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I occasionally ask members of my team if they miss our old system or if they are happy we made the switch. The answer is always the same: ‘We should have done this a long time ago!’” -Doug Jacobs, President of Restylers’ Choice

aACE Software offered a unique opportunity to integrate state-of-the-art ERP software with Restylers’ Choice’s in-house solutions. By teaming up with aACE, Restylers’ Choice was able to eliminate two days worth of accounting work per month, free up 2,000 square feet of warehouse space, eliminate two conveyor belts, and reduce overall labor requirements by the equivalent of four full-time staffers, among other benefits, in just the first six months.

CHALLENGES & aACE SOLUTIONS

Inventory Management

Restylers’ Choice has four lines of business: traditional warehouse distribution, custom digital printing production, a custom paint department, and graphics installation services. On any given order a customer may purchase products from all four lines of business, and the fulfillment logic may be subject to complex interdependencies. Restylers’ Choice needed a solution that would automatically distribute orders to the relevant work order solutions. aACE’s inventory management software for Mac and PC can be customized to do it all.

Shipping

The Restylers’ Choice team needed a solution that would manage the interdependencies of complex orders and automatically generate invoices when orders were shipped. They may not be able to ship the off-the-shelf graphics kit until the custom painted spoiler is complete, for example. aACE features robust and flexible solutions for managing the pick, pack, and ship process.

Credit Card Integration

Restylers’ Choice needed a solution that would seamlessly charge clients’ credit cards when an invoice was generated and notify the shipping department when a card was declined so that the package could be held until an alternative method of payment was supplied. aACE’s payment dialog supports payment at point-of-sale, including fully PCI-compliant credit card processing.

RESULTS

Increased Efficiency In Operations

Taken together, aACE’s integration with Restylers’ Choice’s own in-house solutions have eliminated two days’ worth of accounting each month, freed up 2,000 feet of warehouse space, eliminated a conveyor belt in each warehouse, and reduced labor requirements by the equivalent of four full-time staffers.

Streamlined Inventory Management

aACE automatically distributes orders to the relevant work order systems. Inventoried items are distributed to a solution that manages the pick and pack process via hand-held devices, while made-to-order items are distributed to the solutions that manage custom digital printing production, painting, and graphics installation services.

Customized Interdependency and Delivery Logic

aACE takes into account various complex interdependencies to ensure that every order flows smoothly. For example, orders with a delivery type of “Ship With MTO” will wait until the made-to-order items are complete before shipping the order.

Shipping and Invoicing Automation

aACE shipments are integrated with NRG software, which provides seamless integration with FedEx, UPS, and USPS. Once a package is marked as shipped in NRG (which corresponds to the package being placed in an area designated for the courier’s next pick-up), aACE generates the corresponding invoice with the necessary shipping charges.

Seamless Credit Card Integration

Credit cards are preauthorized for the entire amount at the time the order is taken, and automatically charged as soon as the invoice is generated. In the event that a credit card charge fails, aACE sends a notification to the shipping department so that the package can be held until an alternative method of payment is supplied.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Here's what Doug Jacobs, President of Restylers' Choice, has to say about aACE:

"Looking back at our transition to aACE, I realize how smooth the process went. Having been on our past system for more than 10 years, you know there are going to be problems and pains in transition. I had trusted advisors warn me that it would require years to "get comfortable" with the new system. The reality is that we were up, running, and processing orders very easily the first day of business on aACE.

The biggest benefit I have personally noticed is our in-house ability to further integrate aACE with our own in-house systems and add new functionality as needed. The system is designed in a very intuitive and easy-to-understand way that allows us to push and pull data to and from aACE, providing the foundation for an even greater ROI throughout our organization as time goes on."

Download Restylers’ Choice’s Case Study.

Do you or someone you know need a change from one-size-fits-all ERP tools? Check out our videos to learn more about whether aACE business management software for Mac and PC can help accelerate your company.

“The support provided for aACE is nothing short of outstanding.” -Bumkee Kim, President, Janibell

When Janibell, formerly known as Sinclair Worldwide, called aACE, they knew they needed a new solution. Their current solution was slow, they wanted to grow their business using Mac hardware and software, and many aspects of their operations that could be automated required tedious data entry. Moving to aACE was the perfect solution. It offered substantial performance improvements, leveraged cross-platform technologies, and through customization the developers at aACE were able to automate many aspects of SWI’s operations that were previously manual.

CHALLENGES & aACE SOLUTIONS

High Performance

Prior to implementing aACE, Janibell was using a prominent order management software solution that fell short of their expectations. It was clunky, slow, and generally lacked the features necessary to meet their growing business needs. aACE is a flexible software solution that can be tailored to meet the particular needs of almost any business.

eCommerce Integration

Janibell’s previous software solution did not integrate seamlessly with their eCommerce solution, causing countless headaches as the staff had to manually move information between the two. aACE can be customized to integrate seamlessly with existing solutions to eliminate the need for messy and time-consuming work-arounds.

Mac Environment

As they began looking into replacing their old software solution, the team at Janibell also decided to convert their IT environment to Macs. They found that most solutions did not fit their needs and weren’t Mac-compatible, but aACE is a cross-platform business management solution for Mac and PC that can even run on both in one office. The team at aACE can also recommend Apple Authorized Service Providers that provide exceptional IT services for Mac-based business, making the transition even easier.

RESULTS

Streamlined Operations

aACE has automated many of the processes that Janibell staff used to have to do by hand, allowing them to streamline their retail operations. aACE integrates with their eCommerce solution so that orders created in both of Janibell’s websites are imported into aACE every morning, as are orders created manually by Janibell’s staff or downloaded from their call centers.

