Business owners and managers often wonder how to make their company more efficient, but lack the time necessary to research ways in which they can actually make a change. In the current economic climate with hopes of an impending recovery, and some lingering fears of continued recession – many are unsure whether they should make any purchases and/or changes within their organization at all.

However putting off improvement can be a mistake if the time is right to make a change; and if it can produce a great ROI and improve organization-wide efficiency. That’s where we come in. We have provided some of the indicators you can look for within your company to determine if the time is right to consider implementing a Bar Code Scanning Solution, or if it would not be beneficial for you at this time.

Analyzing Your Pain Points
A ‘pain point’ is an area in which your company experiences inefficiency; inaccuracy; errors; wasted time; etc. Ask yourself, and your staff the following:

• Do you struggle with inventory inaccuracy?
• Do you commonly experience shipping and receiving errors?
• Are you forced to handle and transfer the same data among multiple staff members, multiple times?
• Are you desiring or needing to find ways to save time and improve efficiency throughout your company?
• Are your customers frustrated with staff who have to physically check whether items are in stock, or who are receiving the wrong items?

If you answered yes to three or more of the questions above, it might be time to consider making a change. A bar code scanning solution can help your company improve inventory accuracy by streamlining operations and producing a greater overall efficiency across your warehouse, accounting and sales departments. With a scanning bar code for each transaction, your inventory management system is automatically updated in real-time giving your staff consistent and immediate access to the information they need. By scanning, verifying and updating information within one system you will see countless improvements throughout your company. And the best part is many bar code scanning solutions are designed to integrate directly with your accounting system. This saves you the hassle of installing or maintaining separate databases.

We hope you found this information helpful and are always available to answer any questions you may have regarding making changes and improvements within your company.

Sage MAS Intelligence will soon be introduced as the ideal FRx replacement product for Sage MAS90/200. On target to be released this summer, Sage MAS Intelligence offers powerful and easy to use graphical financial reporting capabilities to access business-critical information, and makes complex reporting easy using a new report designer. Going beyond General Ledger reporting needs, Sage MAS Intelligence will provide Business Intelligence across the entire Sage MAS ERP system, including CRM and Abra.

Sage MAS Intelligence benefits will include:

• Quickly identify and respond to trends using sophisticated, customizable dashboards
• Empower your staff with timely, meaningful information and trend reports
• Easily create in-depth financial, operations, customer, and vendor reports
• Efficiently view, manipulate, analyze, and distribute reports in a familiar Excel format
• Extract up-to-the-minute high level summaries, account groupings, or transaction details
• Effortlessly consolidate data from multiple companies, divisions, and databases
• Streamline customized work in Excel

Sage MAS customers on plan will be provided with a trade-in option for existing FRx licenses.  Details on this program will be provided very soon. This new add-on is more than just an FRx replacement; it’s an active dashboard with extensive reporting that can ultimately replace Crystal Reports. If it does half of what we think it can do, it won’t change the world, but it will change your world with access to business-critical information and reporting.

Recently MAS Software Solutions attended Sage’s annual partner conference, Insights, in May. We wanted to share all of the good information we learned with our clients so we decided to host our first client conference in June. Many of our clients came to this event making it very successful and we wanted to thank our attendees and hope to see those of you who were unable to attend next time!

During the conference we spoke on “The Greatest Risk to Your Software System”, which seemed to peak a lot of interest so we’ve included a summary of this information here.

One of the greatest risks a company faces is the implementation of a new software system, because of the cost and interruption to their business. Some of you may have heard of the Pareto principle, but for those that have not it states: Roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. We use this rule to focus on system processes and procedures.

Successful businesses tend to:

• Stay up-to-date on software maintenance, and run the most current version of the software
• Use their technology to gain a competitive advantage.
• Invest in their staff with consistent training.

Take a look at the graphic above. It compares the satisfaction of companies who stay consistent with their software maintenance with those that do not. You can clearly see (in red) that the company who maintains their system is the most satisfied. However what the second graph shows below is that over time, consistent maintenance costs far less.

For those who are interested in getting more information on this topic as well as the entire conference presentation and handouts they can be downloaded here.

