Located on the western peninsula of Lake Michigan, Mr. Z’s Fundraising provides a vast selection of food products, merchandise and subscriptions to fundraising groups throughout the United States. Since 1974, Mr. Z’s has helped thousands of non-profit organizations raise millions of dollars.

The Challenge

Four years ago, Mr. Z’s was evaluating financial management solutions to find one that would support their existing fundraising order entry and fulfillment program, and process their accounting data in real time. At that time, Mr. Z’s partnered with NexLAN, an AccountMate Elite Business Partner, and selected AccountMate Software as their business solution based on its flexibility for integrating to their existing fundraising software.

Using AccountMate to solve their core accounting requirements and their fundraising software to handle their order entry and fulfillment needs, Mr. Z’s was “completely satisfied with the integration of the two software systems”, says J. C. Braga, Controller, Mr. Z’s. For several years following the installation, business processes were handled seamlessly and effortlessly.

Suddenly, Mr. Z’s experienced a dramatic shift in business with the acquisition of a larger competitor. With business and accounting transactions doubling overnight, Mr. Z’s needed a financial solution that would support their new business model and replicate the functionality of the complex commission payout structure that their new sales associates were previously accustomed. “We suddenly needed a business solution that would grow with our company and solve our commission payout challenge,” says Braga.

The Solution

Immediately after their latest acquisition, Mr. Z’s contacted NexLAN regarding the scalability of the existing AccountMate installation. “We’re used to clients contacting us to reflect business changes into their financial management systems—that’s what we do—but we don’t get calls every day about a business doubling in size. Fortunately, we do get them occasionally, and I was confident we’d be able to meet the challenge”, says Dave Pettigrew, NexLAN Senior Systems Analyst.

NexLAN quickly determined that AccountMate’s inherent multi-company features and use of Microsoft SQL Server as a database provided the scalability to meet Mr. Z’s new business requirements right out of the box. The company they purchased was thus added as an additional company with its own chart of accounts and separate user security. This enabled Mr. Z’s to manage two separate business entities with the same accounting and financial solution, ultimately producing a seamless company interface and saving them employee training time and money.

Another acquisition hurdle faced by Mr. Z’s was the challenging employee compensation payout issue. Commission calculations and reporting were time consuming, manually generated and often inaccurate. To handle the complex commission calculations, NexLAN leveraged the existing AccountMate logic which determines commissionable sales based on payments received to develop a custom commission reporting system. This did not require modifications to the core AccountMate software so future upgrades will be seamless. Additionally, the customized reporting system eliminated manual complex commission calculations.

The Results

After working with NexLAN to implement these out-of-the-box solutions, Mr. Z’s accounting and financial reporting processes have significantly stabilized. Adds Braga, “without AccountMate software, our company couldn’t function. This program has given our company a solid foundation to grow our business.” While literally doubling the size of its business overnight, Mr. Z’s quickly assimilated the new operation with no expense in additional accounting software or personnel training in the financial management systems.

Development of a commission calculation and reporting system that satisfies their unique requirements has replaced hours of monthly manual commission calculations with minutes of report generation. “We’ve eliminated the inaccuracies and saved a ton of time calculating commissions, forecasts and percentages”, says Braga. The net result is that Mr. Z’s has completely integrated their recent acquisition as a successful business unit.

About the Client

Mr. Z’s has been helping non-profit groups raise millions of dollars since 1974. Mr. Z’s is a full line, full service company that services the Continental United States. Mr. Z’s provides hundreds of different products from Z-licious frozen pizza, quality gift items, gift wrap, candy products and magazine subscriptions.
www.mrzsolutions.com

About NexLAN

NexLAN is recognized as a leading technology partner in the Midwest. NexLAN was selected by Accounting Technology as one of eleven Killer VARs in 2005 and “Top 100 Pacesetter” by Accounting Technology in 2005, 2006 and 2007. NexLAN is an AccountMate Elite Solution Provider and value-added-reseller specializing in mid-tier manufacturing/accounting solutions and custom software development.
www.nexlan.com

About AccountMate

Founded in 1984, AccountMate develops and markets fully modifiable business accounting software. Systems range from single user versions to those that support hundreds of users simultaneously. AccountMate software is distributed exclusively through a worldwide channel of authorized solution providers. AccountMate can be reached at (800) 877-8896 or at www.accountmate.com