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Aidan Gray Home
Home Décor and Furniture
"The productivity gains from ACCTivate! have at least doubled our productivity."
Shelia Butler, COO
Shelia Butler, COO
ACCTivate! results
Company Snapshot
A new, fast-growing player in the home décor and furniture business, who has expanded their products into five lines: décor, lighting, candlesticks, garden and furniture.
Key Benefits
Better credit card processing with ACCTivate! and QuickBooks Merchant Service
Increased productivity, in which ACCTivate! has paid for itself
Improved customer service
Increased productivity, in which ACCTivate! has paid for itself
Improved customer service
Aidan Gray Home (aidangrayhome.com) of Farmers Branch, Texas is a new and fast-growing player in the home décor and furniture business.
The concept for Aidan Gray Home started in 2003 when company founder, Randal Weeks turned his passion of home décor and product design into a company partnership with his wife Sally, and graduate school classmate Shelia Butler.
The Aidan Gray line, which includes décor, lighting, candlesticks, garden and furniture, represents designs and authentic products that exhibit "European Grandeur."
The first two years of business saw tremendous growth. It brought them to a point where they were processing large volumes of orders and needing customer information at a click of a button.
"We started with QuickBooks and tried to make it work for us. It was great for financial information, however, it quickly became apparent that we needed a better way to handle customers, orders and inventory," said Butler.
Customer Service, including order processing and information management was of special concern. As a wholesale company, most orders are generated from major markets, and ship dates vary depending upon product availability and customer requested ship dates.
Although some customers are set up on N30 terms, a majority of their payments are processed via credit card.
This can prove to be challenging because "We don't bill the credit card until the order is ready to ship, which can be couple of months after the order is placed," explained Butler.
"However, sometimes the card doesn't go through and we don't want the warehouse person spending time pulling product for a customer that isn't approved," said Butler.
Also, the sheer volume of credit card processing was becoming overwhelming. "It was getting to the point where we were going to hire someone full-time just to process credit cards!" remarked Butler.
"We needed a fast and integrated way to process credit cards and a system smart enough to coordinate it all," said Butler.
As the business grew so did the need to keep up with customers. Their small staff needed a robust CRM system to let them quickly respond to customers with relevant information when needed.
They bought the system in December 2005 and went live on January 1, 2006.
"We worked hard and got it up and running pretty quickly with no major hurdles," said Butler.
"The productivity gains from ACCTivate! have at least doubled our productivity. If we kept going the way we were, we would have needed at least one more person on staff. So in that respect, ACCTivate! more than paid for itself," said Butler.
Aidan Gray gets tremendous benefit from the standard integration to QuickBooks Merchant Service credit card processing found in ACCTivate!. They simply enter the card in ACCTivate! and it is automatically processed online.
Butler commented, "This is amazing! We have seen a much lower error rate, time savings and serious productivity gains. It's better all the way around."
Aidan Gray has also seen dramatic improvement in the ability to respond to customer needs. Now, when a customer calls their office, they can lookup the customer in ACCTivate! before they even answer the phone.
"I can quickly see any action item like a customer service issue or complaint that we're working on. I'm never caught by surprise anymore."
The team at Aidan Gray exemplifies the hard-working entrepreneur who knows how to leverage technology to improve and increase productivity.
They knew they needed a system that didn't just process credit cards or help manage orders. They sought out and purchased a system that helps them manage their business. ACCTivate! and QuickBooks working together have met their needs and provide them with a powerful and affordable solution.
Butler summarized about their ACCTivate! system, "ACCTivate! is a great program for the price. It does everything that we need and is very adaptable for a wide variety of businesses. We love that it integrates to QuickBooks and QuickBooks Merchant Services so well. It's been a very good investment for our company."
The concept for Aidan Gray Home started in 2003 when company founder, Randal Weeks turned his passion of home décor and product design into a company partnership with his wife Sally, and graduate school classmate Shelia Butler.
The Aidan Gray line, which includes décor, lighting, candlesticks, garden and furniture, represents designs and authentic products that exhibit "European Grandeur."
The first two years of business saw tremendous growth. It brought them to a point where they were processing large volumes of orders and needing customer information at a click of a button.
"We started with QuickBooks and tried to make it work for us. It was great for financial information, however, it quickly became apparent that we needed a better way to handle customers, orders and inventory," said Butler.
Customer Service, including order processing and information management was of special concern. As a wholesale company, most orders are generated from major markets, and ship dates vary depending upon product availability and customer requested ship dates.
Although some customers are set up on N30 terms, a majority of their payments are processed via credit card.
This can prove to be challenging because "We don't bill the credit card until the order is ready to ship, which can be couple of months after the order is placed," explained Butler.
"However, sometimes the card doesn't go through and we don't want the warehouse person spending time pulling product for a customer that isn't approved," said Butler.
Also, the sheer volume of credit card processing was becoming overwhelming. "It was getting to the point where we were going to hire someone full-time just to process credit cards!" remarked Butler.
"We needed a fast and integrated way to process credit cards and a system smart enough to coordinate it all," said Butler.
As the business grew so did the need to keep up with customers. Their small staff needed a robust CRM system to let them quickly respond to customers with relevant information when needed.
They bought the system in December 2005 and went live on January 1, 2006.
"We worked hard and got it up and running pretty quickly with no major hurdles," said Butler.
"The productivity gains from ACCTivate! have at least doubled our productivity. If we kept going the way we were, we would have needed at least one more person on staff. So in that respect, ACCTivate! more than paid for itself," said Butler.
Aidan Gray gets tremendous benefit from the standard integration to QuickBooks Merchant Service credit card processing found in ACCTivate!. They simply enter the card in ACCTivate! and it is automatically processed online.
Butler commented, "This is amazing! We have seen a much lower error rate, time savings and serious productivity gains. It's better all the way around."
Aidan Gray has also seen dramatic improvement in the ability to respond to customer needs. Now, when a customer calls their office, they can lookup the customer in ACCTivate! before they even answer the phone.
"I can quickly see any action item like a customer service issue or complaint that we're working on. I'm never caught by surprise anymore."
The team at Aidan Gray exemplifies the hard-working entrepreneur who knows how to leverage technology to improve and increase productivity.
They knew they needed a system that didn't just process credit cards or help manage orders. They sought out and purchased a system that helps them manage their business. ACCTivate! and QuickBooks working together have met their needs and provide them with a powerful and affordable solution.
Butler summarized about their ACCTivate! system, "ACCTivate! is a great program for the price. It does everything that we need and is very adaptable for a wide variety of businesses. We love that it integrates to QuickBooks and QuickBooks Merchant Services so well. It's been a very good investment for our company."
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