Rose Financial's Blog
RFS ERP Upgrade Project
by Rose Financial on 10/17/11
Dear Executives:
Over the past 17 years, Rose Financial Services, the Premier U.S. Based Finance and Accounting Outsourcing Firm, has upgraded 100's of accounting and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. During this time we have incrementally improved our own ERP by adding new modules as the need would arise. In the first quarter of 2011 we took a fresh look at our financial systems. Our ERP system includes close to ten separate applications that include the following:
|
PRODUCT |
PURPOSE |
|
Accounting software (Off the Shelf) |
Bill paying, invoicing, cash management, financial reporting, fixed asset tracking, sales and use taxes |
|
Payroll Software and Service |
Pay employees and payroll tax filings |
|
Time and Expense Reporting Package |
Track Time and Bill Rates, Track Utilization, Track project actual budgeted hours and costs vs. budgets, Reimburse Employees for expenses and charge through to clients |
|
Project Management Tools |
Creation of Project Plans that include deliverables and due dates, Client Calendars, Employee Assignments and schedules |
|
Human Resource Administration Tools |
Track employee census information, benefits administration, and compensation |
|
Purchasing and invoice approval tools |
Approve purchases in advance and invoices for payment |
|
Business Modeling Software |
Create three year plan, annual plan, relevant metrics, and track actual to plan |
|
Marketing and Sales Force Automation Software |
Generate and track new leads, proposals throughout the sales process |
|
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) |
Track relevant client information and share with appropriate staff including website integration |
|
Case Management |
Track client requests and issues and follow through to resolution |
While our finance and accounting system is adequate to handle our current business objectives, we asked ourselves, “How do we respond to our growth?” Can we manage RFS effectively at two to ten times our size? Our system is integrated in certain areas, but other areas required duplicate entry or the use of spreadsheets to fill in gaps. We determined that our system is not scalable in a cost-effective manner.
We surveyed the market place and identified one solution that addressed the majority of our system requirements. The answer we came up with was NetSuite with OpenAir. It is a cloud-based ERP solution with a single data source that has the following:
|
Sophisticated ERP that can handle all our finance and accounting requirements. |
|
Integrated payroll module that interfaces with a big three payroll firm. |
|
OpenAir: A fully integrated project management system with online time and expense tracking. This solution can also create Project Online Workspace to effectively share information and documents across teams and with clients. |
|
Human Resource Module that can be customized to meet our requirements. |
|
Purchasing Module . |
|
Open architecture that can integrate with RFSWorkflow and RFSPayables. |
|
Fully integrated check processing and ACH services. |
|
Sophisticated and fully integrated world-class CRM solution that can handle sales force automation, client data management, and case management. |
|
Single data-source, cloud-based solution that will eliminate redundant data entry and the need for RFS to support the related IT infrastructure. |
Once we recognized the enormity of the value proposition, our senior team decided that not only will we upgrade our own ERP to NetSuite but that RFS will partner with NetSuite to bring this solution to our current and future clients. That partnership was formalized this past summer.
Our ERP upgrade will happen in four phases:
· Phase 1 – Marketing and Sales Force Automation – CRM part 1
· Phase 2 – Accounting and Human Resource Systems – ERP
· Phase 3 – Project Management including Time and Expense Reporting
PP Phase 4 - Full CRM including Case Management – CRM part 2
Over the next few months I intend to share my experiences with all of you as we upgrade RFS’ internal finance and accounting system. This will be done through tweets, blogs and additional posts to www.rosefinancial.com . I hope you find this chronology helpful as you assess the effectiveness of your own ERP.
Sincerely,
President and CEO
