Case Studies

STA Parts and eAccounts: 25 years of success and counting

With more than 30,000 individual components for sale at any given time, Segedin Truck & Auto Ltd is nothing if not dynamic. To help them manage the numbers, the company relies on a cloud-based financial and logistics package to calculate everything from their website shopping stats and inventory, all the way through to commissions for sales reps...

"eAccounts is absolutely critical to our organisation," says Mark Segedin, founder and managing director of STA Parts.

"I can log on to my personalised eAccounts dashboard from anywhere in the world (Segedin travels extensively overseas to identify motoring trends and source products) from my iPad or notebook, check the daily sales volumes, track margins, review the debtors files and see which products are selling. I can monitor these numbers as they happen and see trends and patterns as they occur. And I can react immediately if I see anything that should be addressed."

"Everyone in the organisation," continues Segedin, "from our telesales team to mobile sales reps to the warehouse staff, is logged onto the system every day. Some back office staff even have two screens open at once - one showing the on-line version and the other focused on invoices - to save time and provide real-time metrics. We run our business on eAccounts and it provides everything we need to compete successfully in a challenging marketplace."

STA Parts has been using eAccounts since day one. "Our relationship with Mark goes back to more than 25 years," says Neil Harker, managing director of eAccounts. "They were using the on-line eAccounts solution to help them run the business years before the 'cloud' became mainstream. Now that the world has caught up with us, we can look forward and offer Mark and his team even more functionality."

A multitude of benefits

The benefits for STA Parts in utilising eAccounts are significant and diverse - for instance they have no IT staff and nothing more complex than a broadband router and a few desktop PCs to maintain - but, for Mark, the biggest plus for STA Parts is the level of service they receive from eAccounts. "I can pick up the phone, literally any time, even after hours, and talk to their development team if I have an idea for something new or have a question about a particular function. Too often you need to speak with someone and get an answer phone or cannot track down the right person. Not so with eAccounts. Everyone in the company knows who we are and what they provide for us, we receive world-class capabilities and comprehensive support.

STA Parts utilises eAccounts for most of the standard business processes within the company as well as planning and product development.

"Because we have so much visibility into the everyday dynamics of the company," explains Segedin, "we can fine-tune operations on the fly. For instance, each time a model of vehicle becomes popular we can see immediately which parts are in demand and ensure that we have plenty of stock on-hand. So we'll have water pumps for one model and timing chains for another. Gasket seals are always a top seller and we can keep a steady supply by monitoring stock movements and anticipate demand. We can make all of these decisions quickly and easily because all of the information we need is right there in front of us. And if we see something that requires a bit more investigation, we can drill-down into the databases and get to the root of the issue."

Information is linked

The advantage of eAccounts is that everything is linked.all of the information is cross-referenced. As soon as a product is ordered from the on-line store it is flagged from the stock inventory. If certain products reach a minimum threshold, they are not available for purchase on the web site until new stock is actually on the shelves.

"We monitor quality as well," Segedin explains. "If we start to see an unusual number of returns we can act quickly to ensure that that particular part is replaced. eAccounts gives us immediate feedback and we can adjust our products accordingly."

STA Parts automatically generates newsletters that highlight new products, special promotions and price information. "This is a great feature of eAccounts," says Harker. "STA simply selects items for inclusion and the information is pasted into the pre-defined newsletter format. Another click of the mouse and it is sent to any or all account users. This allows STA Parts to communicate directly with their customers with minimum hassle."

eAccounts is especially useful for calculating sales commissions based on margins. eAccounts incorporates complex rules, for instance they only pay commission when the invoice is paid, exclude freight, etc. These transactions are compiled monthly and sent through to STA Part's payroll system. This keeps the sales staff focused and incentive based.

Another powerful feature is the ability is to display all invoices for the day which shows the overall margin for each invoice. If there is a product on an invoice that is above or below specified margins limits for that product group the invoice is flagged even though the overall invoice might have a margin that looks acceptable. With this feature STA Parts can highlight pricing problems with individual stock items.

Minimal expense - maximum impact

"The expense of running eAccounts is minimal," concludes Segedin, "especially compared to payroll, plant, stock, insurance and all of the other normal business expenses.

Plus we don't have to worry about down-time, outages, licensing or upgrades. Neil and his team ensure that we have whatever we need. And if we have any special requirements, we can call up and get fast service. eAccounts is the only solution we've ever used and we fully expect to continue to rely on eAccounts for the foreseeable future. It's reliable, comprehensive, accurate, cost-effective and we get great service. You can't really ask for much more."

Website: http://www.staparts.com