Partner Solution Case Study
/ / Consultant Helps Healthcare and Distribution Firms Compete with Flexible ERP Solution
Overview
Country: United States
Industry: Information Technology
Partner Profile
Echelbarger, Himebaugh, Tamm & Co., P.C. (EHTC) is a regional accounting and business services firm in Michigan. The firm’s technology group provides midmarket enterprise resource planning solutions.
Business Situation
Distribution and healthcare companies rely on EHTC for help in integrating accounting and distribution systems that increase efficiency, while supporting specialized needs and business models.
Solution
EHTC uses Microsoft® Business Solutions—Solomon to automate workflows, integrate business processes, and address all of its clients’ unique accounting and distribution requirements.
Benefits
n Saving time and reducing costs
n Increasing efficiency
n Enhancing competitiveness
n Creating opportunities for partners / “When companies choose industry-specific software, the message they usually get is ‘You need to do business this way.’ Microsoft Solomon, by contrast, lets companies do business their own way.”
David Echelbarger, Director of Technology Solutions, Echelbarger, Himebaugh, Tamm & Co., P.C.
Echelbarger, Himebaugh, Tamm & Co., P.C. (EHTC), a regional Michigan accounting and consulting firm that also offers information technology (IT) consulting, helps midmarket healthcare and distribution firms revamp their accounting and distribution systems. Customers turn to EHTC to improve their efficiency, and because they find that industry software cannot support their unique business methods or provide the detailed data they need. By using Microsoft® Business Solutions–Solomon, EHTC delivers customized enterprise resource planning systems to its clients. Microsoft Solomon cut one client’s order-to-shipment time from hours to minutes, helped another customer close its financial books weeks earlier than before, and aided other clients to update processes and tailor them to their business practices. EHTC’s own business has also grown with this flexible solution.
Situation
Founded in 1977, Echelbarger, Himebaugh, Tamm & Co., P.C. (EHTC) is a regional accounting and consulting firm that serves customers throughout Michigan. Experiencing consistent growth since its inception, EHTC has expanded beyond traditional accounting-related services to offer additional business services through its Technology Solutions division.
A Microsoft® Certified Business Solutions Partner, EHTC helps midmarket companies— especially distributors and healthcare organizations—improve the efficiency and management of their business processes. The EHTC Technology Solutions group provides consulting services that include networking and systems administration, custom programming, e-commerce development, database design, project management, and enterprise resource planning (ERP). “We look at our customers’ needs and find solutions that can be adapted for the way they do business,” says David Echelbarger, Director of Technology Solutions for EHTC.
Inefficient Workflow
Many companies turn to EHTC for help after they encounter inefficiencies in processing sales orders, managing inventories, or handling purchase orders. Often, these customers struggle with outdated software, cumbersome manual methods, and lengthy reporting processes. As a result, they cannot operate efficiently or respond quickly to their customers’ demands.
For example, one catalog distributor contacted EHTC to update its order-fulfillment software. Developed internally, the decade-old software could handle the order-entry process but couldn’t link to the marketing or financial processes. Employees had to manually update inventory records, and customer service representatives found it difficult to determine if an ordered item was in stock. In addition, shipments were delayed because customers’ credit cards could not be verified until after an order had been filled at the warehouse. Employees frequently had to rekey information into production, credit card, purchasing, and shipping systems, creating the potential for errors.
More complications arose when the distributor offered special promotions that required the bundling of different items. For example, if the company offered a kit including stationery and two pens, the distributor had to create the kits in advance and assign a separate stock-keeping unit (SKU) number to the kit to track sales. Because the company assembled kits based on estimated sales, it often had too many or too few kits in stock. During peak times, overwhelmed employees had to work 10 extra hours per week filling orders.
