Pilot Computer and Office Supply uses Vigilant's multiple invoicing methods to maximize their sales opportunities

by Andy Shaw

For Tom Ptach, what's old is new. The Colorado-based business he purchased in the early months of 1998 dates back to 1880 and the origins of a town named Steamboat Springs. Known today as Pilot Computers and Office Supply, the firm has five areas of business and 30 product lines, comprising primarily of traditional office products and supplies. Tom and his 19 employees sell from a 6,000 square foot warehouse and with five delivery vehicles, Pilot is able to service clients not only in Steamboat, but its surroundings as well. These could stretch anywhere from their town, to the Utah
border 150 miles west.

Pilot is as diverse as they come, selling and servicing new computers along with an assortment of office equipment and supply. Tracking and accounting for each and every aspect of a business as unique as Pilot requires the ultimate in control. When it came time to choose a computerized accounting system, Ptach turned his attention to a leading name in experience and reliability. The company? Vigilant.

"I'm a CPA by background and I knew when I bought the company it was evident that it desperately needed automation," recalls Ptach. "Its inventory and handling systems were all manual and so were its cash registers. So one of my first goals was to automate everything I could both in the front and in the back - from point of sales to inventory control, customer billing, everything along those lines. We knew if we didn't automate we couldn't grow the business."

Ptach was also aware that his expertise in computers was not extensive. Consequently, he decided to hire a local consultant to investigate suitable systems for his newly acquired company. "It came down to about three we looked at seriously," he explains, "But the bottom line was that Vigilant had the best price for value by far."

Ptach decided on Vigilant, which gave him the freedom to process sales, as well as efficiently deal with accounts receivable, accounts payable and general ledger. What he received in Vigilant was the ultimate in inventory control, as well as the ability to carry out bank reconciliations, budgeting and even client contacts much more effectively. Later, Ptach decided to add Vigilant's Sales Orders, which served to aid him in processing phone-in orders, as well as the Repeat Billing add-on in order to track client's contracts.

"I think its strongest point is definitely the integration between all the modules," says Ptach. "It's very easy to move from point of sales to inventory to accounts payable to the general ledger when you're using the system. That's its strong point."

Ptach finds a particular advantage in the productivity. "I haven't used it to reduce the number of people we have. But the jobs they are doing now are definitely different and more varied because they're not spending so much time on manual data processing," Tom asserts. "They don't have to be filling in sales orders or credit tickets up at the front counter, for instance." This increased efficiency has enabled Pilot's business to grow well over 10 per cent in just a short time."Even with that growth, Vigilant has allowed me to continue with only one accountant. She's doing a little more work now because of our greater volumes but I certainly don't have to hire another person, and she doesn't have to do all those manual entries anymore."

United Stationers, Pilot's primary supplier of office products, carries 23,000 items in its extensive catalogue. Pilot carries 2000 of these items in regular stock for over-the-counter sales and typical corporate orders. In order to ease the process of ordering and receiving stock, Vigilant has integrated with United Stationers to upload products and prices for their quality catalogues. "But about a third of our business in that area comes from special orders out of the supplier's catalogue. What I expect our Vigilant inventory module to do for us is to track which catalogue items we're getting the most orders for. We can then take that item into inventory, and increase sales simply by having it available for our customers on the spot," Ptach clarifies.

Vigilant can also aid Pilot in maneuvering through the intricacies of special product pricing, discounts and sales, ensuring that his customers always receive the best price, a sound business principle around longer than even Pilot Computer and Office Supply.