Built For
Scottco Marine
Distributor & manufacturer of dock products and marine accessories
Operations at a Glance
Managing inventory with QuickBooks and spreadsheets lacked the ability to see inventory in real-time causing errors in orders.
An inventory management software with bi-directional integration to QuickBooks that displays accurate inventory in real-time.
Significant savings in time gained by eliminating the need to double check if there is enough inventory to fill orders.
Everything you need for a floating boat dock is just a phone call away,
thanks to Scottco Marine.
Scottco Marine has been one of the main distributors of dock building supplies and components, since they were established in 1989 by Gary Scott.
Gary Scott worked out of his home, took orders, brought a little bit of product in and rented a small storage area where he could sell orders. The business expanded.
They brought in a secretary, a person for shipping, and a salesman. Now there are several people who work here on a three-acre parcel,” said Customer Service Manager Christy Hunt.
Scottco Marine carries a large inventory on-site of dock building materials, as well as products that they make in-house.
We have a lot of inventory. We bring in truckloads for each line that we carry, so that we have everything that our customers need to be a one-stop shop. We can ship everything from here. Our customers don’t have to wait or pay for shipping from an outside warehouse.”
Scottco Marine distributes their products to dock builders, wholesalers, and end-users.
“We try to ship same day or the second day, we always have someone available, and we’re not afraid of sharing information about how to float your dock or what parts you need.
We’ll sell and work with a person who wants to build their own little dock – we don’t make them go somewhere else and have it installed if they are a DIY kind of person. If they’re a dock builder and they have huge marinas and contracts, we work with them as well.”
Everything needed to have a complete docking system can be found at Scottco.
“We also have a fabrication shop so we fabricate all our metal components, dock hardware, steel frames, and any custom parts that are needed.”
Finding the right anchor for business operations
When Scottco Marine began searching for an improved inventory management system to keep track of their inventory in real-time, they found that Acctivate provided them the additional functionality they required.
We were using QuickBooks and it would take inventory out when we invoiced, but it wouldn’t show what was available, held, or backordered. So until the order was invoiced, sometimes the product would be sold a couple of times over because QuickBooks wouldn’t really let us see the inventory in real-time.
We were also using handwritten spreadsheets of the 60 different sizes of floats we carry – ‘Okay, so-and-so gets these when they come in and so-and-so gets these.’”
Hunt continued…
Then we found Acctivate and once you enter an order, it shows it held, so you’re not accidentally promising the same product to three different people and we really liked that.
We also use Acctivate’s assembly feature, which benefits us because we take fasteners and other parts and create an assembled item. This shows us what our true inventory is.”
Hunt said of Acctivate’s bidirectional integration with QuickBooks…
You can put information in QuickBooks and you can find it in Acctivate and vice versa – they work well together.”
And when the phone rings, Scottco Marine goes to Acctivate to make the sale
A big majority of our calls require us to go in Acctivate to see if a product is available, print tickets, and put in orders. It’s referred to all day on a daily basis.”
Real-time inventory management
Just as the company grew from one person to many, Scottco Marine has seen its inventory of high-quality products flourish.
We started with about 85 to 100 items in the beginning and now there’s over a few hundred items. It’s grown and we’ve found it beneficial when we add a product to Acctivate, we have the history to look back at and see how many we sold and all of that. Acctivate’s been a real help while we grow our inventory,” said Hunt.
In addition to providing product history, Acctivate provides real-time inventory levels to help keep operations current.
Hunt said of Acctivate’s real-time data…
Acctivate is very current and up-to-date. With the amount of people in our office that work in Acctivate, it gives real-time, accurate numbers – you don’t have to go around and check with someone, ‘Okay, I see five of these sitting there, can I sell them?’ You can go into Acctivate and see, since the last time you looked, if someone has entered a sales order.
Acctivate also tells you if items are on order, so you know if you need to do a purchase order or not.”
Purchasing
Real-time information in Acctivate also benefits their purchasing operations.
We make a lot of our products, so we find it very beneficial to be able to look in Acctivate and see when we’re getting low on items and when more need to be made – it helps us to work seamlessly. Again, the information is live and it’s current.”
Business alerts can be set up in Acctivate to indicate when products need to be reordered.
Hunt explained how Acctivate helps Scottco Marine with purchasing as a manufacturer and distributor…
Acctivate’s business alerts are great because it’ll narrow products down by vendor and by product code.
Fabrication uses it so that we know when we’re getting low on items. We could have a low or high item requirement and it will appear on that business alert if it falls in those criteria.”
Pricing
Acctivate’s ability to put an item in and then put multiple price levels is really helpful. We have volume discounts that we offer and we have different price levels for different customers based on if they’re resellers, a dock builder or an end user.
Also, being able to default a customer to a price level saves a lot of time in entering quotes and orders because it automatically puts their pricing in,” said Hunt.
Call us at 817-870-1311