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Solid Innovation: What features of Si Route Accounting do you find the most beneficial?
Dave: The most obvious feature is the ability to print invoices that are correct. We don't have to scrutinize over the prices on invoices as they come in anymore, as we did in the old days when we were hand writing invoices and adding them up manually or with the use of a calculator. Now it is easy for our sales people to create invoices. In addition, scanning inventory with the handhelds saves us a lot of time because we carry so many SKUs. The handhelds probably save ten minutes on a small account to over an hour on a large account by automatically generating invoices.
The other thing Solid Innovation allows us to do is generate corporate reports for some of our suppliers. This is a huge plus on the administration side for us. It's such a corporate world, where it wasn't ten or fifteen years ago, and our suppliers are demanding more and more reports. Other reporting features, such as the cash outs and generating various statements, are a lot simpler now that we work with Solid Innovation. These are all aids to our sales reps out in the field.
Si Route Accounting is also a very good inventory system. At this time we're not using it to the fullest of its ability, but that's the next step for us.
Solid Innovation: Tell us about the reports.
Dave: It takes maybe a couple of hours a week to do all of the reports we need. Plus, each report is quick to generate and free from human errors. It used to take ten hours to run a report on all ten routes on all the SKUs of one supplier. Now we can do that report in a few seconds. The reports have allowed us to do something we wouldn't have done before and it's a savings that I just couldn't put a dollar value on, but it's a substantial savings -- and that time saving is just going to increase.
Solid Innovation: What kinds of reports do you run?
Dave: We are able to run reports that tell us how our business is doing. For example, the Stop Analysis Report lets us know how much of each product is selling on each route. It brings into light the 80 percent of our sales guys who are doing really well with a SKU and the 20 percent who aren't. We get specifics about what we are doing, how well our products are doing, how our reps are doing on certain routes and in certain areas with products. The reports help us to choose the direction of our business.
Solid Innovation: Do you do reports for your corporate customers?
Dave: Yes, they are the most beneficial because they strengthen our relationship with our corporate customers. Corporates want to know the movement of the SKUs we carry. Our reporting gives them feedback on the direction they should take. Do they continue with this SKU or with this line? Do they expand in another line? Or do they cut back on that line? Do they change it? Sometimes they look at expanding the SKUs that generate dollars within that category, which leads to more profit for us. If we can't generate the reports they want, our ability to do business with them is hindered. The most important factors for corporates are movement and profit, and the reports help them answer those questions.
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Solid Innovation: Tell us about the auto-buy features.
Dave: With auto-buy, Si Route Accounting generates orders from our suppliers based on minimum/maximum amounts of inventory that we need on hand and the minimum amounts we can order from a supplier, and we can adjust the orders if we need to. It makes our back office run more smoothly. Without auto-buy, there are only two or three people in our office that can do the ordering. With auto-buy, virtually anybody in the office can do it so we don't have to worry if I'm out of town or if my sales manager is out of town. It just takes that heat off. In addition, as we grow the business, it becomes tougher to do the buying manually (even for the experienced people) because we handle so many SKUs. To have a system that will generate our orders for us with the ability to adjust the orders is a big benefit for us from an inventory standpoint.
Solid Innovation: Which inventory control features do you like?
Dave: The report showing us what inventory is sitting on our trucks that isn't generating dollars for us is really useful. Let's get it off of those trucks, and let's get it where it moves. Maybe we decide to stop carrying that SKU. From an inventory product stand point, we want proper inventory levels because that generates dollars for us.
Solid Innovation: Has Si Route Accounting helped you increase your profits?
Dave: Yes, it has definitely been beneficial from a bottom-line perspective for Jardin Foods Ltd.. It has allowed us to handle more products. There are hundreds of items on an invoice and it used to be a lot of work for our drivers to handwrite invoices and calculate totals. Now the handhelds probably save ten minutes on a small account to over an hour on a large account by automatically generating invoices, and there are no calculating errors. From a management side, we don't fear bringing products on board now because we know it's simple to add SKUs into Si Route Accounting and easy for our sales people to focus on selling the new product. Finally, the customer has a proper breakdown on the invoice. The invoice is legible; it allows the customer to see exactly what he's getting and he is not confused by the pricing or by the units because it is spelled out on the description. When you put all of those factors together, Si Route Accounting is a great choice for us.
Solid Innovation: Has it improved your relationship with your customers?
Dave: Oh, absolutely. There's a lot of demands put on many of our customers if they fall under a corporate umbrella. To be able to give them a proper detailed invoice is definitely a benefit because it's what they demand. Anybody handwriting invoices today is a dinosaur and is going the way of the dinosaur. You're not doing any corporate business if you're handwriting an invoice.
Solid Innovation: If you were to talk to your peers in the industry about Solid Innovation, what would you like them to know?
Dave: That it's a credible company that has a good product. Si Route Accounting does the job and it continues to improve. And this day in age, that's important because it helps us to keep moving forward. When we started with it, it did what we needed at that time. If that's all we were doing now, it wouldn't be good. It has progressed as our industry has progressed and that's very important. I would recommend Si Route Accounting.
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