Right Size Your Solution
The company had been using Epicor, a large enterprise application, as its business management software, but for several reasons the company decided to switch. “It required a lot of overhead and expense to maintain. And we had fallen behind in updating, so the version we were running was almost unsupportable,” Peter Gill, CFO at Teligence explains. “Epicor had more complexity than we needed.
Our business structure was changing and we needed a more flexible application to support us going forward.” Gill says the company reviewed several mid-market ERP applications, including two applications from Microsoft before deciding on the perfect fit. “The ease of implementation was a big deciding factor and we already had a relationship with The Answer Company,” he says. “We respected [their] recommendation and had confidence in their ability to guide the transition.”
Among the requirements Teligence had for a new system were robust core accounting functionality and multicurrency capabilities. “We also wanted a product with a strong reputation and a large user base,” says Gill.
Multi-Company And Global Operations Support
Teligence is expanding into new marketplaces, and creating corporate entities for each new enterprise. With operations in Canada, the United States, and South America, the ability to handle multiple currencies is key. The chosen solution delivers strong multi-company and global operations support and supports the company’s business model. “Setting up a new company is very quick,” says Gill. “In the old system, we had to bring a consultant in and spend days on the project – it was very costly. We have added five new companies just this year. The money we have saved in setting up the new companies ourselves has paid for the software.”
Flexible Reporting Tools
Financial reporting has grown more complex as well, with the requirement to run consolidated financial reports across some of the companies. Now, Teligence can bring together, analyze, and report upon its data by individual department, business unit, company, or country. “I was instantly at home using the reporting tools,” says Mandy Tai, controller for Teligence. “The financial reporter is Excel-based, so it is familiar, flexible, and powerful. Our executives love the reports. They are easy to read and give the precise level of detail we need.” Mandy Tai continues, “We can instantly update the data in the financial reports, there is no waiting for the reports to compile. As a result, we can see the results of the adjustments we make right away, which saves time and is much more efficient.”
Adaptable To Meet Requirements
The Answer Company helped Teligence setup and configure user-defined fields in the application to hold an internal project code. By assigning a project code to revenue and expense transactions, the company can better track the profitability of each project. “We can tag transactions as relating to specific projects,” explains Tai. “The project code follows the transaction throughout the system and we can build queries to report on various projects.”
Professional Support Team
Both Gill and Tai praise The Answer Company for their professional support and advice. “It has been a long-term partnership and it is very valuable to us,” says Gill. “The Answer Company has a great team with a breadth of product and industry knowledge… The Answer Company understands our business and [the technology] so well that they are able to make recommendations for efficiency changes,” says Tai. “They have been able to tailor the software to work the way we need it to work.”