Nidac Security feel secure in their choice of Tencia Business software

Drivers for change

Nidac a longstanding Arrow Financials user was looking for ways to improve their internal accountability and efficiencies. Business was steadily growing and evolving so their General Manager, Tristan Hast identified the need to help foster this growth.  It was evident that some changes would need to be made to their internal systems to ensure that the business could cope with the growth and efficiency targets they were aiming for. “We wanted to streamline management reporting and look for ways to integrate our back end financials with an e-commerce store to create more opportunities for new sales growth,” she explains.

“Our vision was that the e-commerce solution would provide us with an additional sales channel that would help us penetrate international markets.  We were also looking for new efficiencies when it came to customer orders and payment processing.  I was particularly keen to implement an accounting solution that I was sure would be flexible enough to integrate well with the e-commerce solutions that we were evaluating at the time,” Tristan says.

The solution

Like any major system implementation careful planning and documentation of the business requirements was undertaken. “We thought about our business model and what our future business goals and organisational objectives were. We decided that we would take the journey with our Arrow Business Partner, Archer Technology Group and that we would implement Tencia because they had a strong understanding of our business.”

In the initial stages of the transition Nidac faced some frustrations and teething issues but help was always on hand when they needed it.  “Archer Technology Group was exceptional throughout this process.  I cannot fault them, they were upfront and honest about things which meant that I knew just what to expect,” said Tristan.

The results

Due to their particular requirements, Tristan and her team communicated their business needs to their Arrow Business Partner and their e-commerce implementation partner quite clearly. They were looking to achieve some very specific business outcomes via the implementation of these new systems. ‘Tencia Connect’ was the application gateway used to integrate Tencia to the e-commerce front end.  Tencia Connect enabled the e-commerce store to link directly to Tencia stock, Debtors, Sales orders and Cash book without the need for double keying information between the e-commerce system and the back end financial system.  Customers were now able to browse for products online and enter their own orders when they wanted to from anywhere around the country or the world.  Customers could check the status of their orders and pay for their orders online by credit card whenever they liked.  All of these new functions brought increased efficiencies for the business. “The Special pricing features in Tencia have been excellent. We can set special prices and discount percentages on a customer by customer basis and this then filters through to the e-commerce site automatically.  Now we spend less time chasing payments and trying to set discounts and margins and more time focusing on our core business,” she explains.

Nidac trade internationally therefore Foreign Currency processing was an everyday requirement for them. “I was particularly impressed with the Foreign Currency feature which allowed us to run Foreign Exchange Profit and Loss reports quickly and easily, this meant that we could manage our foreign currency much more effectively than we did in the past. I am really happy with the results, Tencia is an exceptional product,” explains Tristan.

Tristan says that the Bill of Materials feature was also well aligned to their needs. ”We are quite specialised in our needs and Tencia’s Bill of Materials feature was really strong so it was able to meet our requirements very well.  I also like the fact that there is no need to double handle data and all the updates that are made in Bill of Materials flow through to Stock and other parts of the system because Tencia is completely integrated,” she explained.

Confidence for future growth

These changes have had a positive impact on Nidac and have helped to deliver improvements to their bottom line.  According to Tristan, Nidac’s Tencia experience has definitely been a worthwhile venture. “We will continue to look for opportunities to take advantage of what Tencia has to offer well into the future as we look for new business and ways to enhance service to our customers.”