Leisure

AWE (Europe) Ltd – founded in 1933, it is the UK’s leading residential audio visual system distributor

When AWE first considered an alternative to its existing Sage 50 system, its key requirements were for a more powerful system to cope with complex sales order processing, serial number tracking on certain products, multi-warehousing by product lines, returns procedures and more sophisticated pricing structures.

Acuity completed a full Sage 50 data migration, met all of AWE’s objectives and our Sage 200 accredited development team also reproduced some specific Sage 50 features that were required. We were also actively involved in implementing new business processes utilizing workflows that monitor key business activities and generate alerts/ emails to relevant personnel.

”All of us at AWE congratulate Acuity for their efforts in a challenging implementation during our recent rapid expansion and also we are grateful for their efforts when the goal posts had to be moved and their flexibility with us in these matters. Long may we continue to expand together!” Stuart Tickle, Managing Director.

Since the original migration, Acuity has very recently upgraded AWE to Sage 200 2009.
 

The Fine Arts Society - one of the world's oldest art galleries, founded in 1876, with premises in London and Edinburgh, it specializes in British art and design from the 17th to the 21st centuries.

Paul Stanckiewicz, their Business Consultant, came to Acuity with the following problems:

• Fine Arts were using a front office Stock system and a back office Sage50 accounting system that were not linked in any way
• Due to the Art Industry VAT Margin Scheme and part ownership rules he spent several days every quarter applying manual adjustments to the VAT Return produced by Sage 50
• There was no simple way to hold data such as the items provenance, internal communications and other documents on Products

They did not want to unduly disrupt the Accounts team and also lose any functionality of the current legacy Stock system and yet he needed to address the integration issues and improve the processes that were failing. Acuity worked with him to present a full demo of Sage 200 with Integrated CRM including a prototype of how the VAT Margin and Part Ownership rules could be set up and a tailored version of CRM to deal with Fine Arts industry needs and terminology. The Fine Arts Directors were impressed by the level of preparation undertaken to prove the power of an integrated Sage 200 system and with Paul Stanckiewicz satisfied from the Financial perspective, they agreed to go ahead with the project.

“Although it was clear to me what was required of a system I struggled to see how it could be achieved within our budget and without disrupting the business. However, I have to say that the integration between Front and Back Office is impressive at this cost and Acuity’s rapid understanding of our market and willingness to invest time and effort before obtaining an order, were certainly key factors in winning the contract, particularly in an industry that does not engage in traditional sales cycles”

He goes further to say “Now we have the system up and running, we have also found many areas not initially considered and again have been impressed with how Acuity has worked with us to iron out any issues without overrunning on the budget. The productivity gains across the business from the new VAT accounting functions in the back office and the shared data and communications have already started to repay in full the initial investment, We look forward to working with Acuity on other internal processes going forward!”

Benross Golf – leading suppliers of golf equipment and accessories.

April Dudley, Chief Operating Officer, sums up her view of the Sage 50 migration provided by Acuity by saying “Having successfully migrated from Sage Line 50 to Sage MMS two years ago with Acuity Solutions, it was without hesitation that we looked to Acuity again for our next software upgrade. Not only were we looking to upgrade to Sage200 but we were in the process of out-sourcing our distribution centre which required bespoke software development to automate processes and exporting of data to a third party from Sage200.

From the start Acuity took time to understand exactly what was required and throughout the development stage their programmers and our project team worked closely, testing each stage to ensure we achieved the best result. Six months on and the process has been a great success, any minor teething problems were quickly resolved and the team at Acuity have always been on hand to assist with any questions. Without doubt we will use the skills at Acuity to continue our software developments in the future.”