Auto parts retailer’s finance team saves dozens of hours monthly with ERP implementation

Pat’s Auto Supply is the premiere supplier of auto parts in northern Alberta and British Colombia. The company has six locations, a head office, and a total of six operating entities, nine Holdco entities, and a Driveline machine shop. Because of the many intercompany transactions, their financial management and accounting required considerable manual work to access critical business information, which was keeping them from focusing on higher-value tasks.

The business was growing, with the number of employees at Pat’s Auto Supply increasing from 65 to more than 100. The finance team operates on a centralized spoke-and-hub model and the sheer amount of data they were manually having to process and reconcile was becoming unmanageable. For example, stock transfers had to be done manually at the end of the month, taking up to seven hours of valuable time.

Additionally, reports for the bank had to be created manually and didn’t have the polished appearance expected of a larger business. There was also a lack of formalized accountability when it came to reimbursing employees for expenses and for approving invoices.

Realizing that their current platform, Sage 50, was no longer the right fit, the finance team began looking for a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. MNP had been a long-standing trusted advisor to Pat’s Auto Supply, having handled the company’s accounting, and the finance team felt that their business advisor understood their needs. He referred them to MNP Digital.

The MNP Digital team met with the finance team to gain an in-depth understanding of their needs. MNP Digital then presented the business case for switching to Sage Intacct, which could easily handle multi-entities and quickly produce attractive, professional reports with the click of a few buttons.

The next step was to collect information from Pat’s Auto Supply’s finance team about the features and functionality they wanted from the system. The finance team was impressed that MNP Digital could get them everything they required in a single platform.

During the Sage Intacct implementation phase, MNP Digital provided training for the finance team, as well as the president and two vice presidents. Currently, Pat’s Auto Supply is taking part in MNP Digital’s Customer Success Program, providing them with monthly touch points with MNP Digital’s experts.

Thanks to the training process, the transition to the new solution was smooth and all employees, including leadership, bought in immediately. Sage Intacct has saved the finance team dozens of hours a month. Handling just the stock transfers has gone from up to seven hours a month to a mere 20 minutes.

Additionally, their new dashboards and reports allow the finance team to see real-time information. The time it takes to create the monthly report for the bank has gone from about six hours a month to less than an hour. This advancement is also well-timed, as the finance team was recently advised that the bank now wants to see quarterly reports. After spending about five hours to set the report up, it can now be generated at the touch of a button.

Finally, the new solution also allows general managers to approve invoices and expenses, taking that responsibility off of the finance team and offering better financial controls.

The time freed by Sage Intacct can now be used by the finance team to catch up on higher-level tasks that had been sitting on the back burner and move their priority strategic initiatives forward.