Built For
Silver Ships
Manufacturer of aluminum work boats used by the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Corp of Engineers, etc.
Operations at a Glance
In need of inventory software that provides more bang for the buck and also works with QuickBooks.
A centralized inventory software connected to QuickBooks to manage complex inventory and manufacturing operations.
Continued growth since Acctivate was implemented in 2018.
Silver Ships, established in 1985, manufactures outboard and inboard-powered aluminum workboats for specific purposes such as patrolling, hydrographic surveying, buoy-tending, rescuing, etc. Silver Ships contracts with federal entities, including the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, as well as state, local, and commercial businesses.
Mediocre inventory software slowing operations down
CEO & Co-Owner
Silver Ships
Steven Clarke, CEO of Silver Ships, was not getting the value out of his previous inventory management software, so he knew the time had come for an upgrade. In a past life, Steven implemented ERP systems for a living and knew that a large, complex ERP system would be too complicated for a small organization. Instead, Silver Ships found Acctivate.
Where Acctivate is different is first, it works with QuickBooks, so I don’t need some expensive, complicated ERP, and second, QuickBooks does everything else we need otherwise. We do steady workflow manufacturing for big government contracts and custom builds for one-off contracts.
Acctivate gives us the flexibility we need to do this and is powerful enough that we can build all of our BOMs into sales orders for each project and keeps everything organized by a system using our engineering naming nomenclature, which we borrowed from the navy.”
A centralized inventory solution compatible with QuickBooks to ensure smooth running operations
Since 2018, Acctivate has played a crucial role in Silver Ships’ operations.
Acctivate is the most critical software for my business, even over Excel. The flexibility of the inventory system, the sales orders, the kits, the parts, allows us to customize everything to work better with our business processes.”
Landed Cost
Silver Ships imports many materials for manufacturing their boats, so Acctivate’s Landed Cost feature is used frequently.
The majority of our materials come from the U.S., as well as Canada, Greece, and Italy. Our contract with the U.S. Navy requires critical components that come from Italy. Brokerage fees, shipping, and several fees beyond freight go into importing these items. We add those fees into our invoices as landed cost because it is critical we get an accurate job costing.”
Shipping Workstation
With boats going overseas as far away as Guam and Okinawa, shipping can be an extensive process for Silver Ships. Acctivate’s Shipping Workstation helps to manage these processes as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
So, we use UPS Shipping Workstation, and we’re required to support all of our boats after delivery when spare parts are needed. Buyers don’t need to buy spares from us, but we give them the option, and they usually do buy from us. When we ship, the whole system works elegantly and seamlessly, when we invoice them with the sales order through Acctivate.
It’s easy to train someone new on it, and while it isn’t the most significant part of our business, it is a critical part, so it’s good that it is so easy.”
Custom Reporting
Custom reporting is a significant part of day-to-day operations for Silver Ships.
Creating custom reports has been critical. A lot of the reports we use all the time, including the preloaded reports, but we have a dozen custom reports we rely on. One of the most important custom reports we use is a missing parts list report. When we have a new job, we run the report based on the job, and it gives a readout of what parts are allocated to the boat. If we’re out of stock, the report also lets us know if they are on order or we need to order.”
With Acctivate, Steven spends much less time trying to create accurate reports than with the former disjointed system in place.
I used to spend a lot of time doing job costing in Excel using QuickBooks and a different inventory software. Now, with Acctivate, using the commission report for an alternative purpose, its just a couple of clicks and I get accurate contribution margins broken down by revenue expenses for each line item, and the total at the bottom. Now I have the updated contribution margin for each boat. It works great.”
Very Happy with Acctivate
With six years of growth under its belt, Silver Ships continues to benefit daily from Acctivate.
If I could use one word to describe Acctivate it would be flexibile, which is great.”
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