Agarwal Fasteners Tightens Operations with Sage Accpac

Agarwal Fasteners Pvt. Ltd. specializes in manufacturing critical stainless steel fasteners as per industry standards and specific customer requirements for a wide variety of industries. Founded in 1974, Agarwal Fasteners manufactures and imports best quality tools to produce high quality, reliable fasteners using modern multi stationed equipment. Having its manufacturing plant in Mumbai, Agarwal Fasteners has a direct sales team in Maharashtra and supplies its products to the rest of India through its dealer and reseller network.

Due to its strong focus on quality and timely delivery, the company has witnessed growth and expansion in its business over the last 3 decades. “Since we specialize in providing customized fasteners as per specific requirements of our many clients, we need to deal with various vendors across the world for raw materials and also manufacture many high quality tools and dies inhouse. We hence needed robust, modular and secure ERP software with tightly integrated inventory, operations and accounting modules that could help link our warehouse to the shop floor,” says Vikram Agarwal, Managing Director, Agarwal Fasteners Pvt. Ltd.

Sage Accpac - Secure, Robust and Tightly Integrated ERP Solution from Sage

Prior to implementing Sage Accpac, the company relied on a Fox Pro based local software application with separate packages for accounting and inventory to maintain stocks and generate invoices. Since the inventory and accounting packages were not linked to each other the entries had to be made separately into each of them causing duplication of labor and leaving room for human error. There were also some serious data security issues with this software as any user could delete entries once the invoice was generated.

“The Managing Director of Agarwal Fasteners wanted an ERP software that could provide him with high data security where access and security limits could be predefined so that the user can merely make additions and not tamper with pre-existing data,” shares Kumar Siddhartha, Chief Executive Officer, Greytrix. “The other requirements of the client included robust financial & accounting support, real time inventory control and visibility throughout the manufacturing cycle, automatic reporting option and tight integration of modules to avoid duplication of work. Sage Accpac was undoubtedly the best solution for them.”

Guided by its strong product understanding and domain knowledge, Greytrix, the implementation partner for the project, was able to understand Agarwal Fastener’s unique requirements and then carry out a live system demonstration to highlight the strengths of Sage Accpac and also implement the software quickly and effectively.

Agarwal Fasteners decided to implement a 10 user package of Sage Accpac comprising of System Manager, General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Inventory Control, Order Entry, Purchase Order, and Transactional Analysis and Optional fields as the major modules.

Real time view of inventory for informed procurement

Agarwal Fasteners has a state of the art manufacturing facility in Mumbai where it produces best quality stainless steel fasteners for its customers across the country. When the sales team receives an order from a customer, the existing inventory is checked and if the product is not readily available in the warehouse then a production plan is formulated. The raw materials needed for production have to be scoped and a checklist is made of the raw materials that have to be procured locally, imported from vendors based abroad or else in the case of high quality dies and tools, manufactured in-house. “Since the variety of inputs required for manufacturing fasteners is quite vast and a considerable number of vendors need to be dealt with for procurement of raw materials, manual maintenance of inventory is not possible. Furthermore unless there is a real time view into available stocks of finished products and raw materials, production planning will be flawed leading to considerable losses,” opines Vikram, “Sage Accpac offers us a real time view of the finished goods stock that is available with us, helps us identify the shortfall that needs to be produced and also scope the raw materials required for manufacturing these out of stock products. Since it provides us with a ready reckoner of the raw materials being sourced from various vendors and their expected time of arrival while also providing us with an update of the products under production on the shop floor, it also helps us forecast availability of out of stock products. Sage Accpac’s inventory control module also enables us to compare vendors on the basis of prices and delivery schedule and thus ensures that we get the raw materials at the best prices in the shortest timeframe.”

Once the raw material is received it is transferred to the shop floor where it goes into production and once the finished product is ready it reflects in the inventory at the warehouse. Since Sage Accpac provides an accurate definition of the location and flow of raw materials throughout the order entry and manufacturing process, it provides better control of the process and the outcome on the shop floor.

Seamless integration of modules for zero duplication and errors

When the company was dependant on the Fox Pro based software, the order would be booked by the sales person in the Order Entry module and this would then have to be manually keyed again in the General Ledger for accounting purposes. Similarly once the raw materials were received in the inventory module a separate entry would have to be made in the Accounts Payable section. This caused a lot of duplication of efforts and manual transfer of data also left room for errors.

“With Sage Accpac the accounting and order entry modules are tightly linked with each other. As a result any order that is booked under order entry automatically reflects in the Accounts Receivable section of the General Ledger. Similarly once the raw materials are received into the inventory module the Accounts Payable is automatically updated, keeping in mind the specific currency exchange rate depending upon the country that the raw material has been imported from,” explained Mr. Vikram Agarwal Managing Director, Agarwal Fastners Pvt. Ltd.

Automatic reports generated at the touch of a button

Once the product has been delivered to the customer, the sales person is responsible for collection of payments from the customer and is entitled to his sales commission only after the pending amount is collected. Using Sage Accpac a customer ledger can be automatically generated from the General Ledger to provide the sales person with an accurate report of the number of invoices due as of date. It is also possible to generate reports on item wise pending orders for manufacture and pending orders for delivery to customers using the Financial Reporter tool in Sage Accpac, which can dynamically extract data from the database to generate reports in the required format.

High data security for greater control

In the earlier system it was possible for the user to delete an entry after the corresponding invoice has been posted leading to discrepancies in the books. There was no system of laying checks and measures to prevent data tampering by the user. Sage Accpac has predefined access and security definitions that allow the user to only add entries and prevent him from making edits and deletions to preexisting entries once the invoice has been posted. Only the administrator is given the powers to modify security settings and access controls. Complete view of the data is accessible only to the manager. This ensures that the accounting process is stringent and streamlined and as a result the auditing process is a lot easier and less time consuming.


Challenge

No view of available stocks, uninformed production planning and raw material scoping, inability to identify best suitable vendor, separate entries to be made in inventory, order entry and invoicing packages leading to duplication of effort, no data security leading to data tampering

Solution

Sage Accpac ERP, a highly scalable and modular application provides high data security and real time inventory control. It also supports multiple currencies and features a strong reporting tool. Modules are closely interlinked with each other so that a small change in one module results in a corresponding change in the related fields of the other modules as well.

Result

Real time inventory control ensures that production planning is done accurately and the correct quantity of raw material is ordered at the right price from the right vendor. Tight integration between the various modules eliminates duplication of efforts and a high level of data security prevents data tampering. Reports are generated automatically in the required format.