Case Study - Eagle Vehicle Specialists

Introduction

We first met Eagle Specialist Vehicles via a referral from someone in our network back in February 2024. They were looking to change accounting systems as the license for their system was expiring in August 2024.

For 75 years, Wilcox has innovated with luxury craftsmanship and technology. Wilcox’s excellence ensures the best products and services for funeral directors. As a third-generation family business, Wilcox takes pride in its values and heritage.

4PointZero are a systems implementation firm that supports businesses of various sizes with their financial processes. The team work directly with the client to recommend the best financial solutions for their business.

Situational Analysis

When we first spoke to Eagle Specialist Vehicles (ESV) they are were using SAGE 1000 on-premise solution.  They had also recently implemented an operational ERP system (EMAX) to handle their CRM and Manufacturing processes. This was set up as a stand-alone system; payroll systems were not integrated, resulting in large inefficiencies with SAGE 1000 across all financial processes.

ESV were having difficult time accessing key information for the business. Even at a basic level they were struggling to extract core financial statement reports. Beyond this, they had almost no insight into the profitability of their contract or each project/manufacturing process. To collect relevant information, the staff had to undertake a time-consuming exercise pulling together and reconciling data between several different spreadsheets. This process created various issues around cost control, data duplication and accuracy of information. Therefore, there was a large desire to give staff more time to focus on analytical processes instead of focusing on administrative tasks. This includes the head of finance, who spent large amounts of time collecting data and preparing reports manually. She wanted to spend her time improving operations and selling as this was a large opportunity cost to the business.

ESV was not able to utilize any modern functionality around the supply and reconciliation of bank data and/or OCR scanning functionality and online/mobile procurement workflows. The bank reconciliation process was taking approximately 2 days to complete. The business was operating with paper-based invoices and manual approvals, which was a time-consuming aspect of the business. It was therefore important for them that the new system would allow them to have a fully integrated A/P purchase to pay, invoicing, cash disbursements and bank reconciliation functionality. They also wanted to be able to approve invoices and expenses within the system.

Fixed assets and stock sheets were also prepared manually via spreadsheets. As the company is an asset heavy business and has some challenges around revenue recognition/deferred revenue, it was a desire to have a robust process in place for managing assets. They therefore also required a fully integrated fixed asset function linked to products and AP.

As they had been heavily relying on multiple spreadsheets for reporting in the past, they wished for a system where they can create custom reports and easily produce financial statements for their management accounts. Access to data and time to report delivery in the past has cost the organisation time and money in manual processing. As a result of this, they also wished for the ability to create dashboards to easily gain an overview of the business on a day-to-day basis.

System Recommendations 

ESV was interested a few different software options when we started working with them. We therefore decided to demo three different options for them to ensure that they chose the one they felt aligned with their needs the most.

They ended up choosing Xledger as they felt this would be the best fit for them.

Implementation

ESV’s Sage 1000 license expired in August, so they therefore needed to go live by then. As we made initial contact with them in the start of April, it needed to be a quick turnaround to make sure their new Xledger system was set up and ready for them to use by the go live date.

One of the main challenges during the implementation process was organising the historical data. As ESV had been relying on multiple spreadsheets to reconcile data, we needed to ensure that the historical data going into Xledger was as accurate as possible. ESV originally wanted 7 years of detailed historical data imported, however we were not able to fulfil this as the data that we were able to extract from SAGE 1000 did not have enough details to organise it in a meaningful way.

To give ESV the ability to drill down on data we restructured their COA and created cost centres, that way they can organise data in a way that works for them. This also allows them to set up reports, dashboards and budget going forward. We also set up fully integrated purchase functionalities, allowing the team to raise and approve PO’s all within the system.

Training

The initial training phase was done using Xledger’s new training platform, Xledger Equip UK. The finance team at ESV was given access to the platform and were able to complete the basic training at their own pace.

Once the initial training was done and the system had gone live, we held detailed training sessions explaining the different screens they would be using. We have continued to assist the ESV finance team with queries and training as and when they felt it was needed.

Project outcomes and Final Notes

As with any project, there were some challenges along the way, but in the end the project was very successful. We want to say a huge thank you to the ESV team for choosing to work with us and being so good spirited in this period that has involved a lot of big changes. We look forward to continuing working with ESV and help them get an even greater understanding of their new system and internal processes.