Category: Uncategorized

Real-Time Data Sage X3: Manufacturing Process advantage.

Real-time data with supply chain and logistics issues likely to persist through 2023 and potentially into the following year, manufacturers need on-demand insight into what’s happening across their entire operation, from inventory arrivals to production floor processes to product shipping details. 

As noted by the State of Service Level Objectives (SLOs) 2022 survey, however, less than half of manufacturing firms say they have visibility into the impact of current operations on meeting service-level objectives. This creates a productive paradox: While manufacturers recognize the need for increased process diversity to align with evolving supply chain and logistic impacts, lacking visibility can create additional complexity, in turn frustrating efficiency. 

The result? Real-time data is now a critical component in manufacturing success. Here’s how Sage X3 can help. 

The Trouble with Real-Time in Manufacturing Processes 

Processes on the production floor happen in real time. For example, if a piece of machinery fails or a staff member makes an error, the results are immediate and potentially disruptive. What’s more, these problems have a downstream effect — critical component breakage could slow or entirely stop production further down the line. 

While there’s no way to fully eliminate these problems, companies must know as much about what’s happened as soon as possible. Consider a sudden equipment failure. Even if data is collected every five minutes, the lag time between incident and information could lead to significant disruptions in performance until the issue is identified and remediated, after which companies still need to work through production backlogs until they’re back on track. 

Using process management tools that provide real-time data, meanwhile, offers immediate insight. In the scenario above, this means notification would directly follow incident, in turn alerting floor managers to the problem and allowing them to pause production until the error was fixed.  

While in both cases production suffered, the first saw a disconnect between incident and response followed by a backlog of orders — the second saw a stoppage of work but one that minimized the overall impact. 

Put simply, the problem with time in manufacturing is that there’s never enough. Losing even more time to delayed data collection makes it harder to stay on track, and almost impossible to get ahead. 

Keeping it Real (Time) with Sage X3 

Sage X3 process manufacturing solutions let firms take control of product consistency, production planning, and compliance with access to accurate and reliable real-time data. 

Key benefits of the Sage X3 solution include: 

Complete responsiveness 

With access to real-time data, it’s possible for companies to respond more quickly as consumer demands shift and purchasing requirements change. Long data lead times, meanwhile, can put businesses behind the curve when it comes to pinpointing key trends and ensuring operations stay on track. 

Product consistency 

Consistent product production reduces the risk of recall. This isn’t simply a time-saver — it can also help companies control costs by eliminating the need for expensive product redesign and redistribution. In addition, consistent processes make it possible to scale production up (or down) on demand to meet changing customer needs. In practice, however, this kind of consistency depends on the agility provided by real-time data — the data offered by Sage X3. 

Consistent compliance 

Compliance in manufacturing processes is rapidly getting more complex, especially as businesses branch out into global markets. Equipped with real-time data, companies are better prepared to provide the requested information to regulatory bodies and are better equipped to navigate evolving compliance expectations. 

Anytime access 

Real-time data only delivers on its potential if it comes with anytime, anywhere access. With Sage X3, managers and team leaders can quickly access the information they need, when they need it to get a clear picture of operations.  

Taking Ownership of Key Operations 

For manufacturing firms to see sustained success, operational ownership is critical. With supply chain disruptions continuing even as consumer expectations evolve and costs increase, even small problems in current processes can significantly impact processes. 

As a result, companies can’t afford to ignore the impact of real-time data. The more they know and the quicker they know it, the better positioned they are to make data-driven decisions that help boost output and reduce downtime. With Sage X3, businesses can bridge the gap between what they know and what they need to know — whenever and wherever it happens. 

Don’t keep using data processes that leave you behind the times. Take ownership of manufacturing processes with real-time process manufacturing solutions from Sage X3. 

Ready to own your operations in real time? See how IWI Consulting Group can help. Let’s talk. 

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Sage Intacct Dimensions: An Intelligent Solution for Hidden Problems

You can’t fix what you can’t see. This is the challenge for many small and midsize businesses when it comes to accounting and financial reporting processes. Critical data is often obscured thanks to increasingly complex processes, and many companies struggle to keep pace with the speed of reporting necessary for digital transactions.

The result? Hidden problems which can lead to significant and far-reaching impacts on your finances. Sage Intacct Dimensions offers an intelligent, automated solution to help fix financial frustrations. Here’s how it works.

Big Challenges for Small Businesses

As both B2C and B2B sales have shifted to a digital-first model, the volume of financial data handled by businesses has increased exponentially. Despite best efforts by companies to keep up, the multi-state nature of data generation and storage — from internal processes to customer websites to mobile applications — creates a situation where businesses are often flying financially blind.

Best case scenario? Some data points are missing or incorrect, leading to minor errors in calculation and reporting. Worst case? Financial errors create compound problems that could put business operations in jeopardy.