Specialized Business Needs
Customers seek the help of EHTC when their current software proves inadequate for their accounting requirements. For example, one client, a healthcare organization, had more than 35 affiliates at different locations in Michigan and needed to show profits and allocate overhead by physician, location, and type of service. Without an efficient system to handle its complex accounting requirements, the organization took weeks to close the financial books for its board of directors.
Most EHTC customers want control over the order process to address customer-mandated requirements or other specialized needs. For example, one EHTC client, an industrial parts distributor, needed to meet a customer’s demand to bill once a month, with invoices sorted by purchase order number. Another distributor wanted to modify its workflow to produce international shipping documents automatically, based on shipping and freight terms. Industry-standard software did not meet these customer requirements.
Solution
For its midmarket customers using inefficient processes or software that does not address their unique business needs, EHTC recommends Microsoft Business Solutions–Solomon. Because Microsoft Solomon offers several modules, customers license only the ones they require, which can then be easily customized.
Workflow Automation
For distribution companies, such as the previously mentioned catalog distributor, EHTC typically installs the order management, inventory, and the application server in Microsoft Solomon as the core of the solution. EHTC finds that distributors are often unaware of the ways in which a fully integrated system will benefit them. After they discover the advantages, however, they become strong proponents of Microsoft Solomon.
For example, the catalog distributor initially asked for a system that would integrate its general ledger, accounts payable, and accounts receivable. But when the company saw what Microsoft Solomon could do, it decided to integrate its distribution solution as well. By implementing Microsoft Solomon, which includes custom order capabilities, EHTC automated the catalog distributor’s entire workflow.
EHTC also created an application for the catalog company that verifies a credit card upon receipt of an order. A bar-code scanner now installed in the warehouse automatically enters the record of shipped items into the database and generates an invoice from the shipping records.
Profit and Cost Allocations
EHTC provided a completely automated process for the healthcare organization that shows the profitability by each office and physician and allocates overhead costs for multiple locations. EHTC used the Microsoft Solomon software modules for general ledger, accounts receivable, and accounts payable and Microsoft Business Solutions for Analytics–FRx® Professional for financial report writing to create the solution. Microsoft Solomon made it easy to integrate the rules to determine the assignment of profits and costs required by the organization.
Support for Specialized Business Needs
By using the extensive customizations of Microsoft Solomon, EHTC creates order workflows and processes specific to each client. The flexibility of Microsoft Solomon helps EHTC meet individual client needs—from distributors that want to automate order-fulfillment or shipping to clients that need to bill at a specific time, or sort invoices, according to their own customers’ demands.
Benefits
EHTC customers report that Microsoft Solomon improves the efficiency of their processes, saves time and payroll costs, and supports their unique business practices. “We are realistic with our clients,” Echelbarger says. “We won’t promise more than we can deliver. And we tell them that no other midmarket ERP software comes close to Microsoft Solomon.”
Saving Time and Reducing Costs
Microsoft Solomon delivers clear advantages to EHTC clients. Microsoft Solomon helped the catalog distributor reduce the time to fill orders, which increased efficiency and saved money. In the previous environment, fulfilling orders involved many manual processes that interrupted workflow, delayed shipments, and burdened the company with overtime costs in periods of high demand.
Now the entire process is completely automated and moves smoothly without delays. Credit cards are automatically verified when the order is placed, and the bar-code scanner in the shipping department updates inventory automatically, as well. Customer service representatives can glance at a computer screen and know immediately whether an item is in stock.
Orders can now be assembled, packaged, and made ready for shipment within 15 minutes. Overtime has been eliminated, saving the company thousands of dollars per year. And because the order fulfillment process is integrated with the catalog distributor’s financial systems, there is no need to rekey data—reducing staff time and errors. With the new system, the catalog distributor assembles special promotional kits on demand—no one needs to build them in advance or guess how many customers will order, which also saves time and money.
