Quality Material Handling Inc. makes client warehouses more efficient, flexible, and dynamic. Husband/wife duo, Hector and Brenda Pinto, started the business in 1991 on a folding table setup in their two-bedroom condo. The company outgrew its Sage 100 financial software and cobbled together paper and spreadsheet tracking system used for inventory, sales, and other operations. With Klear Systems as their guide, QMH deployed Acumatica Cloud ERP gaining a single solution to operate the business that led to improved inventory management, greater data transparency, and numerous operational efficiencies.  

 

“Klear Systems brought in a team of experts from all aspects of business and were able to help us with all of our different processes. They were awesome."

– Julia Pinto Cisneros, COO,
Quality Material Handling, Inc. 

 

 

Key Results

  • Gained one centralized ERP, increasing business performance visibility for management 
  • Leveraged the cloud, allowing QMH to expand its salesforce nationally
  • Provided information instantly, shaving time spent gathering data for reporting from hours to minutes 
  • Acquired easy-to-use solution, one that managers and employees love 
  • Improved inventory accuracy, streamlining operations and saving warehouse manager’s time 
  • Lowered month-end closing from months to less than 10 days, freeing CFO’s time
  • Eliminated paper spreadsheets, automating many business operations processes 

 

 

 

CHALLENGES

When Hector and Brenda Pinto’s former employer had difficulty meeting payroll in 1991, Hector made the bold decision that the two needed to quit. Arriving at home that day, he set up a card table and began calling his customers. Although he wasn’t working for the company any longer, he told his customers he would help with anything they needed.

By the week’s end, Hector landed a $16,000 contract that launched Quality Material Handling Inc. Starting his own business wasn’t his initial intention, and he quickly enlisted Brenda as the second employee. Anyone who knows Hector and his strong work ethic wasn’t surprised at the turn of events.

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After all, Hector, who emigrated from a small town in Honduras when he was 14, has always been a go-getter. His hardworking trait started when he was a small child selling unsold fruit and vegetables from the family stand to his neighbors at a discount so it wouldn’t spoil.

Now 30 years later, Quality Material Handling or QMH is making its own operations more efficient. Located in Rancho Cucamonga, California, QMH is committed to providing end-to-end solutions for companies with distribution, logistic and warehousing needs. From permit approval management to full-service execution from the ground up, QMH delivers unique solutions providing distinct value in record time.

“Quality Material Handling specializes in warehouse support solutions,” Hector says. “We have an entire team that does sprinkler systems, racking systems, permits, dock equipment, and our specialty is providing what others don't.”

The company is family run: As CEO, Hector heads sales, Brenda, CFO, takes on finance, and daughter Julia Pinto Cisneros, COO, oversees operations. There's even a spot for Julia's husband Ben Cisneros as the company’s Sales Manager. The company ran accounting on legacy Sage 100 on-premises that hadn’t been upgraded. Outside of the legacy system, they used paper and excel spreadsheets to track inventory, invoices, and everything else.

The accounting department was months behind. “It was very difficult to get a financial picture of where we were at in the business because we just didn't have all of the information in the system at month end, and it just took me so long to double check that it was accurate,” says Brenda.

 

 

Without Cloud ERP ‘We were out of commission’

When the Internet went down for an entire day in a previous location, Julia decided they needed a better financial software solution. “We didn’t have internet or phones because we were VOIP or email,” she says. “Without a cloud-based ERP, we were out of commission.”

“Sage 100 just wasn’t meant for our business,” Julia adds. “We had some add-ons, like Bill of Materials, and we also tried adding on a manufacturing module and project management. We tried implementing them but it was just too complicated.”

QMH maxed out its Sage user licenses, and the legacy software ran very slow, she says. Having purchased 13 seat licenses, their team was constantly managing who could work in Sage, she says, but because it ran on an in-house aging server, no one could use it outside the office.

“No one really outside of accounting benefited,” Julia says. “I couldn’t manage what was going on. To run a weekly operational meeting would take me a couple of hours just to export information, color code it, and figure out where orders sat. I couldn’t see a pick sheet, just open orders; I couldn’t see if something was backordered or whether it was invoiced or not.”

 

 

SOLUTION 

Search for New ERP: Cloud-Based, All-in-One Solution

Looking for a new ERP, Julia briefly considered Sage, which required an expensive upgrade. She also evaluated Oracle NetSuite before deploying Acumatica Cloud ERP.

“I heard negative things about NetSuite – how they get you in and then hike the rates, and with Sage, we would have to upgrade every workstation, and it still wouldn’t be cloud-based,” she says. Without the cloud access, they wouldn’t be able to expand the sales team.

 

Klear:  Business, Sage Experience

Klear Systems dove in and learned how QMH operated its various departments, a critical step prior to a deployment that later helps map QMH processes to Acumatica configurations to produce the outcomes and KPI’s QMH desired. “They brought in a team of experts from all aspects of business and were able to help us with all of our different processes,” says Julia. “They were awesome. They didn’t try to sell us anything but tried to understand our problems.”

Klear Systems initially suggested QMH retain Sage and try to fix what they had, but diving deeper, they recommended Acumatica Cloud ERP. “We learned they were doing a lot of things outside of Sage,” says Sam Khoury, Klear Systems managing partner and co-founder. “Sage was not providing the analytics needed for QMH to see different processing of installation orders and permit orders. There was no nice global view of their entire production.”

QMH had challenges with its inventory in Sage; some items would go negative when they had stock on hand, and they had a hard time figuring out why Sage reflected negative item situations.

