Mas 200 E Business Manager Module example essay topic

Child's play is serious business at Swing-N-Slide, manufacturers of wooden outdoor playground equipment. Twenty years ago, the only quality playground products designed for back yards were expensive, pre-cut wooden swing sets priced over $1,000. Swing-N-Slide recognized an unmet need, and began selling strong, durable and lower-cost playground projects. Today their line of do-it-yourself wooden playground equipment is the market leader in the United States, sold worldwide through 6,000 home center, building supply and hardware stores. Swing-N-Slide recognized the need for a robust financial system early on, and has used MAS 200 as its backbone for nearly a decade.

"MAS 200 has done everything for us almost since time began", says Scott La Course, IT manager". It manages our order processing and all the fundamental accounting functions, including payable's, receivables, general ledger and payroll. It's working so well that as we " ve grown, we haven't even considered switching products. We knew the right choice was upgrading to MAS 200 for SQL Server".

The customer database contains about 12,000 entries. Of those, between 4,000 and 6,000 are active retailers". I like being able to put a flag in theA counts Receivable module to indicate which partners are featured on our Web site retailer locator", La Course says". Their information goes straight from the database to the locator, which saves me a lot of time". Quarterly taxes are reported using the Magnetic Media module, in compliance with state requirements. "We just load the tax-related tables, and MAS 200 does the rest", La Course notes.

Accuracy Saves Money Major trading partners insist on their vendors communicating via an electronic data interchange (EDI). For five years Swing-N-Slide has used a third-party integrated module written specifically for MAS 90 and MAS 200 for transactions with its 20 biggest customers. "On a busy day, our EDI handles about 175 orders", notes La Course. "I doubt we could do that volume if we had to take orders manually and re key them into the system. Having an EDI interface means that our data in MAS 200 is very accurate".

Accuracy is also enhanced by a modification to the Sales Order module that checks for duplicate purchase order numbers. "Sometimes we get orders via EDI or fax and the purchase order number is already in the system", says La Course. "MAS 200 alerts us to avoid double shipments. A single order can run $15,000 and freight charges are considerable, so this one customization saves thousands of dollars".

Swinging Cyber Sales About a year ago, Swing-N-Slide ventured into e-commerce using the MAS 200 e-Business Manager module". We started small with a clearance store, offering items that would otherwise be obsolete so we wouldn't compete with our biggest retail partners", says La Course". The popularity of the site surprised everyone, including the marketing folks. We now offer 35 obsolete and discontinued items online, directly to consumers". La Course notes that managers throughout the company can log into MAS 200 and select products to appear on the clearance Web site. "I like them maintaining the online store themselves", he says.

"It's one less thing for my IT group to worry about". He also appreciates the tight integration between the Credit Card Processing module and e-Business Manager, providing seamless credit card transactions for online customers. Swing-N-Slide uses a custom modification from their reseller fore-Business Manager that ties several eCommerce sites to MAS 200. This has allowed them to run an e Business site for Premium products, and expand online offerings in the near future. "We " re rolling out a new line of skateboarding and rollerblading ramps", La Course says.