Fitzgerald, Inc. is a dairy equipment company providing monthly route sales to dairy producers. With three trucks that service dairy farms on a 28 day rotation, the company processes a significant number of invoices monthly, many of which utilize Farm Plan credit as payment versus traditional credit cards.
Unprocessed Credit Transactions Lead to Stale Employee Productivity
Unlike traditional credit cards, there had been no streamlined, integrated method to process the Farm Plan credit transactions within Sage 100 (formerly Sage MAS 90/200). This resulted in re-keying data from Sage 100 to the on-line Farm Plan processing portal, which was time consuming and error prone. Kristin Fitzgerald at Fitzgerald, Inc. stated, “We needed to be focusing on ways to improve our business, instead of wasting time on double data entry.” Kristin discussed the issue with the software reseller who had sold and supported their Sage 100 solution. They, in turn, learned of Accounting Systems, Inc. (ASI) and ASI’s Farm Plan interface.
ASI’s Farm Plan Interface Keeps the Credit Card Process Moo-ving
According to Brian Kelly at ASI, “Farm Plan Interface in essence works like credit card integration. A Farm Plan customer purchasing products from Fitzgerald, Inc. can use their Farm Plan account to pay for those products. Fitzgerald, Inc. uses a Payment Type within Sage 100 that allows them to process the order on the customer’s Farm Plan account, similar to using a credit card. Farm Plan Interface connects to the Farm Plan website to approve or deny the transaction.”
Kristin recalls, “Getting Farm Plan Interface installed was simple, the only hold up was on the credit processor’s side. Once that was resolved, and after some simple education, we were up and running. Farm Plan Interface did exactly what we were hoping for. It completely streamlined our data entry process by allowing our Sage 100 system to communicate directly with Farm Plan. The charge authorization is now captured as part of the transaction during normal sales order processing.”
Fitzgerald, Inc. Enjoys the Taste of Smooth and Efficient Processes
Implementing Farm Plan Interface has allowed Fitzgerald, Inc. to stop wasting time on duplicate data entry, which has allowed them to focus on business process improvements such as inventory management. In fact, it freed up enough time that the company was able to take their efforts to eliminate manual entry and errors one step further by integrating barcoding technology on their inventory with scanning guns in their route trucks. “The Farm Plan Interface provides a seamless integration that simply works, and works well, and has been a huge time saver for us,” stated Kristin. “Thanks to Farm Plan Interface, we’ve been able to improve efficiency throughout our organization.”
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