Fewer Lost Orders

Pending credit card transactions are created automatically. A Janibell employee posts all pending credit card transactions as a batch once or twice per day. This process is user-initiated so that Janibell’s staff can personally follow up with customers whose credit cards have failed, preventing Janibell from losing those orders. Transactions that are fully automated and processed via the website run this risk.

Automated Shipping

Shipping records are created automatically only when cards are successfully charged. This portion of the solution was customized to account for individually prepackaged products such that a quantity of “3” on an order creates three distinct shipment records. Shipping records are sent to a FedEx terminal periodically throughout the day. Janibell’s warehouse staff simply affix the labels to the prepackaged goods and place them for pick-up.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Here's what Janibell's President, Bumkee Kim, has to say about the results of their aACE implementation:

"aACE is a great all-around package that also offers flexibility and excellent design. The aACE user interface features a clean layout and shows that much thought and care went into the development of the software. We feel confident that aACE will serve Janibell for a long time."

Download Janibell’s Case Study

Do you or someone you know need a change from one-size-fits-all ERP tools? Check out our videos to learn more about whether aACE business management software for Mac and PC can help accelerate your company.

 

“Clearly the architecture of the aACE suite has been thought out very well. aACE is already helping us save hundreds of labor-hours each month.”

–Daniel Chapman, Founder and CEO, Redd Remedies

Redd Remedies, a manufacturer of nutritional supplements, aims to help consumers put their health in order—but their own technological health was deeply out of sorts. A friend from Vital Planet, a satisfied aACE client, recommended a simple solution: switch from NetSuite to aACE 5. Daniel did, and the result is a business as healthy as its products.

CHALLENGES & aACE SOLUTIONS

User-Unfriendly Interfaces

Training new employees to use the old software was a difficult and time-consuming task, and even experienced users like Daniel had trouble pulling reports. After making the switch to aACE, the entire staff was up and running in just two months. aACE’s custom reporting options are easy to implement and tailored to fit Redd Remedies’ workflow, and its user-friendly design means training new employees on the software is a breeze. Its drill-down, drill-around capabilities expose the entire chain of a single transaction, providing 360˚ visibility for the accounting team.

Time-Wasting Processes

Promotional pricing, a key aspect of their business, was tedious in the old solution. Joni Jarnagin, Marketing & Key Accounts Manager, would have to search, open, and change the price on individual products one at a time (often the same products over and over but for different promotions), a process that could take over an hour depending on how many items were going on or off sale and how many different promotions were running. With a custom feature in aACE, she can configure all item prices in one window for each promotion, thereby reducing this process to a fraction of the time — 15 minutes or less!

Increasing Prices

Their old ERP suite’s increasing yearly subscription fee had become untenable for a medium-sized business such as Redd Remedies. aACE is priced to be affordable to SMBs yet powerful enough to compete with big-ticket ERP suites like NetSuite.

RESULTS

Expedited Order Management

Automated workflows in Customer Care and Shipping have been able to reduce order entry and fulfilment errors, minimize the time it takes for order approval due to automated pricing built into promotional campaigns, and drastically improve their ship time from order entry to out the door. Overall this means more satisfied customers as their orders arrive more quickly and with greater accuracy than ever.

Increased Visibility in Shipping

Efficiencies in the shipping department are crucial to Redd Remedies' success. In aACE, once an order is drawn up, the details are automatically handed off to warehouse iPads via the aACE Pick App. Barcode scanners make picking products off the shelf both quick and error-free. After an order has been picked, the details are handed off to ReadyCloud, a fully integrated shipping solution that calculates costs and prints labels. When the shipment is ready to go, final details are passed back to aACE to charge the customer's credit card, and if the card is declined then the warehouse is notified to hold it until payment is received. The aACE shipping solution has helped reduce picking errors, assisted in a speedy pick and pack process, and prevented the loss of unpaid merchandise going out the door.

Smoother Sales Promotions

A custom "mix-and-match" feature allows pricing to be configured dynamically depending on the type of product and the volume ordered. This saves time and effort, especially since multiple promotions are run simultaneously, each with different start and end dates. The system automatically calculates prices based on the promotion so staff don’t have to input sales prices manually, saving time and preventing user errors.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Here’s what Daniel Chapman has to say about his company’s switch to aACE:

“A friend at Vital Planet — another midsize business in the nutrition industry that has been using aACE for over two years — brought aACE to my attention. As a possible alternative to NetSuite (which we had been using for five years), he explained that aACE is user-friendly, offers easy-to-pull reports, and is priced attractively for a solution of its caliber. My team did some homework and felt we should move forward decisively, deploying aACE on an aggressive timeline to avoid another year's subscription. In only two months we were able to hit the ground running with aACE 5, and overall the change has been seamless. The more we use this program, the more we love it!

"The biggest asset to our company has been the automated workflows, especially in our customer care and shipping departments. We have been able to reduce order entry errors, minimize order approval due to built-in double checks and accuracy of promotions/campaigns, and drastically improve our ship time from order entry to out-the-door. The shipping integration has helped reduce picking errors and assist in a speedy pick and pack process. Clearly the architecture of the aACE suite has been thought out very well. aACE is already helping us save hundreds of labor-hours each month and we feel aACE 5 is a much better match for our company.”

Do you or someone you know need a change from one-size-fits-all ERP tools? Check out our videos to learn more about whether aACE business management software for Mac and PC can help accelerate your company.