According to recent survey data, complexity creates challenges on both sides of the payment paradigm. For businesses making payments, 45% said that manual invoice review was one of their top challenges. It makes sense: If mistakes were made on invoice calculations or data was entered incorrectly, the resulting errors could have negative impacts on the entire business ecosystem. For B2B purchasers, meanwhile, 47% said they faced challenges in anticipating when payments would arrive, in turn making it difficult to predict cash flow and liquidity.

How Sage Intacct Dimensions can Help

Sage Intacct Dimensions offers a flexible foundation for your financial reporting. Instead of relying on legacy tools and manual processes that could introduce data entry errors or duplicate efforts that mean more work for you and your team, Dimensions lets you get the best of both worlds: Complete financial control backed by robust cloud resources.

iwi consulting group sage intacct dimensions blog

iwi consulting group sage intacct dimensions blog

 

Dimensions offers four key benefits to help boost your business impact:

1) Real-time reporting

First up is real-time reporting. Rather than waiting for daily or weekly data roundups, Dimensions makes it possible to produce up-to-the-minute financials that reflect the current state of business operations, rather than an out-of-date picture that could negatively impact decision-making.

2) Simplified account charts

For most companies, a hard-coded chart of accounts structure remains the most common approach to tracking and managing account data. The problem? As the number of account codes increases across locations, departments, and projects, you can end up with an unmanageable set of codes. Consider a company with 3 locations, 5 departments, and 5 projects. Just to manage this small slice of business operations requires 75 codes — while adding a new project or location could add hundreds of new codes. With Sage Intacct Dimensions, you simply set up your primary account code and the software handles the rest.

3) Complete business tracking

Dimensions lets you “tag” both transactions and operations data with specific values, in turn letting you easily add business context. Tagging can be used for general ledgers, receivables, payables, time revenue management, and fixed assets, just to name a few. As your business grows, add more tracking dimensions to help reduce total complexity.

4) Streamlined reports

Featuring full integration with Sage Intacct’s financial report writer, Dimensions makes it easy for your teams to add context and improve reporting accuracy. Simply select from drop-down lists to filter, group, and organize data by dimensions to connect key reports and provide on-demand data access.

In combination, these benefits not only help your business better manage accounts payable (AP), procurement, and supply chain processes but also make it possible to detect and address previously hidden problems.

Consider a financial reporting system that seems to be working as intended. With Sage Intacct Dimensions, your team can take a deep dive into the system itself to see where financial functions are effectively operating and where improvements can be made. Moreover, you may discover areas of potential conflict that were previously hidden. For example, real-time reporting with simplified account codes could help you pinpoint issues such as duplicated invoices or accounts that are costing your business time and money.

Ready to discover what’s happening under the surface and discover new ways to improve financial operations? Start with Sage Intacct Dimensions.

Contact IWI Consulting Group today to get started. Let’s talk.

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Switching to Cloud Accounting Software

More firms are now switching to cloud accounting software. Here’s the list of benefits, why to make the move and how to make it successful.

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Tools to Improve Business for Sage 300 Users

One of the most significant benefits of implementing an ERP solution is the ability to customize the software. That said, some softwares integrate with more tools, and more efficiently than others.

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New Things are Happening at IWI Consulting Group

Great things are happening at IWI Consulting Group:

We’ve added new products, new employees, and new promotions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Product: Sage Intacct

 

IWI is now a Value Added Reseller to sell and implement Sage Intacct. This is a cloud accounting solution that can also be used for light distribution.

  • Sage Intacct’s core financials includes everything you need to increase productivity, make faster decisions, and grow your business.
  • As your business expands, Sage Intacct can support that growth with advanced accounting modules.
  • If you have unique business needs, Sage Intacct can be extended and customized to meet them.

Learn more.

 

 

New Employee: Keith Kusek, Manager of Strategic Accounts

Keith joined the IWI team in July as a Strategic Account Sales Manager, focusing primarily on bringing in new Sage Enterprise customers.  He is originally from Chicago, where he attended Illinois State University. He originally worked in the financial industry, and was transferred to Toronto for work in 1987. After a short job transfer to the U.K., he returned to Toronto where he met his wife and put down permanent roots in the GTA.

Prior to joining the IWI team, Keith worked for an impressive list of well known companies in the ERP arena, including NetSuite and Oracle. When he turned 50, Keith decided to go out on his own and use his wealth of experience to focus on manufacturing and was involved in the beginning of what we now know as the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2017 he realized he missed the ERP field and, through a Sage connection, was introduced to IWI where his focus is on discreet and process manufacturing clients with some distribution business in the mix.

When he’s not working you are likely to find Keith at the gym or hiking with his dog or enjoying 18 holes on the golf course.

 

 

 

New Promotion: $500 Referral Award

Refer someone who becomes a new client and you will receive a $500 donation to a charity of your choice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

South Asian Autism Awareness Centre

IWI Consulting Group is committed to the South Asian Autism Awareness Centre (SAAAC). Recently, we were a main sponsor for the 10th anniversary Radiant Night Gala at the Scarborough Convention Centre. This is SAAAC’s biggest fundraising event of the year. Monies are used to provide critical autism services to over 250 families. Check out images of the gala on SAAAC’s Facebook page.

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