TMi-ASG

We use Acctivate’s Multiple Location Control feature all the time. We have multiple warehouses set up to deal with different products – we have a warehouse for all of our warranty products, a warehouse for all of our consignment products, our primary warehouse and then we have off-site locations.
Acctivate allows us to track all those items based on warehouse and since we use the bin process along with the min/max to establish the item’s location, not only does Acctivate have the ability to put it in a warehouse location, but have the bin location within those warehouses and the ability to establish min/max quantities that feed right back into a reorder report.”

We used to use our old software for our service tickets but we converted that process to Acctivate by using Business Activities to process the tickets for those repairs. It’s just nice because when it’s a warranty, we can bill it to the vendor but we can also link the customer back to it so we have the ability to tie multiple items back to a particular activity.”

The ability to cross link information in Acctivate has a huge impact, especially when we have redundant orders such as annual deals where somebody wants to buy five units a year for 10 years. The ability to copy orders works well. The ability to have emails, notes, and popups in Acctivate also make it easy to go back and create orders – so it makes that whole quote generation the second time that we do it a quarter of the time it took the first time.
A lot of our vendors have purchasing or buying programs. For example, they’ll have a quarterly stock sale or a monthly sale. With Acctivate, we can break products down not only by type but by vendor, etc. and then we can group reorders to take advantage of vendor programs very easily. That took forever with our previous program because we’d have to break it all down on paper. Some of the same fields were available, but it just wasn’t something we could click-through.
Acctivate has just provided more accessibility and a better workflow and so much of that is just because of its click-through nature.”

With our previous system, we’d have to manually generate a reorder report, sift through it, and then rekey the items that we wanted to order, whereas with Acctivate we can do it all onscreen by clicking. We can re-sort the columns in whatever order – if we want to look at just the negative available items because we want to put together the items that are committed that we don’t have in inventory, we can sort the columns automatically. We just click off the items and reorder a batch or we can go deeper.”

The easiest thing about drop shipping is that Acctivate reduces the redundant data entry by being able to select and have a specific drop ship processed. It works perfectly for those types of orders and that’s exactly the type that we do on a regular basis.”

By setting up a Business Activity in Acctivate and creating a report document, we can generate credit application forms in email-able formats such as PDF documents to send out applications. There will be an activity associated with it that’s linked directly to the customer – so when we get the information back, it’s complete, it gets checked off and then we can send them a credit acceptance letter. We can then go into Acctivate and set their credit limit and other details about the account – all related back to that original activity.”

Acctivate’s Alerts section gives us a visual overview of backorders, scheduled orders, etc. that’s easy to breakdown. We can break it down by salesperson or sort it any number of ways, which are hugely helpful in managing that ongoing process. We’ve got the ability to establish due dates in Acctivate and we can see what’s overdue and keep an eye on what hasn’t shipped.”

We look information up by the order number on what product it was; we validate that status at the manufacturer level; and then place a warranty order with the manufacturer to solve the problem. We just process it that way since it’s a manufacturer’s warranty.
But that’s where managing RMAs in Acctivate is really helpful too. We didn’t have an RMA process before electronically, we had it internally. Acctivate allows us to use the Business Activities to generate an RMA, which we can then sort and track.”

When we look at a sales order, Acctivate gives us the tracking tab and we can just click on that. If a customer were to call a week later and ask ‘Where’s my stuff?’ We can tell them, ‘Hey, here’s the UPS tracking number. This person already signed for it’ – and we answer that question within a minute. In the old days, we’d have to go back to dig it all up, and sometimes it meant flipping through handwritten bills.”

The top way Acctivate helps with Customer Relationship Management is through the ability to create multiple contacts per customer record and multiple ship to locations per customer record. It allows us to build a better picture of the customer – all in one spot.”