Grassland Equipment is one outdoor
equipment company that has seen how results-oriented
automation can streamline processes and impact the bottom
line. Grasslands is a 39-year-old company with a healthy,
but complicated business:
- As a Toro distributor responsible
for all of upstate New York, seven counties in Pennsylvania,
and the state of Vermont, the company sells lawnmowers,
snowblowers and related equipment to about 300 dealers.
- A commercial division sells large
mowing and turf equipment to golf courses, state agencies,
and landscapers.
- An irrigation division handles irrigation
division systems for golf courses, large facilities,
and landscape contractors.
- Yet another division offers siteworks
systems such as walk-behind loaders.
To
support these divisions, Grassland maintains an extensive
parts department as well as service shops in three different
locations. The company also has direct sales to walk-in
customers, deliveries through its own trucks and UPS,
and sales people on the road.
Kirk Pogge, president of Grassland,
says, “Keeping track of all this could be an accounting
nightmare. Fortunately, we have some help.”
To manage inventory at multiple locations,
customer order processing and invoices, budgeting, general
ledger, time reporting for hourly staff, monthly profit
and loss, and track expenses and profitability throughout
the year, Grassland relies on EXEControl from
Ebeling Associates. Using remote computers linked to
a central server at company headquarters, Pogge can keep
his finger on the pulse of the business in real time.
“One of the biggest advantages,” Pogge
says, “is that the system is very flexible. So if we
need a special report configured a certain way or if
we need to feed information to an application like Excel,
it’s either already available in the EXEControl system
or it can be introduced without great expense.”
He adds, “Situations change all the
time. To meet our own needs or those of a vendor (like
when a vendor changes parts codes), we frequently need
information presented in new ways. A highly flexible
system is key to adapting to that change without going
broke. That’s one of the reasons we have been using EXEControl
for 16 years.”
Pogge cites as an example
how Ebeling Associates help Grassland with Electronic
Data Interchange (EDI) with Toro. “We order parts all
day long from Toro. In the past, we had to process paper
invoices from Toro and compare them to our purchase orders.
It took a lot of manhours to make that happen.”
“Now, thanks to the EDI, we order parts
electronically from Toro, receive invoices from them
electronically, and the system automatically matches
and compares the invoices to our purchases records. The
only time we have to look at it is when the system flags
us there is an exception. In addition, when we sell to
a dealer, invoices are electronically transmitted to
a floorplan company.”
Pogge concludes, “Twelve years ago,
we had four people in accounting, doing billing, paying
vendors, and so forth. Today, we have one person in accounting,
and we’re doing twice the volume that we were back then.”
“EXEControl has helped us to streamline
our operations in a very meaningful way.”
|