Inventory Control, Point of Sale and Accounting features provide Bob's Golf Shop with critical control
It didn't take Bob Tape long to get into the swing of retailing with his golf shop. He attests that it was with the aid of Vigilant that he did so, starting off on the right foot by maintaining control over his inventory, finances, and the entire business. Located in Bell's Corners, a suburb of Ottawa, Bob's Golf Shop is owned by Bob Tape himself, and formally operated as a franchise. Now independent, Tape recalls those days.
"We originally got into the business as part of a franchise," he recounts. "But the franchise had no standard accounting packages. So I talked to a number of the other owners and they were using Vigilant." What attracted Tape and the other franchises to Vigilant? Aside from the recommendation of his associates, Bob Tape was initially drawn by its extensive features and, naturally, the affordable price tag.
"I wanted it first of all to look after my inventory and basically keep track of all my costs. I also wanted to be able to sell things at different prices and price my inventory -- so that if you bought a sleeve of golf balls you paid one price and if you bought a dozen you paid another," he explains. "And, of course, I wanted all the point-of-sale, invoicing and accounting that you need to go with that."
Inventory control is certainly crucial for golf shops' profitability. With as many as 15,000 "SKU's" (stock-keeping unit) or product codes necessary to track, it is not difficult to understand why. Vigilant effortlessly performs this task once the codes have been inputted. To further simplify the process, Vigilant has routines available to download product data and update information from other data sources. In the five years that Vigilant has been at work tracking inventory for Bob's Golf Shop, Tape has come to appreciate the ease-of-use and reliability of the product above all.
Bob's Golf Shop customers make payments for the majority of their purchases by cash, debit and credit cards. Vigilant finds no difficulty in dealing with any of these methods, accepting each one and more. "It also works very well for layaways and we've figured out how to use it for gift certificates as well," adds Tape. In addition, the store caters to country clubs, to whom Tape supplies with inventory on consignment. According to Bob Tape, Vigilant handles these various transactions with the smoothness of a Ben Hogan swing and the accuracy of a leader board. These capabilities are imbedded in Vigilant. As well, Vigilant tracks accounts payable, does bank reconciliation, maintains client contacts, and allows business owners like Bob Tape, to outline budgets. "The budgeting part of it has been very important to us," he supports.
Tape, over the years, has also discovered that Vigilant can be extremely simple to use, especially for his seasonal staff. "It's proven itself to be very simple. We can train people on it very quickly," he asserts. "The first year we used Vigilant, we called Vigilant help quite a bit because we were very inexperienced both in the business and with computers. But in the last year, maybe we have called them once or twice at most."
When he does decide to use the Vigilant help line he assures that he receives superior service, as well as adding that Vigilant has always taken his suggested improvements to heart and incorporated them into new upgrades.
"It's been a very good system for us," Bob Tape concludes. "And as time has gone on, we've realized that it can do so much more than we first realized. It's a very powerful system and been a very good deal."
