MAST Technologies Hits the Target with MAS Software Solutions

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.”