How Small Service-Based Companies Stay Competitive with the Big Names
Service-driven organizations with disconnected software pieces struggle to stay alive in today’s market, let alone drive growth. How do service industry SMBs thrive? Modern technology is one way that the smaller guys are staying competitive with big businesses. ERP solutions have advanced to give you the tools you need to grow your services business. Whether you are in Field Services, Professional Services, Managed Services, Construction, or Personal Services modern ERP solutions give you the specific features you need for your business.
Service-Based Industry ERP Needs:
| Professional Services | Manage Services | Field Services | Construction Accounting | Personal Services | |
| Software | Accounting, professional services automation (PSA), project accounting, time and expense, CRM. |
Accounting, MSP software, remote monitoring and management (RMM), time and expense, CRM Cases. | Accounting, field service and dispatch, equipment management, contracts, time and expense, CRM Cases. | Construction accounting with job costing, projects, estimating, contracts, payroll, and field service. | Medical and hospital management, practice management, case management, electronic medical records, classroom and learning management. |
| Scheduling | Project milestones, resource assignments, support cases. | Support cases, technician appointments, system upgrades, and backups. | Technician appointments, support cases, preventative maintenance. | Job scheduling by project phase with labor assignments and field service appointments. | Patient and staff scheduling, curriculum scheduling, resource scheduling, preventative maintenance. |
| Cost Elements | Employee time and travel expenses. | Employee time, equipment and repair parts, travel expenses. | Employee time, travel expenses, replacement parts, and supplies. | Direct and subcontract labor, materials, permits, and supplies. | Medical supplies, fixed assets, legal and insurance, employee wages, administration, transportation. |
| Location | In-house (desk) or customer location (remote consulting). | In-house (call center or service desk) or customer location (field service). | In-house (depot repair) or customer location (field service). | Field-based construction and on-site field services. | Primarily in-facility services. Specialty services for in-home medical, tutoring, and other personal services. |
| Frequency | Primarily one- time projects for ongoing customer contracts. | Recurring contracted services and one-time break/fix services. | Recurring contract appointments or one-time break/fix services. | One-time projects for new construction with some recurring service activities. | Varied frequency. Educational services are recurring. Medical and legal services tend to be short to mid-term. |
| Equipment | Minimal equipment requirements. | Primarily IT hardware and software. | Often extensive equipment needs. | Heavy construction equipment. | Facilities, furniture, medical and office equipment, computer hardware and software. |
Common Struggles of Service Businesses
Regardless of the type of service business, there are some common problems across the board. First, many service industries reported issues such as lack of communication between marketing and sales, which limits the ability to see and follow up on new business opportunities. Incomplete inventory management and procurement features is another issue causing stock-outs and rush orders, wreaking havoc on service schedules dependent on replacement parts and equipment.
Delayed expense capture methods and other manual processes make it challenging for service-based industries to consolidate labor, materials, overhead, and other costs to accurately see profitability by appointment or project. One of the largest complaints of businesses using older software is the lack of integration with data for remote field technicians and in-house users. Even though many applications have add-on field service modules, there is a growing number of synchronization issues limiting the accessibility of data in the field.
Acumatica, a modern, cloud-based ERP solution designed with a service-centric platform helps SMBs with these problems. The ERP system provides fully connected financials, project accounting, order management, and inventory management. Field service can be added for distributors, manufactures, and construction. All include powerful inquiries, flexible reporting, user designed dashboards, and easy but robust analytics.
“My dispatchers are thrilled to pieces to have the calendar board, the flexibility to move appointments around as they see fit, the flexibility to assign different technicians to those appointments. Also, it affords us the ability to see who’s out there, who’s working, and how long they’re expected to be on that appointment so we can be more efficient with our estimates to our clients about when we expect to have a technician on site.”
– JENNIFER HARLER, COO, DP AIR CORP
Another problem service-based businesses face are service call delays. Not being on top of service calls can destroy customer relationships. Many times, this is due to inefficient scheduling and out of stock situations for replacement parts. How are your technicians able to provide superior service if they do not have the resources they need to do the job right the first time? With the right tools, your business should not worry about service delays, poor communication, substandard service, and poor customer support. Keep your customers happy so they don’t go somewhere else.
Acumatica provides in-house and remote workers with access to information anytime, anywhere, on any device. Be able to quickly identify each service call’s best resource while ensuring route optimization to get jobs done fast and correct. With the ability to see all the data at your fingertips, you can adjust schedules on-the-fly for emergency calls as well.
With Acumatica built-in case management system you can track and manage support requests effectively. Automate notifications to customers when you receive equipment, or the parts needed for their order. Additionally, technicians can access all information on the road – equipment orders, customer information, service history, photos, documentation and more.
Track and manage support requests effectively with the case management system. Create business events to notify customers when you receive equipment or parts needed for their service orders or when the service order status or dates change.
“We can get contact information to our guys a lot better, and we can put directions on how to get there. We’re more likely to be on time. We get the inventory right — right away — because it’s built into the system. We don’t have to track it down, so billing is a lot more accurate. We don’t have to go back and change anything because the inventory was wrong. Customers are more satisfied because of everything being more accurate and more timely.”
– CODY SHARP, MANAGER OF INSPECT & TEST DEPARTMENT SECURITY SOLUTIONS NW
Contact us and let us show you why Acumatica is the clear choice for growing service organizations like yours. Learn why our service-based clients rave about this modern ERP solution that has revolutionized their business.
Manufacturing begins way before sales gets involved in make-to-stock environments – production begins based on forecasted demand and items are stored until the order is placed. In most make-to-order scenarios, manufacturing starts after the sales order is created. Make-to-order manufacturers typically create the production order directly from the sales order, project, or service order. Production orders are scheduled against finite capacity constraints. Purchase orders and production orders for dependent raw materials and subassemblies are suggested through the time-phased material requirements planning (MRP) application. Material and labor transactions are entered throughout the production process or backflushed automatically for work in process costing. The finished goods inventory is updated and ready for order fulfillment.
Manufacturers perfect the quote-to-cash process and get paid faster with a comprehensive and modern ERP application like Acumatica. Manage every step effectively and with the flexibility to adapt the system to the way you do business.