Not every employee gets excited about having more work assigned to him/her, but Maria in the maintenance shop at Northwest Cascade was thrilled. When her company purchased Navision software to manage accounting, inventory and order processing functions, her work load was cut in half.

"I love it," said Maria. "The new software works so well, it cut my job in half and they had to find more work for me to do."

Northwest Cascade, Inc., based in Puyallup, Washington, operates six divisions: Honey Buckets (portable restrooms), FloHawks (commercial pumping and cleaning), septic tanks, topsoil, residential site development and commercial construction.

Established in 1967, Northwest Cascade focuses on satisfying customers with quality products and services. The company has added new businesses and expanded its service area to include nine counties in Washington. Northwest Cascade continues to invest in its future growth by adding facilities, equipment and skilled employees to meet the changing needs of its expanding customer base.

Planning for Growth

As part of its investment in future growth, Northwest Cascade had to replace its 12-year old Alpha-Micro computer and choose an accounting software solution that would enable it to automate many of its business processes. Overwhelmed by the vast array of options, the company hired a consultant in 1995 to help it make hardware and software decisions.

MicroAccounting Systems (MAS), a Navision Solution Center, emerged as the clear choice to help Northwest Cascade revamp its operations. Navision's scalability, flexibility and reliability were essential elements in allowing Northwest Cascade to increase its ability to manage its businesses. The modules selected were payroll, purchasing and payables, jobs and resources, inventory, sales and receivables and general ledger.

The seamless integration of the modules into an effective management accounting system has given Northwest Cascade the ability to streamline its operations.

"Our goal is to have customer service reps take care of go percent of the questions," said Vicki Souza, assistant controller of Northwest Cascade. The old way was to have a receptionist answer the calls and route them to the appropriate division. With Navision Financials, customer service representatives are able to place and track orders and help customers with other questions about their accounts.

"Navision is simple and easy to get around in. Everyone loves working with it," said Souza.

Souza is especially impressed with Navision's "drill down" feature which allows users to find needed information with just a few keystrokes. For example, from the sales order screen, operators can access customer information, history, location, and comments. On routine maintenance and cleaning calls, customer service representatives can check the schedule in the system and determine whether or not there is enough time to do the project that day. The dispatcher will delete projects from the system once they are completed.

MAS helped the Honey Buckets division completely automate its processes with Navision software. Since the portable restrooms are on a 30-day rental period, the software will automatically re-bill for those units still on location. In addition, when drivers deliver a unit to a site, they scan the bar code on the Honey Bucket. Each scan is written to a diskette throughout the day. The information is uploaded to Navision software at night and a new service route for the next day is downloaded. MAS has also customized a Shop Maintenance Program for the maintenance shop. The program tracks servicing of equipment and fueling, work orders and inventory.

Customization is Key

Many clients choose Navision Software because of its ability to customize very specifically for their business-something off-the-shelf programs cannot do. By the time a company reaches the point where it has several divisions, products and services in operation, it has passed the point where accounting is a simple crunching of numbers. Instead, a fully integrated management accounting solution is needed that will perform basic accounting procedures and serve as a management tool throughout the company.

Navision Software's unique design allows the kind of customization and integration that gives everyone from the accounting department to the maintenance shop the ability to input data and access certain information, all from one system.

At the core of Navision Software's design are unique modules, or program components. By breaking the system functionality down into small modules and even smaller 'granules" (something few other accounting programs do), the software can be specifically customized according to the needs of the business. Therefore, instead of having to take the software on an "all or nothing" basis, companies can work with their solution center programmers to design the software to mold and flow into all of their business processes. For most accounting managers, this is a luxury they are not accustomed to-they are used to adapting their business processes to fit the software, an extremely inefficient way to work. Navision Software gives them scalability, adaptability, flexibility and cost-effectiveness all in one package.

Hands On Approach

For Northwest Cascade, automating its processes was a challenging task. Having operated in a manual environment for years, the company knew it needed a hardware and software provider with excellent service, support and training. Patrick Short says that as a Navision Solution Center, MAS is dedicated to its clients' present and future needs.

"We stick by our clients as they customize Navision software to fit their business processes," said Short. "Because Northwest Cascade had a very outdated system, we were able to help them fully automate most tasks, allowing for a more efficient use of staff time. Our programmers are still working with the company today, two years after its initial purchase, training new staff and updating modules as the business adds divisions, products and services.'

Navision's Key to Success

Through Navision's solution centers, its network of dedicated, locally owned regional offices that know the local markets and their customers, Northwest Cascade was able to call MAS and get local, personalized attention from a national company. MAS is one of Navision's carefully selected solution centers, devoting its full time and attention to marketing, selling, and servicing the Navision product.

Solution centers are staffed by experienced individuals with a background in business, computers and software. By understanding the needs of businesses in their market, these professionals are able to turn Navision into specific solutions for individual companies. Navision solution centers understand how to automate all aspects of a business by making Navision Software the information backbone of an integrated management accounting system.