Upgrading to Version 4.4
We have researched and tested Sage MAS 90/200 version 4.4 and are now comfortable with recommending it to you and moving forward with upgrade installations.

If you would like to schedule your upgrade please contact us and we would be happy to assist you in installing it.

We never get tired of hearing how we’ve made our client’s businesses more efficient, because we love to provide solutions that allow you to better utilize your software and make it work harder for you. We recently received a testimonial from Brandi Hendrix, Controller at Bitterman Family Confections and wanted to share it with you here.

“The decision to work with MAS Software Solutions was the best choice we could have made for our company. They consistently respond quickly to any questions we have, and we are confident that any recommendations they make will always be in our best interest. They were able to eliminate all of our unnecessary custom programming, improve our shipping by implementing Starship, and help us identify ways in which to better utilize our software. We feel like we got a whole new system! We now have streamlined invoicing, integrated shipping, a pick ticket option and the list goes on and on. Our invoicing used to take us two to three days and now we are able to complete it in one afternoon. The best part about working with them is that they are always available when we need them. That is huge. We really couldn’t ask for a better solution provider.”

If you feel the same way about the service we’ve provided to you, and you know of a company that is either struggling with their software system or simply needs an accounting expert, MAS Software Solutions would love the opportunity to earn their business.

We wanted to thank those of you who attended our MAS Software Solutions client conference. For those of you who attended, as well as those that were unable to participate, you can a download the powerpoint presentation and handouts here. 

 MAS Software Solutions Client Conference Handouts and Presentation

In the early 1980’s the world was introduced to a new term— the paperless office. The appearance of electronic calculation, transmission and storage devices was meant to bring to an end the mountains of paper that all offices, small or large, generated. The idea was that all of the documents that had to be printed and stored could now just be faxed, scanned or e-mailed.

The paperless office struck a chord with many office managers all over the world because they viewed it as a huge cost cutting exercise for their companies—less paper and filing meant lower office expenses.

Did this ideal become a reality? The answer is both yes and no.

From sending invoices to writing checks, technology is in place to give businesses multiple opportunities to go paperless. The problem is that most businesses are afraid to put this technology to work. The thought of not having hard copies of a document causes anxiety for most business professionals. Instead, we implement the technology to go paperless and then print out “just-in-case” copies for safe keeping.

The main reason that the paperless office has not made a larger impact, to a certain extent, is us. Humans like to be able to hold things. We don’t trust what we can’t physically see. So even though we have all the necessary technology to make a paperless office a reality – we will continue to be buried under a pile of paper until we take those first steps of trust.

However, there is hope! Some businesses that have started with the basics of going paperless are finding that taking small steps toward this goal gives them the ability to see a true reduction of printing and filing costs which in turn allows them to gain the trust they need to continue on their paperless journey.

The main goal of going paperless is not having to print every piece of paper that comes to you via e-mail or that is generated within your system.  Knowing that your document is safely stored in your system, and that you have an organized approach to filing that document so you can find it when you need it is a great place to start.

The best part it, if you are exploring your options for going paperless you don’t have to look very far. Sage MAS 90 and 200 already have paperless technology built within their system. We have helped many companies move closer to a paperless office, all of whom realized a reduction in costs and stress, not to mention a far more organized and cost efficient office.

In 1965, family-run MAST Technologies began a long history in the munitions business. From their initial work in brass cartridge production, to machinery sales and consulting, general ammunition consulting, tooling manufacture, gauging sales, and ballistic equipment sales, MAST Technologies has made a business out of helping equip the United States Military. The company was founded by Jim Bell and is now lead by Jim’s son, Jay. Between the two of them, they have more than 65 years in the munitions industry. While Jim and his wife made the initial selection of a Sage MAS 90 financial system, it would be up to Jay to make it work for the business needs of today.

A Misfire
While the principals of the company were confident that Sage MAS was the right solution, they were equally convinced that the way they deployed the solution wasn’t working for them. Access to information needed to efficiently run the business was difficult; payroll, an essential part of maintaining government contracts, was a significant challenge. “MAST had outsourced much of their accounting work,” said Tammy McIntire, Accountant at MAST Technologies. “We were physically driving out data over to our accountants to finish payroll on-time. Bringing these functions in-house was a critical part of improving things.”

