The metal industry is no different from any other industry, with the same pains and gains - like modernization opportunities, supply chain challenges, labor shortages, globalization, rapid and evolving market needs, and more. However, as complexity increases, so does your metal production sales process. Smart metal manufacturing companies invest in the right technology to better align with customer needs and drive innovation. Technology like the combo of modern metal distribution software iMetal by Jonas Metals Software and the top-ranked robust accounting solution Sage Intacct.
As the famous Steve Jobs said, “Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do...” Metal production sales used to be relatively straightforward and predictable by basically just selling finished products and goods. However, in the quest for efficiency and innovation, it’s become more complex and involves new approaches, like digitization, smart manufacturing, robotics and automation, mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Metal manufacturers aren’t afraid to embrace these innovations either. 42% of executives of global metal companies are significantly investing in industrial robotics, mostly because they are seeing high demand and want to offer it.
Naturally, this leaves companies wondering how to leverage more technology so that they too can improve their metal production sales process, grow profits, and gain a competitive advantage. Our answer lies in two best-in-class solutions – iMetal software and Sage Intacct.
Sage Intacct handles all your financial data and provides the ideal accounting platform for a metal distribution and manufacturing business. Sage Intacct’s specialties include its flexible general ledger, end-to-end A/R, A/P, cash management, sales tax, fixed assets, multi-locations, dashboards, and dimensional accounting.
iMetal’s customizable metal software brings completely different benefits, like strong industry-specific capabilities that can be tailored for your metal production sales process. Some of our favorite tools and features for providing real value in the sales process are:
With Sage Intacct and iMetal metal software’s seamless integration, you get the best solution of both in an all-in-one platform. Meaning you don’t have to sacrifice accounting to get a vertical metal production sales solution or vice versa.
By having one integration system, you can reduce manual data entry, minimizing errors and saving your team a LOT of time on tedious tasks they rarely enjoy. This frees them up to do more impactful work, leveraging their expertise and giving the company exponentially more benefit.
A centralized single source of truth also provides greater access, company-wide, to critical metrics necessary to drive sales. If your sales team has accurate insights right when they need them, they can quickly see when a client previously ordered and follow up to set up a repeat order. They can also offer more targeted promotions and negotiate better, being able to quickly access full history details and accurate inventory forecasting while on the phone with a client.
Sage Intacct’s multi-entity automation tools can be used to streamline your entire end-to-end payables and receivables processes, as well as your General Ledger.
For example, your team can have industry leading inventory & distribution management with iMetal and all of that data will automatically be in Sage Intacct, where the automated A/R processes will leverage the information from iMetal to shorten invoice payment times and increase cash flow. Better inventory management brings improved cash flow as well, and just like that, you’ve easily leveraged technology to improve your bottom line.
For salespeople, happy customers are repeat customers. By combining iMetal and Sage Intacct, your team can create positive customer experiences at a much faster rate. The all-in-one platform means staff spends less time searching for paperwork and more time finding, engaging, building, and maintaining quality supplier and customer relationships.
Teams can respond quickly and mitigate delays that may be due to quality issues. They can also easily change requirements or update obsolete parts so that compliance is guaranteed, everyone is safe, and business is running smoothly.
Running an efficient and modern metals manufacturing company is vital to uninterrupted growth and winning in the digital world. The environment around us is changing constantly. Employing both iMetal software and Sage Intacct in your metals business means you can continuously transform and improve your production sales process, practices, and performance. Let us know if you have any questions or want to discuss your metal software or technology needs.
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Phone: 866.436.3530 • E-mail: info@equationtech.us
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