For over 60 years, Harland M. Braun & Co. Inc. has been supplying tanners throughout the world with North American rawhide materials, priding itself on providing exceptional service, quality products and timely, cost-effective deliveries. Unfortunately, the company’s years-long reliance on QuickBooks hobbled its overall productivity and its response to pandemic-induced shipping disruptions.
Putting QuickBooks to Pasture
“When the pandemic hit, it flipped the transportation industry upside down,” says Chad Robertson, Vice President. “Shipping costs skyrocketed, and delays were commonplace. The disruptions illuminated some major holes in our processes. We struggled to track and manage our shipments and price our products accordingly.”
In addition to these extremely concerning challenges, the Harland M. Braun & Co. team was managing customer orders, pricing, cost calculations and shipment tracking manually via spreadsheets. And though experienced employees knew what they were doing, new employees struggled to learn the ins and outs of the system.
Such massive inefficiency wasn’t sustainable long term, so Robertson and his team decided to retire QuickBooks and replace it with a modern, comprehensive Cloud ERP solution.
Picking the Prime ERP Solution
To get the ERP selection process rolling, Harland M. Braun & Co. management recruited an ERP consultant to supply them with a few top ERP options. The consultant offered three suggestions, including SAP Business One, Infor CloudSuite and Acumatica Cloud ERP. According to Robertson, there was only one solution that was user-friendly and designed for small and mid-sized companies (SMBs).
“Acumatica hits that sweet spot between broad functionality and ease of use. It provides for everything we need, gives us room to grow and diversify, and is simple to learn and intuitive to use,” he says.
With the help of NexTec experts (an Acumatica partner), Harland M. Braun & Co. implemented Acumatica and gained a number of benefits in the process, including:
- Lower expenses and less demand on the small IT staff by using a cloud-hosting model in place of its on-premises servers.
- Accurate quotes through direct insight into transportation costs.
- Ability to determine the profitability of each supplier through individual subaccounts.
And Acumatica has given team members on-the-go access to the company’s critical business data. Says Robertson, “We expect to see significant cost savings by moving to the cloud. But the biggest benefit is the accessibility the cloud delivers. For example, I recently traveled to Korea and could tap into Acumatica to get the information I needed for a client meeting. That simply wasn’t possible before.”
Not NexTec’s First Rodeo
With almost 30 years of experience, NexTec is dedicated to helping companies like Harland M. Braun & Co. find the technology that meets—and exceeds—their specific needs.
As Robertson notes, “What makes NexTec a good business partner is their overarching commitment to our success. Throughout the implementation and continuing to this day, they remain responsive, patient, collaborative, and creative. They share best practices approaches and teach us new and creative ways to use Acumatica to improve our operations. We’re pleased to have them on our team.”
To learn more about the benefits NexTec customers gain by working with a top Acumatica partner and about Acumatica’s award-winning Cloud ERP solution, contact us today. We’d love to chat.