Roger Oates Design

Design and Manufacture of Rugs, Runners & Fabrics

The Challenge

For Roger Oates Design, the principles behind striking designs and creating simple luxury for modern living run throughout the entire business, therefore it was very important to implement a system that was flexible and could easily be configured to meet their specific business needs. Kate Waddell, Finance Manger, says, “We work hard to create individual designs for each of our customers, so we needed an accounting package that could cope with this individuality. As a design company, we were primarily Mac based but had some PC users, so finding a system that could work cross-platform was also an important consideration for us. We were also growing as a business and with the huge number of transactions and stock codes that were going through our database, everything was slowing down.”

The Solution

Roger Oates Design chose Access Horizons as their solution – the ideal starting point for any small business. Three years later, with significant company growth underway, they upgraded to Access Dimensions. Kate explains, “Although at the time we were unsure about the upgrade, looking back, I can see that the benefits far outweigh our concerns. The speed that the SQL database brings has solved all our processing problems.” Kate continues, “We have Terminal Services running in parallel with the main server, which acts as an interface for our 10 or so Mac users. We operate a dual platform system that allows each user to interact as they need to with the accounts at their own machine. This cross platform capability, allowing us to use both Macs and PCs, has meant that we didn’t have to throw our Macs out the window to accommodate an accounts system. This is such a bonus as there are very few Mac accounting solutions available.”

Results

Kate outlines the benefits that an Access solution has given Roger Oates Design. “We now have a higher performance accounts package than ever before – it works better and faster, and we particularly like the way that stock and costing are so closely integrated. We considered other packages, including Sage, but they just didn’t offer the same levels of integration that Access gives us. Using Access allows the whole company to work on the same system at the same time. Everyone from Sales to Despatch has accurate, timely information at their fingertips. There are just no integration issues, which is refreshing. Our London showroom has equally good access to the database and the integration with Payroll works particularly well.” This integration allows Roger Oates Design to identify each roll of fabric and textile that they have in stock. Kate explains, “As a textile company, we need to individually identify each roll of carpet or fabric that comes into stock, so that we can make sure that we know how much is left on each roll. There are always slight variations in colour from batch to batch and we try and make sure that each order is fulfilled from the same batch. The ability to reserve stock from individual rolls is crucial to our business as is the ability to reserve that stock in advance, even before it is woven.” Roger Oates Design also benefits from Access Smart Tag technology. Kate comments, “We use Access ‘Smart Tags’ which are great – our Sales Manager in particular loves them. In just one click you can see all the information you need for a particular customer or supplier. It just makes life so easy.” Smart Tags summaries contain pre-formatted graphs, trends, statistics and analysis – enabling users to see the ‘bigger business picture’. They reveal how the selected record is performing over time, or in comparison with other records of that type. Kate concludes, “Access lies at the heart of our business. We certainly have no intention of changing that. And because of the flexibility offered by an Access solution, we can now simply add more user licenses as we grow.”

Key Benefits

Closely integrated stock and costing modules enabling accurate tracking of product history
Flexible solution, able to grow with the company and be configured to their precise business needs
A cross-platform system, allowing both PC and Mac users to access the accounts from their own machines
SQL Server based solution bringing huge advancements to processing speed

We now have a higher performance accounts package than ever before – it works better and faster, and we particularly like the way that stock and costing are so closely integrated.