EHTC finds that its customers appreciate the additional savings that the application server in Microsoft Solomon provides. The application server makes it possible to offload the execution of some processes from the server hosting the Microsoft Solomon software to other computers on the network. For one distributor, EHTC set up the application server to fax, send e-mail messages, or mail invoices to the distributor’s clients, depending on their preferences.
The distributor saved U.S.$6,000 in mailing costs in the first year. EHTC can also set up the application server to generate sales reports, eliminating the need to compile them by hand. “In many cases, the application server can save a company the equivalent of one full-time employee—just by eliminating manual tasks,” says Echelbarger.
Increasing Efficiency
EHTC helped the healthcare organization that needed to allocate costs by physician, unit, or location by setting up rules for the allocations within Microsoft Solomon. Now employees no longer need to manually consolidate records to assign profits and costs. The billing system automatically creates journal entries that previously consumed hours of staff time, and the healthcare client can now close its financial books in days instead of weeks.
EHTC expands on the built-in financial reporting capabilities within Microsoft Solomon by adding Microsoft Business Solutions for Analytics–FRx® Professional. “The reporting capabilities available with Microsoft Business Solutions have been a huge advantage to healthcare companies,” says Echelbarger. “They can see profitability by cost center, summarized and in detail. They can get a high-level view and then look deeper into the data,” he says.
Enhancing the Ability to Compete
Distributors find that the ability to adapt order processes and workflow to handle their unique requirements is one of the biggest advantages of Microsoft Solomon. “The flexibility of Microsoft Solomon is invaluable,” says Echelbarger. “When companies choose industry-specific software, the message they usually get is ‘You need to do business this way.’ Microsoft Solomon, by contrast, lets companies do business their own way.”
Microsoft Solomon improves distributors’ competitiveness by helping them consolidate sales orders and inventory by date, supplier, or other desired categories. As a result, distributors can easily analyze customer trends or supplier costs and respond quickly and appropriately to changes in the market.
Providing Opportunities for Partners
Microsoft Solomon offers advantages to Microsoft partners as well. “There are three
reasons we base our business on Microsoft Solomon,” says Echelbarger. “The depth of the software, its flexibility, and the relationship we have with Microsoft—they all contribute to our success.”
Because Microsoft Solomon offers an open architecture that makes it easy to integrate third-party applications, offering Microsoft Solomon helps EHTC sell additional software. “We extend the capabilities of Microsoft Solomon with third-party applications,” says Echelbarger. For example, EHTC offers are programs for human resources and laser-check printing. EHTC also sells some of its own applications, as well.
One application that EHTC developed is AutoPOg, a program that—with the touch of a button—generates purchase orders from the sales order screen of the order management module of Microsoft Business Solutions for Distribution, one of the series that can be purchased with Microsoft Solomon. EHTC created AutoPOg by using Microsoft SQL ServerTM 2000 and the Microsoft Business Solutions for Customization Tools that can also be purchased with Microsoft Solomon.
EHTC values its relationship with Microsoft, too. “The Microsoft development group is so open to feedback,” says Echelbarger. “I’m always amazed at the degree and depth of support provided by the Microsoft Solomon support group.”
Echelbarger believes that Microsoft will only continue to improve an offering that he sees as the best option for midmarket ERP. “We’ve done some remarkable things with Microsoft Solomon. But the most important advantage this solution gives us is the ability to focus on something we do well, driving our own success, while helping our customers achieve their own goals.”
Microsoft Business Solutions
Microsoft Business Solutions offer integrated business applications and services that allow small and midsize organizations and divisions of large enterprises to connect employees, customers, and suppliers for improved efficiency. The financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications work with other Microsoft software, including the Microsoft Office System and the Windows operating system, to streamline processes across an entire organization. This gives businesses insight to respond rapidly, plan strategically, and execute quickly. Microsoft Business Solutions are delivered through a worldwide network of channel partners that provide specialized services and local support tailored to a company’s needs.
For more information about Microsoft Business Solutions, go to:
www.microsoft.com/businesssolutions