Gateway Parts

Gateway Equipment Parts & Services supplies late-model mining machinery equipment. Used and refurbished, the parts are offered at a far more affordable price point, which quickly established Gateway in the market. However, its fast growth was being hampered by outdated management systems.
With MYOB Exo, and support from AlphaBiz Solutions, Gateway Parts now has the visibility it needs to take on more jobs and unleash its potential for growth.

We are very confident that with the kind of support that AlphaBiz offers, Gateway Parts is headed in the right direction. We know that as our business grows, MYOB Exo will be able to scale up to accommodate its complexities.

Brett Baker, General Manager

An outdated system leads to data double handling

Since opening its doors in 2010, Gateway Parts’ rate of expansion shows little sign of slowing. But their growth was being held back due to the use of two disparate and outdated management systems. This led to data double handling, information not being captured fully, and time being wasted in manually compiling and maintaining critical information. They needed a system that would capture business information on an integrated platform and streamline their whole operation.

Gateway Parts’ General Manager Brett Baker explains: “On the surface, the business was doing quite well but I could see the staff morale and efficiency being affected due to our broken systems. We had to sit down for hours at the end of every month to match the numbers. Our job-costing software and accounting system weren’t integrated, so we had to enter almost all the information twice,” he says.

The worst part, says Brett, was the delay that it caused in invoicing customers, which affected that critical part of any business – cash-flow. Job planning and scheduling also suffered, with little visibility over the number of jobs booked, the expected income and expense for the month, the availability of parts, and staff capacity. This significantly affected Gateway Parts’ resource and financial planning.

“We needed a solution that could give us greater insight into all facets of our operations, along with the ability to operate with more control.”

Simple to use and highly scalable

To deliver the solution, Gateway Parts needed a local business partner who could bring strong experience in both mining and service industry, and the software expertise to help streamline the business and provide a high level of ongoing service and support as the business gears for growth.

As Brett explains, AlphaBiz Solutions brought that ideal mix: “They addressed each of our business issues and offered us a solution that best suited our needs.”

Before implementation, AlphaBiz identified Gateway Parts’ key requirements on top of the baseline of a fully integrated system. The system needed to be flexible, customisable and easy to use, while offering the ability to see job status, plan resources, and track equipment hours, labour hours and materials purchased. It also needed to track subcontractor costs and inventory used on jobs and projects and create multiple invoices and purchase orders for single jobs. In addition, the capacity to effectively manage stock quantity and valuation in real-time was a must-have. MYOB Exo Finance, with its CRM, Payroll and Job Costing modules presented the ideal solution. The “extremely powerful” job-costing module caught Brett’s eye in particular.

“The ability to create multiple invoices and purchase order against a single job and allocate costs and resources in real-time gave us greater visibility and control across the whole life cycle of a job, eliminating unallocated expenses and double entries”, he explains.

AlphaBiz Solutions went beyond simply implementing the system. With their support and training, says Brett, Gateway Parts staff “were up and running in no time, with greater confidence in the data.”

He continues: “MYOB Exo is highly customisable and offers all the functions we needed. It provides in-depth reporting, and visibility of data and activity all within one suite."

"Without MYOB Exo we would be spending hours maintaining hundreds of worksheets and rely on guesswork."

The confidence to grow

Feature-rich and easy to use, MYOB Exo has delivered greater control over all aspects of Gateway Parts’ business and streamlined its workflow. The positive impacts were immediately apparent.

“MYOB Exo completely eliminated the spreadsheets, which freed the staff from hours of manual data entry,” Brett says. “We’re invoicing faster and much more accurately, which improved customer satisfaction.”

Job booking, status, costing, profits and inventory can be seen in real time, and MYOB Exo seamlessly integrates CRM and job costing on one platform. This single ‘version of truth’ means Gateway Parts staff can complete their end-of-month reporting faster and more accurately. They’re also able to make better-informed decisions.

Gateway Parts has seen improvements in both its business process and profitability – and has the confidence to grow even more. With visibility over current projects, delivery times and allocated staffing resource, it can take on new jobs without the fear of conflicts or delays. Features like batch invoicing and creating sub-jobs for big projects have also increased overall efficiency and productivity, so the business can handle multiple jobs at a time.

With MYOB Exo supported by AlphaBiz Solutions, the future looks bright for Gateway Parts.

“MYOB Exo has given us the confidence to grow”, concludes Brett.