JV Marine Success Story 

 JV Marine Rides Wave of Water Sport Popularity with ACCPAC  

Riding the swell in water sport popularity, Victoria’s JV Marine (www.jvmarine.com.au) has become Australia’s largest ‘one-stop-shop’ for boating, fishing and other water pursuits.  Today it is a multi-million dollar business with a 10 acre supersite that incorporates extensive boat manufacture, assembly and service operations, and multiple retail interests from fishing tackle to marine accessories.  

The company originally managed its financial data with a system that was custom-designed by a small local team. As it expanded, however, JV Marine felt it needed to move to a mainstream system that could handle a larger volume of data, and was guaranteed future developments and support.    Steve Haralambous, CFO of JV Marine, said, “It’s a very exciting time for JV Marine, with massive growth in multiple directions. Our assembly and service teams are booking more jobs than ever – sometimes hundreds a day - making the tracking and cost management of projects a business critical activity. Inventory management is also extremely important. Plus our retail arm is taking off, so we need a point-of-sale solution that seamlessly integrates with our core financial system".  

“We also need all our financial, sales and inventory information to be available on demand at remote stations because boat shows are a major activity for us. For example, the four-day Melbourne Boat Show represents hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales for us. To service customers at the show, we need the latest information on product prices, specifications and availability. And we need to be able to quickly pour any sales data back into our core database afterwards.  

“The information we require isn’t just from our departments, though.  Although we have 30,000 items in a 1,000m2 store, we simply can’t stock every item that we offer. Therefore, from our system we need to be able to access external suppliers’ databases for information such as product pricing and availability. Because of this, and because of our future plans for web-based sales, we need a system that is web-enabled"".  

“Most importantly, though, we need a tightly integrated system that enables us to pull data from any arm of our business, into any report we need to help us manage such rapid and multi-dimensional growth.”  

Finding a single, affordable solution that could support its multiple interests and business objectives however, initially proved difficult, until JV Marine recruited management information specialists & systems integrator, Online Computer Systems, and discovered ACCPAC.   With guidance from Online Computer Systems, JV Marine installed an integrated 50-user solution from ACCPAC, incorporating its Advantage Series Financials, Service Manager and ePOS (Point of Sale) packages. These run on a Pervasive SQL server. Authorised remote users can also access company-wide data via terminal services, Citrix clients, the Web, PDAs and other mobile devices.   This integrated group of ACCPAC applications were chosen for their ability to cater for such a diverse requirement set, across all divisions, ‘straight from the box’. ACCPAC also integrates seamlessly with Crystal Reports, Excel, Word and ACCESS to provide management with critical KPI reports on a timely basis.  

ACCPAC Service Manager has brought greater efficiencies to JV Marine’s boat servicing activities.   “ACCPAC handles our entire process from birth to grave. Not only does it give us instant service status per customer and product. It also means we always know where stock is, what the history of a product or component is, what margins we’re making, what our most profitable offerings are, and so on,” said Mr Haralambous.  

Additionally, ACCPAC automates and enforces many best-practice workflow procedures. This is proving useful in making the sales process for new boats consistent and thorough, for example. The system ensures that once contracts are signed, finance is approved and the boat is detailed in accordance with customer specification before a Quality Assurance check is done. Only then is the boat registered. Then, once payment is received, the customer is briefed on their boat before being allowed to take it away.  

Importantly, the ACCPAC system also issues automatic maintenance notices, which boosts after-sales revenue.   The ACCPAC Point of Sale system – which extends both to the shop and show counters - fully integrates to the financial back-office allowing for imperative functions such as unlimited price lists, discount structures, simple alterations to pricing, and in-depth product reporting.   ACCPAC also enables customer-facing staff to provide instant answers to questions regarding product specifications, price and availability – even if products are not currently in the ACCPAC database. If a product is requested, ACCPAC searches the relevant supplier’s databases for the product information, and this is automatically added to the ACCPAC database when an order is made. This improves customer service and loyalty, which in turn lifts sales.  

Mr Haralambous said, “ACCPAC is a really stable and flexible system. This is vital with a remote salesforce, and especially when we transport our entire database to shows, which represent our most intense periods of sales and marketing activities. Now, following a show, we can simply synchronise our show database with the one at headquarters, without rekeying, and instantly run reports using up-to-date and accurate data.”   He added, “What I really love about ACCPAC is that its open architecture allows me to interrogate the database in any way I choose. Our queries are only limited by our imagination. That means we can take quickly take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself – which is a significant advantage in a highly competitive industry.”   In the near future, JV Marine plans to move into web sales, using ACCPAC e-Transact to achieve a nationwide reach. When installed, JV Marine’s web sales will be fully integrated into the ACCPAC back-office system, with the ability for staff to review new orders prior to acceptance into the live system without re-keying.