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“The biggest limitation when a company comes from Sage is they don’t have customized reporting, dashboards, or the forecasting functionality that you get going to Acumatica,” Khoury says.

Julia liked the modern ERP system immediately because of its unique user licensing model, it is cloud-based, provides a mobile app, and it could scale with the business as they grew.

“Acumatica’s unique licensing model was huge for us,” Julia says.  “We had 13 users with Sage 100 and refused to buy more because it cost so much. With Acumatica, we pay a flat rate and have unlimited users so I can encourage everyone to use the software, including HR, marketing, sales, and the warehouse. Before, none of these departments had Sage installed on their computers.”

Because Klear Systems has deployed Sage throughout its 11 year history, the team knew how to efficiently export data from Sage and import it to other systems, which is often a time consuming part of any implementation.

“We don’t need anyone from Sage to explain things to us,” says Khoury. “We just ask for access and we know exactly what to do.” This knowledge allows the Orange County, CA based ERP provider to transfer Sage data to Acumatica in half the time it takes others. “It’s time consuming to bring data over because there’s no utility to do that,” he says.

Typically Klear Systems arrives on-site to implement new software, but because the project began just as the pandemic hit, more tasks fell on Julia to handle. “She saw the true potential of Acumatica and dug in and learned the system,” says Jessica Dominguez, senior ERP Application Consultant with Klear Systems. “She streamlined quite a bit of processes so that Acumatica could be the driver and show them where things stood in the production process, what the global view of orders was, and what was happening on the manufacturing side.”

Julia credits Klear Systems for the successful implementation. “Klear is amazing, and really helpful,” she says. “We had an honest relationship, and during the times when they didn’t allow me to run the show, they explained why something couldn’t be done one way but could be another.” 

“Sam runs a tight ship,” Julia adds. “He stretched me to insure I didn’t bring over messy, ugly data. But his perfectionism was what made the data transfer seamless.”

 

 

BENEFITS

Improved Data Visibility

The streamlined business processes included everything from sales quotes to inventory to invoicing and payments. It eliminated all the company’s separate data silos, multiple spreadsheets, and email paper trails.

“Acumatica simplified our order management processes, unifying our operations, making it easier to find information because it's all in a single business solution,” Julia says.  Approvals progress automatically through the system based upon the actions managers take.

Prior to Acumatica, I was the only person able to make inventory adjustments, and it became a bottleneck within our Sage software,” Julia says. “A lot of stuff would sit on my desk. Now, people can make entries, and I just need to go in, review, and click the approve button.”

 

 

Single Data Source Streamlines Tax Prep

With everything in one system, CFO, Brenda, submitted 2020 financial statements to the CPA on time for the first time. “Typically, we're about six months behind,” she says. “It took a while to clean up the data and ensure it was accurate. Now, because of Acumatica, we're doing timelier month-end closes. We have a real-time view of our financial status.”

Brenda closes out a month in Acumatica in about 11 days. She instantly views profit and loss statements, and quickly runs sales tax reports.  “The reporting in Acumatica has made a huge difference – a vast improvement from what we used to do,” she says. “Anybody with work in California knows that sales tax with all the different districts is not easy to manage. Acumatica enabled me to take my five reports down to one report. It is so simple now. The reduction in the time that I spend on a sales tax report is amazing beyond belief.”

Having real-time access to business information allowed QMH to make better decisions such as which products to cull or which to expand. “We were also able to see an increase in revenue across certain product lines with the access to the data,” Julia says.

 

 

Gained Easy-to-Use Solution

CEO, Hector Pinto, embraced Acumatica. “It’s very simple to use,” he says. “I can drill into the information that I want to see, and it gives me what I need. I love the fact that it has a mobile app and I can pull things up on my phone from home to create a quote really quick.”

 “Acumatica has been a game changer,” he says. “It’s made a huge difference in how we do things, how we can access everything we need from anywhere, and allowed our salespeople to work remotely.”

 

 

Improved Operations

Acumatica’s dashboards slashed the time it takes Julia to prepare for operations meetings. “It takes me about 15 minutes to look at the dashboards before we meet,” she says. “I've set up a dashboard with the key performance indicators I need to manage our business, which have been color coded.  We now look at the things that are the most important to us operationally.”

Klear’s Khoury says Acumatica’s drill down capabilities are monumental for anyone migrating from Sage to Acumatica. “That capability was really lacking in the old system. Now, QMH can run a financial report and drill down to see where the number came from, all the way down to bottom level detail, and that’s huge,” he says.

With Acumatica Cloud ERP, QMH salespeople can view inventory levels with accuracy. They now know if a product is out of stock or backordered, so they don’t worry about selling something QMH doesn’t have on hand or they can’t get.

 

 

Gained Platform for Growth

QMH executives are creating a 3-year strategic plan to grow into a national player offering new warehouse solutions and turnkey systems from concrete installation to lighting to sprinkler systems, among other efficiency enhancing warehousing products and services.

“If you want to grow rapidly like we are, you're going to need something that's going to keep pace with your growth. Acumatica allows you to scale, but still have control with approvals, with automation, with workflows, but more importantly, it’s cloud-based and goes wherever you are,” Julia says.

 

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“Acumatica has been a game changer. It’s made a huge difference in how we do things, how we can access everything we need from anywhere, and allowed our salespeople to work remotely.”

– Hector Pinto, Founder & CEO
Quality Material Handling, Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

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Ashley Lemus

Written by Ashley Lemus