As a government contractor, MAST Technologies is required to track all time spent for each contract. This effort was largely manual as employees stopped between each task to record time spent. Compiling time records each pay period required the efforts of all employees. Even those performing the work were required to review and reconcile their time cards to ensure their efforts were properly allocated. It’s estimated that the combined payroll efforts of all involved were about 28 man-days. MAST Technologies was looking to improve this process as doing so could save as much as the cost of one full-time employee.

Access to project costing information was limited and the company felt the financial information they were receiving from the system wasn’t trustworthy. “We were constantly hounded by people reviewing financial data who just didn’t believe it. We would hear ‘this can’t be right’ far too often,” said Tammy. “The problem was that the Accounting group wasn’t one hundred percent sure the data was right either.”

Inventory management presented another challenge. Inventory wasn’t managed in Sage MAS 90 and was instead managed on paper which led to inconsistencies. “Inventory must be timely and accurate,” said Kim Andersen of MAS Software Solutions. “Companies themselves determine what is timely. For one company, timely could be once a week or once a month might also satisfy them. What we consider timely is daily inventory. When it comes to accuracy, you’re either accurate or not – it is black and white. If you are not 100% accurate, then you might as well be 100% inaccurate, because the trust isn’t there.”

Stop, Reload
MAST Technologies had been down this road before. Because they knew they needed better tools to work through these challenges, they had done ample due diligence on both solutions and vendors looking for an answer. While they initially came up empty-handed, a trusted IT partner of theirs recommended MAS Software Solutions. “It was tricky because we had already implemented Sage MAS 90,” said Tammy. “What we needed was an expert to show us how to get the most out of our software and help us build our business processes. MAS Software Solutions provided both of these to us.”

Much of the project involved a re-implementation of the investment MAST Technologies had already made. MAS Software Solutions provided a substantial amount of training, not only on the tools, but on the business processes around the tools.

MAS Software Solutions upgraded MAST to Sage MAS 200 and integrated a Time Tracking program that gave MAST Technologies employees a more efficient way of recording their time, and gave management access to the right information when it was needed.

A Clean Shot
The most dramatic change was that MAST Technologies now had direct access to their systems, and much more control over the data it produced. “You would have thought that bringing accounting systems in-house would be more time consuming than outsourcing it,” suggested Tammy. “This was not the case. I think we have better control of our documents and we spend less time on details now. It is easier to have the data at your fingertips as well instead of waiting on someone else.”

Payroll improvements were as significant, and certainly more tangible. While old processes required employees to manage time records like a task, automated systems now do that for them. What used to take 28 man-days per month to process, now takes just two hours in total. While the financial benefits are clear, the accuracy of data, and the ability to correctly identify effort with projects ensured MAST Technologies stayed compliant with government regulations.

“Working with MAS has been a great experience; they are quick to respond to any issues that we have and are sometimes even able to help us over the phone with their remote capabilities! They have saved us tremendous amounts of time and money and we could not be happier with their service.”

Please join us for our client conference that is scheduled for Wednesday, June 23, 2010 at the Marriott Courtyard Overland Park Convention Center, Overland Park, KS. It promises to be packed full of valuable business information covering topics such as:

• What’s new in MAS 90/200 v 4.4?
• MAS Intelligence is and how it will change your world
• What the greatest risks are with your software system
• New cost effective solution for physical inventory
• Learn from other MAS 90/200 Users
• And much more!

Tap into the energy and expertise of the whole MAS Software Solutions client community. It’s your chance to learn, explore and step up to a higher level of business management!

RSVP now!

Renowned for unsurpassed throughput, trouble-free performance and hygienic operation that is demonstrably superior, Weber is recognized as the world leader in the design and manufacture of sophisticated Slicing Systems for red meat, pork, poultry and cheese processors. From their centrally located North American Technology Center and Product Demonstration facility in Kansas City, Mo., Weber provides a full line of Slicing Systems as well as parts, machinery, technical support and service to a wide variety of processors in North America.

