When it comes to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, a solution such as Acumatica will help streamline processes, eliminate data silos that can be detrimental to your operations, and make life easier for employees throughout your company – straight out of the box.
But if an ERP can do all of that without a single modification, imagine the possibilities when the ERP is customized to meet the unique needs of your specific business.
Let’s take a look at some ERP customization examples that showcase how you can bring your business to the next level by leveraging Acumatica add-ons via Crestwood Associates.
Why Use Crestwood Add-ons?
As an Acumatica partner, Crestwood Associates offers several add-ons products and services that can save your business time and money and provide a strong client experience.
Although there are many applications and integrations available on the open marketplace that are compatible with Acumatica and even perform similar functions, the key benefit of using Crestwood’s add-ons is that they’re built directly in Acumatica. They employ Acumatica’s tools, which you’ll already be familiar with as an Acumatica user, to provide a more streamlined, user-friendly experience.
Here are a few examples of Acumatica add-ons built by Crestwood:
Lockbox Processing
If you’re a candy wholesaler and you sell cases of jelly beans to 100 different stores each week, a lockbox arrangement saves your team from waiting for and processing 100 payments as they trail in, and then waiting again for those payments to clear with the bank. Thanks to that lockbox arrangement, you have a file from the bank containing a list of 100 payments and remittance documents that will need to be matched with outstanding invoices in accounts receivable.
Without Crestwood’s lockbox processing add-on for Acumatica, employees must manually match each completed transaction in the bank’s file to its corresponding listing in accounts receivable, a repetitive process that increases the potential for errors and employee burnout.
With Acumatica’s lockbox processing add-on, the task becomes much simpler: simply upload the bank’s transaction file and Crestwood’s Acumatica add-on automatically matches the payments with an invoice in accounts receivable. All payments can then be processed with a single click.
When they’re not spending hours matching payments to invoices, your team has more time for value-added tasks, such as analyzing past years’ sales numbers to find out that you typically experience a surge in orders each summer from retailers located near popular tourist destinations. You can then work to get ahead of that demand – and maybe even make some additional sales.
Collections Management
Maybe your healthcare organization’s patient set their invoice on the counter with the purest of intentions to pay it the next day. Instead, the invoice ended up at the bottom of a whole pile of bills to be dealt with…someday. Whatever the reason, sometimes clients need a reminder – or two or three – that they need to pay for the goods or services you’ve provided. That’s where the Acumatica collections management add-on enters the picture. With this add-on, you can:
- Create custom collections plans to send timed emails and automatically create call tasks
- Set up email templates that escalate messaging further into the collections process
- Automatically document attempts to collect payments
- Automatically close out the invoice once payment is received
What effects could this have on your healthcare organization?
On one hand, the collections management tool can improve morale, as employees are no longer burdened with the task of chasing down delinquent payments. At the same time, it gives team members more time to engage with patients, answer questions and provide a positive overall billing experience, which is important: a poor billing experience can cause 56% of patients to switch providers. It can also accelerate cash flow, which means you’re able to pay your vendors in a timely manner and better plan for your company’s future.
SQL Optimizer
In this ERP customization example, imagine you’re running a construction company that also sells building supplies. You have one database of clients who have used your company for a construction project, another database of customers to whom you’ve sold lumber, a database of suppliers you’ve worked with and so on, up to a few dozen databases.
You know you should maintain your indexes, but rebuilding them during regular SQL maintenance requires hours of downtime. So you put it off, and now your sales team is losing deals because they’re having difficulty pulling up customer data. Your project managers are frustrated because it’s taking far too much time to look up supplier information. Your finance team is at their wits’ end because it’s taking them hours to compile even the simplest reports.
SQL Optimizer solves the dilemma between losing productivity if you maintain your databases properly and risking poor database performance if you don’t. It tests your data against a series of thresholds to determine whether an index needs to be rebuilt, reorganized or requires no work at all, saving hours of manual work and requiring minutes, not hours, of downtime.
There’s Plenty More Where Those ERP Customization Examples Came From
The ERP customization examples highlighted above don’t represent the only add-ons available through Crestwood Associates. Other add-ons include:
- Data Locator Utility 3.1: type in the value you’re looking for and easily find its location in a particular database
- AP Inbox Assist: streamline the accounts payable process by bringing in invoices directly from your email inbox
- Advanced Commissions: automate your commission plans and payouts with a calculation tool that eliminates the need for Excel
- Advanced Budgeting: automate your budgeting process using tools native to Acumatica – no Excel needed
It may be the case that none of our pre-built add-ons are exactly what your business is looking for. Fortunately, Crestwood Associates offers even more ERP customization opportunities, whether that be enhancing newly deployed solutions, integrating add-ons from the marketplace or other sources, or even building software solutions personalized for your business. This ensures you have all the functionality you need without excess features eating up resources and bogging down your system.
Why Crestwood?
Crestwood Associates is a full-service Acumatica ERP practice, featuring certified Acumatica MVP in-house developers with decades of experience. Our expert consultants can help you create the ERP system you’ve always envisioned, whether that be through integrations and add-ons, tying your ERP to solutions you already use, or simply by partnering with your team throughout the selection and implementation process – and beyond – in the way that works best for you.
Request a consultation today to explore all the possibilities a partnership with Crestwood Associates can bring to your business.
