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Kansas City Audio-Visual (KCAV) has
provided products and services to the
commercial, education, religious, and
government sectors since 1953. Initially
selling overhead projectors and dictation
equipment, KCAV migrated to wholesale
and retail distribution multi-media
equipment and integrated systems to
a variety of vertical markets throughout
the Midwest.
Today selling nationwide, KCAV serves
the business, education, government,
and religious markets with the latest
in presentation and audio-visual resources.
Kansas City Audio-Visual runs on Everest
Software.
The
Challenge
Kansas City Audio-Visual
initially purchased SBT ACCPAC and customized
the program. "I was never on the
current version of the program and I
had to change the code to the most current
version of the SBT program," recalled
KCAV's systems manager, Randy Adler.
Working on a software version that lagged
three years behind the most current
version of the manufacturer, it was
impossible for Adler to support operations
under those circumstances. Adler eventually
upgraded SBT to the Windows version.
"I could see all the flaws in the
product and they had no way to correct
them," said Adler. "I made
a $40,000 mistake when I went to the
Windows package."
Unable to keep up with order entry,
hundreds of suppliers and thousands
of SKUs, Adler started looking for a
combination of e-commerce and accounting
capabilities in one package. Before
purchasing Everest
E-Commerce Standard Edition, Adler evaluated
24 different software packages. "The
only integrated packages that were even remotely
competitive to Everest at that time were Great
Plains and Navision," noted Adler. But
when Adler weighed the costs of Navision and
Great Plains and then factored-in the cost
of support, his choice was clear. "The
support fees were going to bury us,"
said Adler. "Compared to Great Plains,
Everest was an easier program to use."
With two-dozen software packages evaluated
and ruled out, including Great Plains and
Navision, Adler's clear choice was Everest
E-Commerce Standard Edition.
The
Solution
With eight employees working
on Everest, the greatest benefit for KCAV
is the actual interface for the user regardless
of their level – it is just very easy
and user-friendly to work with. "The
ability to bring in a new employee and get
him or her up and running on the software
is much easier with Everest than with the
other products I evaluated," Adler said.
Everest facilitates the ease of change to
the new system from an employee-training standpoint.
With a $2,500 average daily transaction and
a lot of credit card transactions, the company
follows a step-by-step method to get the order
processed. If a customer's address on file
does not match with the credit card company,
the system prompts an AVS failure. "The
ICVERIFY functionality allows us to divide
the responsibility in terms of allowing staff
to deal with credit card based transactions,
spreading that authority over more people
helps us save up to 3 weeks," Adler said.
With the ability to select items to be drop-shipped
while creating a sales order in Everest, KCAV
reduces inventory costs by getting the vendors
to ship items directly to customers. "Being
able to copy a sales order into a purchase
order – that's a great feature. It's
so helpful it has saved us to from
re-keying information across various departments,"
Adler said.
Everest has also helped improve staff efficiencies
and productivity. "It allows us to share
information across our whole business,"
observed Adler. "If a customer is buying
a product at a certain price, everybody can
see that." Prior to Everest, KCAV had
three people in the accounting department.
Now the company has cut the head count to
two, while maintaining the same operations.
"It has allowed us to do more business
with fewer people," Adler said. "I've
recouped the cost of Everest, and our accountant
gives Everest an A+."
From a business-processing standpoint, KCAV
deals with tremendous amount of serialized
inventory. The accuracy level of inputting
the correct numbers while maintaining security
is critical.
KCAV uses functionalities in Everest that
prompt the sales representatives about stock
availability before making out an invoice
to a customer. The real-time backend functionality
helps them track back orders.
Since implementing Everest, Adler has been
able to spend more of his own time to grow
the business. "For the first time since
2001, I have more time to sell, which is encouraging,"
Adler reflected. "My old software program
took 45 minutes to reconcile data at the end
of each day. With Everest, I am out the door
in less than three minutes at the end of the
day. It's beautiful."
According to Adler, working on Everest now
helps in the performance analysis of sales
personnel and it has also assisted them in
increasing their profit margins. "Everest
allows me to mine and display real-time information
in various ways for people to improve their
productivity," Adler concluded.
The
Result
100% year one return on investment
Facilitated better credit card transactions,
saving up to three weeks
Increased efficiency in the accounting
department, while reducing administrative
overhead
Enabled just-in-time inventory and
drop-shipping
Saved two hours weekly with elimination
of repetitive tasks
Eliminated up to five positions in
customer service
