In 2008 the company started using Intact Vline to run their business operations. Over time they expanded its use to cover more areas of the business and created a series of custom reports. Most recently they upgraded to Intact Xline for a more comprehensive business management platform on the latest technologies.
“I prefer Intact Xline to Sage, it’s far more user friendly. Once you learn how to do something in accounts, like adding a sales or purchase order, it’s basically the same process the whole way across the system,” said Michelle. “There's also a cost saving to be had – with Xline we only need one piece of software to run everything.”
The biggest benefit of Intact software, according to Tony Armstrong, Manager at MCD, is the traceability it provides. For example, when a sales order is printed off, a label is also printed for each product, displaying important information such as the associated purchase order number, sales order number, product details, quantity, and finish. These labels accompany products throughout the entire production process to ensure all products are clearly identified and traceable.
Alongside these tracking labels, MCD Engineering also use Xline to create work schedule reports that define the schedule for each workshop. These reports are updated as each production process is complete. “Twice a week, I run a report that tells me the status of each item in production,” said Tony.
“This report is really important because it gives us full visibility of what’s happening in the workshops and lets us provide regular updates to our customers. Our biggest customer comes into the office twice a week to find out where we are with their orders, and we can always tell them exactly what they need to know.”
Intact Xline has also simplified the quotation process by allowing the company to track quote revisions. With just a click, they can access the complete history of revisions, including any changes to the product, quantity or pricing and the reasons behind them. This comprehensive audit trail gives them total transparency throughout the quotation process.
There are currently 5 members of staff that have been trained to use the software, and Tony is very happy with how easy it is to train new users. “It’s really easy to teach the basics of the system. We know we can train people on it very quickly and that they'll be able to go off and use their part of it straightway. It’s just really easy to use - anybody can run a report, and anybody can check a product, and that’s really appealing to us.”
“Having Intact Xline is like having another member of staff.” - Michelle
Michelle believes that their business simply couldn’t function without their Intact system: “The first thing we do in the morning is to check Intact to see what’s going on in the business. It’s all there, all the information you need at your fingertips. We’d be completely and utterly lost without it; we just couldn't function.”
And Tony agrees: “The running of our whole business is based around our Intact software - from ordering to accounting to production reports, everything! If we didn't have it, we’d be scuppered because Intact Xline is the heartbeat of this office.”