Sage BusinessWorks Accounting helps keep Topy America OTR operations rolling
The Over The Road (OTR) division of Topy America, Inc. is a premier supplier of wheel rims for the oversized trucks used in mining. The rims are enormous—some more than six feet high and weighing several tons. The company imports the rims through its Japanese parent company and sells them to truck builders and directly to mining companies across America.
The small team at Topy America OTR is responsible for a large sales volume and therefore requires tools that help them to be more efficient. One of the tools Topy America OTR depends on is Sage BusinessWorks Accounting.
Outgrowing the old system
The company knew it had outgrown its entry-level accounting system, but like many busy organizations, had not made the time to select and implement a new solution. When Michelle Tipton joined Topy America OTR as its accounting manager, she made this project her first priority. "We used Sage Peachtree Accounting successfully for years, but had outgrown its capabilities," she says. "We wanted a true mid-market solution with powerful security, flexible reporting, and full inventory control functionality."
Sage BusinessWorks Accounting met all of the company's requirements for functionality and cost, and proved to be straightforward to implement. "I was able to download customer, vendor, and item data from Sage Peachtree to Microsoft® Excel®, and then import it into Sage BusinessWorks," Tipton explains. "It went very well and gave us data we could work with right from the start."
Ensure compliance
Topy America OTR's parent company must comply with J-SOX, a legislative framework used in Japan, and therefore makes some demands on the OTR division. Tipton says that Sage BusinessWorks contains all of the controls required and supports the various procedures and processes related to J-SOX compliance.
"The requirements are very similar to SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act)," notes Tipton. "And Sage BusinessWorks helps us meet all of the requirements with its tight security, comprehensive history, and audit trail."
"Sage BusinessWorks delivers the efficiencies we need to achieve our large sales volume with a lean workforce."
Data mining drives efficiency
Building on its immediate success with Sage BusinessWorks, Topy America OTR went looking for additional efficiencies. "We recognized that we could benefit from automation in other areas," Tipton says. "Specifically, we were spending a lot of time performing routine, scheduled tasks, such as printing reports and sending them out by email."
Tipton spoke with the company's Sage Authorized Partner and was introduced to Sage KnowledgeSync, a Business Activity Monitoring solution that works in concert with Sage BusinessWorks. With Sage KnowledgeSync, Topy America OTR can monitor its Sage BusinessWorks database, looking for business conditions it has defined. Once these conditions are met, Sage KnowledgeSync responds by sending email alerts, and by generating and delivering relevant forms, documents, and reports. "We automatically send the Aged Receivable Report and a listing of customers who are over their credit limit to our management," Tipton says. "This proactive monitoring helps us meet many of the J-SOX requirements, without investing any additional labor."
Another way the company uses Sage KnowledgeSync is for sending order acknowledgements by email to customers. The acknowledgement documents contain the required verbiage that must accompany each order. "It happens automatically, so we know that our message is sent with every order," says Tipton.
Powerful reporting
Topy America OTR also makes extensive use of F9, a financial reporting tool that links the Sage BusinessWorks General Ledger module to Excel. F9 adds versatility and power to the already strong reporting capabilities within the software. "F9 makes it easy for us to break out reports based on our two locations," Tipton says. "It is Excel-based so it is familiar and quick to use."
Running lean
The company is currently implementing a barcoding solution to streamline its shipping and receiving. Using Crystal Reports®, Tipton has added barcoded data fields to the company's picking ticket and purchase order receiver forms. Inbound and outbound items will be scanned with portable scanning devices, and the data uploaded into Sage BusinessWorks Accounting—saving keystrokes and time while ensuring accuracy.
"Sage BusinessWorks delivers the efficiencies we need to achieve our large sales volume with a lean workforce," concludes Tipton.
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