BusinessWorks Customer
Karl Kuemmerling Inc.

Corporate Profile
Headquarters
Massillon, OH

Type of Business
Equipment and supplies wholesaler for tree service operators

Territory
United States and Canada

Number of Locations
One

Number of Employees
23

System Profile
Computer System
Compaq and Hewlett-Packard Pentiums

Operating System
Microsoft Windows® 95 (workstations)

Networking System
Windows NT with 10BaseT hookups

BusinessWorks Modules in Use
General Ledger
Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Inventory Control and Purchasing
Order Entry
Mailing Labels
Job Cost

Application
General accounting, estimating, sales orders, invoicing, receivables, purchase orders, payables, and inventory control

Home page

2055 Carolyn Sue, Baton Rouge, LA 70815
225-923-1985 • fax: 923-3515
BusinessWorks Trims $75k in Expenses for Tree Services Equipment Supplier

“BusinessWorks brought the full breadth of our fiscal operations sharply into focus. And we discovered that the work that formerly required nine persons in our accounting department could be handled by four people.”

Robert Rankl, Vice President, Karl Kuemmerling Inc.
The Challenge
Karl Kuemmerling, Inc., is a company rooted in tradition. The family-owned business, a wholesaler of equipment and supplies for tree service professionals, customarily sealed transactions with a handshake and ran its other business operations by hand, too. The company kept manual ledgers, maintained customer and vendor records on cards, and routed purchasing and billing through multiple desks. Because Kuemmerling stocks 3,500 items ranging from hardware items, apparel and tools to $30,000 wood chippers, inventory monitoring was labor-intensive and time-consuming. Results of the annual physical inventory typically were somewhat inaccurate.

Although the business did have a couple of computers, their application was limited. An older Macintosh was used to maintain a mailing list, while a 386 PC provided by United Parcel Service tracked shipping data. All other office and management functions, including correspondence, bookkeeping and job costing, were performed manually using typewriters, calculators and hand entry. Robert Rankl, vice president of Kuemmerling, knew the company needed to modernize methods. But he also recognized the importance of a solution that would be easy for the company’s employees to learn and operate.
The Solution
The vendor who sold Rankl his personal Macintosh recommended BusinessWorks, which the company purchased along with a Pentium server and three Pentium workstations. Convinced after a single product demonstration, Kuemmerling fully converted to BusinessWorks in March 1996.

“Three results became very clear at the outset,” said Rankl. “BusinessWorks brought the full breadth of our fiscal operations sharply into focus. We were able to be more responsive in all functions. And we discovered that the work that formerly required nine persons in our accounting department could be handled by four.” No one lost a job, however. Two employees left the area, two requested conversion to part time, and another was reassigned to other duties.

Since the company’s remaining bookkeeping personnel were largely unaccustomed to working with computers, the training program offered by the BusinessWorks consultant coached users on basic computer skills as well as use of BusinessWorks. They found BusinessWorks surprisingly easy to learn and operate, thanks to its logical screen presentations and its consistency throughout all modules.

Company managers were delighted by the dramatic improvement in efficiency after BusinessWorks began handling accounting functions previously performed by hand. Kuemmerling uses BusinessWorks to manage its full revenue stream, including quotes, sales orders, purchase orders and invoices. Sales orders trigger commitment of inventory, and once an invoice is created BusinessWorks reduces the inventory tabulation accordingly. The BusinessWorks inventory module greatly assists in finding errors in the physical inventory and easily accommodates adjustments.

To accommodate additional features, two computers were added to the network for the purchasing and shipping departments. Rankl calculates that BusinessWorks immediately paid for itself and all equipment through the $75,000 annual savings the tree-trimming supply company has achieved in operational efficiencies. Now that BusinessWorks has helped Karl Kuemmerling regain control of its fiscal, purchasing, inventory, sales order, invoicing and collection operations, Bob Rankl knows this: never again will a job estimate put the company out on a limb.

The capabilities, system requirements and compatibility with third-party products described herein are subject to change without notice. Contact STATE OF THE ART® for current information. BusinessWorks® and the BusinessWorks® logo are trademarks of STATE OF THE ART®. The STATE OF THE ART® name and logo are registered trademarks of STATE OF THE ART, INC. All other product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their manufacturers. ©1996 STATE OF THE ART, INC. All rights reserved.