On Account Replaces International ERP System

Sandfield's On Account Finance System Replaces International ERP System at Owens....

December 2005

When NZX-listed Mainfreight gained a majority stake in competitor Owens Group, one of the first priorities was to install Mainfreight's financial system, On Account from Sandfield. The project, with a time frame of just one month, meant abandoning the multi-million dollar implementation of JD Edwards ERP software within the core operating companies of Owens that were being retained by Mainfreight.

"We had very quickly established what we needed to do to get the transport division [Owens Transport] running how we wanted it to be," recalls Mainfreight accountant Graeme Illing. "Primarily, it came down to understanding what it costs to run the business. "The systems that we needed to do that were On Account [financial management] and Maintrak [Mainfreight's Freight system]." (Also supplied by Sandfield)

Mainfreight's divisions and companies worldwide report their profits every week. "A lot of financial systems can't do it - they don't have the reports, whereas all of our systems are geared for it," says Illing. "So we went to the team at Sandfield and said: 'We need On Account running at Owens Transport on this date, these are the things that are unique to Owens, now go to it."

"Mainfreight and Sandfield have a longstanding relationship, and obviously they dropped everything or moved their other jobs around." "The Sandfield team really managed that process for us and made sure that an entity was set up in On Account and all the transactions that Owens Transport needed were in there - including certain requirements that were unique to Owens, like special monthly EDI statements. "Then they took responsibility to run it for the first few months, so there were no errors. "The Sandfield team knew what they had to do and did it, regardless of how busy everyone was at that time."

AN EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD MODEL

Illing says it helped that On Account was "an exceptionally good model for Mainfreight" and had previously been rolled out to a number of other Mainfreight divisions and companies. Items such as invoices and statements had already been developed. However, some aspects - such as procedures for paying owner/drivers - differed between the two organisations. "On Account has a huge amount of flexibility and that allowed us to say: 'We have got it 80% right, we are hitting the road with it today'," says Illing. "Some of the Owens team were parallel-running with JDE for a while - the great thing about On Account is you can copy-and-paste across from your other system through Excel and you're there, without losing anything."

AMBITIOUS TIMEFRAME

The go-live date for On Account was December 1, 2003. "From a user's point of view, it appeared on the desktop ready to run," says Illing. "We brought the Owens Transport team members across to Mainfreight and sat them down with their counterparts to train them. They picked it up very quickly and we got very few questions ." Illing acknowledges the time frame was ambitious. "It was a radical change for the [Owens Transport] business and obviously there were people at the coal face that perhaps weren't so accepting of that. But now that it's up and running, they're right in there. And while they had some big changes imposed on them, there were other freedoms and other benefits that came along with Mainfreight's ownership."

FLEXIBILITY

Illing says the flexibility of On Account has proved popular. "Any owner/drivers, distributors or other creditors that work for Mainfreight and then Owens, you can just drag them across and add them in without having to do all the work to set them up. "From a user's point of view, they have tended to find that On Account doesn't have all of the whizz-bang reports that JDE has. But there's no-one out there saying: 'It needs this.... "They have found that you can easily get the data into Excel and manipulate it and get exactly what you need. "And the responsiveness of Sandfield - if you can't work something out, they're able to turn it around quickly."

A FRACTION OF THE COST

Illing says the conversion to On Account for Owens Transport was achieved for "a fraction of the cost" of the JD Edwards system. There has subsequently been a reduction in the number of team members required to handle the accounting function. "We see many organisations choosing to run with international solutions that are often complex and expensive. "Our experience with other packages is that modifying them is a nightmare. Working with Sandfield allows us to have built the specific custom pieces we require at a fraction of the cost of international solutions. Our preference is a local package, where Mainfreight's specific requirements and approach are understood and given priority."