Ribbon roller company saves administration staff by using Vigilant's integrated software to carry out all the accounting and other time consuming functions

Thought typewriter ribbons were a thing of the past? Think again. Laser, bubble, ink-jet, thermal and other no-impact printers may have pushed the IBM Selectric and its ilk off the desktop forever, but one company is proving there is, in fact, still a tidy business in making printer ribbons. And they owe this to some highly efficient financial control software and your spending habits.


"About 90 percent of our sales come from our printer ribbon cartridges for cash registers and point-of-sale equipment," announces Les Berman, co-owner and manager of Canadian Ribbon Rollers Inc., in Toronto, Ontario. Ribbon Rollers supplies ready-to-go printer cartridges to a number of the best-known cash register and point-of-sale original equipment manufacturers.

"It's a very labor intensive business," Berman explains, "So we are competing with firms in areas of Asia, such as Malaysia where labor is cheaper." Berman says he and partner Gary Myers keep Ribbon Rollers ahead of their competition by delivering consistent quality and by keeping their administrative structure pancake flat. Berman and Myers run the company without secretarial or clerical help. They maintain that this is due to a comprehensive business package from Vigilant.

"We used to have a bookkeeper do a lot of the accounting, but as more and more of the Vigilant software came on the line, the need for that person fell away," he admits. "We haven't needed anyone in an accounting position for four years now, even though our
volumes have gone up over that same period." With Vigilant, Berman says it takes little time to accomplish virtually every task himself. "The system as a whole is a very complete package. Starting off with Order Entry, what we have also includes Bill of Materials, Purchase Orders, Inventory, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger and Payroll-just about everything."

With more than 10 years experience with Vigilant, Berman is intimate with its capabilities and has even found out how to make it work for Ribbon Rollers' marketing.

"We've been using Vigilant since the mid 1980's and we've never needed to have anything customized for us. So it is not costly. But the people we deal with at Vigilant are very good about listening to suggestions. They'll often incorporate them as improvements in the next version or upgrade." Aside from being a great relationship builder with customers, Vigilant has kept its own clients satisfied with ease of use and, as told by Berman, being responsive.

"It's great," Gary Myers praises, "I am computer illiterate, but I have no problems with Vigilant. It does exactly what you want it to do. And the fact that I can use it, says a hell of a lot."