With their parent company located in Germany, Weber first came to the United States in 1996 with zero market share, and in the last 14 years have increased it to over 70% through properly identifying the needs within their market. With annual sales ranging from 30 to 35 million, Weber typically sells about 50 machines a year ranging in price from $100,000 to 1 million dollars. Additionally about 25% of their business comes from the replacement of consumable parts and providing ongoing service to their customers. Most parts are supplied from their parent company in Germany, resulting in about a one month lead time from when something is ordered to when it is received.

Dull Systems Cause Data Integrity Problems
As Weber experienced growth they realized that their small business accounting system was not providing the information they needed causing significant problems. Rob Mogren, CFO for Weber recalls, “Inventory control became a major issue. Despite having strict internal controls and actively watching our procedures, we continuously encountered our system telling us we had an item in stock that wasn’t really there. We couldn’t figure out where the process was breaking down.” This issue had to be corrected as soon as possible. Rob explains, “Our customers run manufacturing facilities and if their Weber Slicer isn’t working for any reason their whole operation has to be shut down. If we don’t have the part they need in stock, the wait to receive it from Germany could result in huge downtime costs.” Another issue Weber was experiencing was that they could only pull standard reports and do small levels of customization, but didn’t have access to the raw data they wanted to see in order to make the best decisions for their business.

MAS Software Solutions Sharpens Weber’s System
Weber needed to make a change so they began their search for new software. After reviewing several accounting journals and software systems they decided that Sage MAS90 was the right choice. Rob recalls, “We chose Sage MAS90 because it had the best reviews and seemed to have everything we wanted in a new solution. We worked with a local Sage vendor and had them install our new system. After the installation was complete we needed to understand how to customize it for our specific needs however the original vendor could not help us. We felt that we had reached the end of that vendor’s technical ability, so we began to look for a different partner who had a better and deeper knowledge of the software.” Weber was referred to MAS Software Solutions and finally found the expert they needed. “When MAS Software Solutions came out to meet with us we immediately knew we had the right company. We don’t have a formal IT staff, and the team at MAS understood how MAS 90 would impact our network. They could solve network and permission errors, and understood how to make our system work for our specific business needs.”

While Sage MAS90 is a great product right out of the box, it also has the ability to be configured to meet each organization’s specific requirements. MAS Software Solutions was able to install a barcode system which helps Weber ensure that they are operating at their maximum potential and maintaining 100% accurate inventory counts. “They also helped us with our forms, invoices and reports,” recalls Rob. “The reports come with a limit to the number of characters you can include, but the team at MAS was able to override the limits so that we can include the details necessary for our customers.”

Furthermore, MAS Software Solutions helped Weber with their Paperless Office solution and ACH payment system. Like many companies, Weber used to process checks the old fashioned way, but the team at MAS introduced them to ACH which allows them to process all payments electronically. “We are saving huge amounts of time with our new system. Our accounts payable process has decreased by 10 hours per week giving our employees the time to focus on other projects.” Of the Paperless Office solution Rob said, “We never would have thought of purchasing something like this as an add on because we had no idea how much time we were wasting. We used to print every document to a .pdf and then give it a customized name and find or create a place to file it, and now it’s all automatic. The records are cataloged and kept in specific files eliminating our frustration and time to find the documents. It’s fantastic!”

Weber Cuts a Plan for Growth
When Weber outgrew their old system they had around 4,000 parts to keep track of. After much growth they now have over 25,000 parts which are all tracked smoothly and accurately in the new system. With such great success so far in both their new solution, and their companies growth, Weber is considering a move to Sage MAS200, and possibly converting to SageCRM for a truly end-to-end system. They are confident that the transition to the next system is in good hands with MAS Software Solutions. Rob concludes, “We really couldn’t be happier with our system, and in our partnership with MAS Software Solutions. When I talk to the MAS team I don’t feel like I’m talking to a sales person rather a technology advisor. I don’t have to worry about what they tell me, or have my guard up. I trust their advice keeps our best interest in mind which is a very comfortable place to be.”