Sailspar Ltd
“Access Dimensions is giving us the power to improve our strategic management, through real-time business intelligence. We feel much more confident in our ability to increase our turnover by 10% this financial year.”
Sailspar Ltd is a small, independent UK manufacturer based in Brightlingsea, Essex. Throughout the course of its 29 year history, the company has seen a gradual decline in UK competition and - despite depressed economies - it has gained a strong position in the niche market of yacht equipment manufacturing.
Now, with increasing European competition, Sailspar strives to maintain its market position through strategic management and tight financial control. The company sees the strength of its financials system and immediate access to business intelligence as key factors in achieving its 10% growth target for the current financial year.
Challenges of the past
Back in 1997, when Sailspar first reviewed its accounting system, it was faced with the challenge of accurately costing its manufacturing projects. With over 75% of orders being custom builds, the need to know project components and build times was essential. This was the secret to establishing accurate costings and completing projects within budget. The company chose to review Sage and Pegasus and on recommendation, a third package, Access Accounts.
‘We felt that Access Accounts was the best fit. It gave us an interface that was easy to use and a way of tracking costs that matched our specific needs. I think it is true that at the time of review we did not give a great deal of thought to our analysis and financial requirements. However, it is in these areas that we have, perhaps, gained the greatest benefit,” says David Beech, Sailspar’s Managing Director.
Purchasing
In manufacturing, supplier prices can make or break project margins. Purchasing at the right price, from the right supplier, is critical to Sailspar as it buys in large quantities of components. To meet this objective, it regularly imports price lists from its key suppliers into the Access stock module. This enables purchasing decisions to be made using complete, accurate information. The purchase order processing module also improves communication throughout the company, by tracking what is on order and when orders are due to arrive. This helps to prevent delays to scheduled projects, improving customer service.<br /><br />
Invoicing
With 25% of orders being repeat orders, the Access sales order processing module helps to increase the efficiency of the invoicing process. This is made possible through the use of a ‘duplicate order’ function. This function replicates all of the key components and costing information held on the build, removing the need for any manual re-keying of order details.
The majority of sales orders are against specific quotations. In these cases, the conversion into live orders requires a simple change in the quotation status. Once this change is made, stock requirements are updated immediately.
Stock/Assemblies/ Bill of Materials (BOM)
Large yacht spars contain over a thousand components, varying in price from a fraction of a penny to several thousand pounds. Maintaining both the Bill of Material (BOM) and all the latest buying prices is therefore of key importance. The BOM can be managed in two ways – from with the stock control system, or via a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Prices are maintained through updates from purchase orders, stock price changes or again, via an Excel spreadsheet.
Credit Control
Securing payments from customers is critical to any company, but even more so to a small company such as Sailspar, whose core business is comprised of high value contracts. Limited resources in the accounts department meant that Sailspar had very little time to devote to chasing payments. The Access credit control module has helped to simplify this process, saving time and ensuring they get paid promptly.
“Through a simple report, we can easily identify customers with overdue invoices or customers who have exceeded their credit limit. We can then take action quickly. Cash flow forecasts help us to stay on top of our bank balances and we can forecast future balances, based on customers’ anticipated payment dates for overdue invoices. We never have to second guess what our bank balance will be,” explains David.
Changing from a Macintosh environment to PC
Until 2000, Sailspar operated in a 100% Macintosh environment. As devoted Macintosh users they were hesitant to make any move towards PC’s. However, an increasing volume of historical data and rapidly expanding data files forced them to consider a change. It was soon realised that a SQL Server database was required to improve the efficiency of their operations and the decision was made to upgrade from Horizons to Dimensions.
The first stage of this process was to convert all of their data from Horizons into Dimensions. After successful testing, a full upgrade took place.
Initial impressions of the new Dimensions system and its PC environment were very positive. The increase in processing speed took everyone by surprise. David Beech explains: “In the Macintosh environment, a typical month end took 1½ hours to process. With Dimensions, it takes just 40 seconds. The other surprise was the fact that, even though we moved from a Macintosh to a PC environment, the product looked and worked in the same manner. This was a major bonus as our staff only knew Macintosh. No retraining was required and the acceptance of the new software was unbelievable. We should have made the change sooner.”
Payroll
Sailspar has a mixture of hourly paid staff and salary paid directors, together with a mix of frequencies – weekly and monthly. Every week there are different hours and bonuses to be paid but, using the Access Payroll module, the whole process can be completed within half an hour.
Real-time Business Intelligence
Now operating in a PC environment, Sailspar has chosen to take advantage of the Access Business Intelligence tool – Executive Desktop. “As a small company, we never imagined that our IT budgets would enable us to secure real-time business intelligence. But they have. The software is incredibly affordable and the ROI is amazing. The information that it provides daily has made it pay for itself, over and over again.”
Sailspar uses Executive Desktop to see financial measures such as Profit & Loss, cash flow forecasts and debtors view. In addition, individual members of staff have access to operational reports that are relevant to their own areas of activity - such as an order book detailing outstanding sales orders, and schedules of when orders are due in.
“Access Dimensions is giving us the power to improve our strategic management, through real-time business intelligence. We feel much more confident in our ability to increase our turnover by 10% this financial year,” says David Beech.
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