makes it easy to troubleshoot c-store and inventory issues.
MULTIPLE SYSTEMS Bellman Oil of Indiana is another company that had software challenges. It provides a full range of commercial and retail petroleum products, and
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