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Joan Rivers Worldwide

Retail Company Cuts Invoicing Time by 50 Percent with Financial Management Solution

“Microsoft Great Plains makes it much easier to capture information for detailed business reporting because [the data] all exists within the system.”

— Jim Halliday, Chief Financial Officer, Joan Rivers Worldwide

Overview

  • Country or Region: United States
  • Industry: Specialty retail

Customer Profile

Joan Rivers Worldwide has been distributing skin care products, clothing, and jewelry through home shopping networks since 1980. The company is based in New York and employs 20 people.

Business Situation

An outdated accounting system was labor-intensive and slow, reducing productivity and negatively affecting customer and vendor relationships. In addition, the company’s database solution caused frequent downtime.

Solution

The company replaced its accounting system and database with Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 for a more robust solution.

Benefits

  • Reduced invoicing time by 50 percent
  • Cut time to process vendor checks by 20 percent
  • Decreased processing time for yearly financial reports by two months

Executive Summary

Joan Rivers Worldwide offers jewelry and cosmetics to consumers through home shopping television networks. But its outdated accounting system was proving insufficient to manage customer and vendor accounts. Employees wasted time with a manual process that required extensive cross-referencing with Microsoft Excel 2000 spreadsheets. An older database solution failed often.

Payments and invoices took a long time to be processed and were often incorrect, leading to strained vendor and customer relationships. To solve these problems, the company deployed an accounting solution based on Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains and Microsoft SQL Server 2000.

As a result, the company decreased the amount of time it takes to process invoices by 50 percent, boosted cash flow, and improved the accuracy of payments to vendors.

The Situation

New York–based Joan Rivers Worldwide sells jewelry and skin care products through shopping television networks such as QVC and The Shopping Channel. Founded in 1980, the company employs 20 people who are responsible for managing the production of goods from different vendors and then supplying those goods to the television networks.

Labor-Intensive Accounting

Joan Rivers Worldwide used the Macola accounting system for more than eight years to manage its vendor and customer accounts. However, the outdated solution was very labor-intensive because of a largely manual workflow process.

For example, when the company was ready to send an invoice, employees had to:

  • Take financial data from Macola
  • Enter it into an invoicing template
  • Print and photocopy the invoice
  • Mail one copy to the customer
  • File the other copy in a filing cabinet

William Andersen, Accounting Assistant for Joan Rivers Worldwide, explained:

“Sending out invoices took a lot of time. I had to enter billing information into the template, make sure the numbers were right, and redo the whole thing if it was crooked in the copier.”

Chargeback Tracking Challenges

Macola could not track chargebacks. For Joan Rivers Worldwide, a chargeback occurs when QVC or The Shopping Channel identifies a shipped item as defective or broken and notifies the seller that it will not pay for the item.

As a result:

  • Payment amounts could fall short of invoiced amounts
  • Financial discrepancies became common
  • Chargebacks had to be tracked manually in Microsoft Excel 2000
  • Employees spent excessive time reviewing paper spreadsheets to verify invoice amounts

Vendor Payment Problems

Sending payments to vendors was equally complicated. Invoice chargebacks first had to be reconciled, requiring employees to reenter data into the system before writing and mailing checks.

This process:

  • Delayed vendor payments
  • Increased the likelihood of errors
  • Damaged vendor relationships

Jim Halliday, Chief Financial Officer for Joan Rivers Worldwide, said:

“We were taking extra reductions in checks that we really shouldn’t have. A charge would look legitimate in Macola, but then the customer would notify us that the invoice was wrong. This adversely affected our vendor relationships.”

Financial Reporting Limitations

Generating monthly financial statements was also difficult. Halliday noted:

“We had to pull data from Macola and enter it into a spreadsheet just to make it look presentable. It wasted a lot of time.”

Outdated Database Issues

The Macola solution relied on an outdated Btrieve database. This flat-file database system:

  • Corrupted easily
  • Required rebuilding several times a week
  • Caused frequent downtime
  • Allowed only one person into the system at a time

The need for change became urgent when Macola announced that it would no longer support Btrieve. By August 2004, Joan Rivers Worldwide knew it needed a more robust accounting solution before year-end financial closing.

The company wanted a system that could:

  • Accommodate chargebacks
  • Automate workflow
  • Support invoice delivery by e-mail
  • Generate sophisticated business intelligence reports
  • Provide sales breakdowns of product categories by customer

The Solution

Although Joan Rivers Worldwide considered upgrading to the latest version of Macola, the company ultimately chose Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains.

Halliday had seen implementations of Microsoft Great Plains and was impressed by its integration with other Microsoft products already in use at the company.

Working with Microsoft Certified Partner eIS Business Solutions, Joan Rivers Worldwide deployed the new solution within a single month.

Implemented Components

The company implemented:

  • Microsoft Great Plains
    • General Ledger
    • Payables Management
    • Receivables Management
  • A chargeback module to integrate chargeback data into the system
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 to replace Btrieve
  • Business Objects Crystal Reports for detailed reporting

Process Improvements

The new solution significantly streamlined accounting processes for both invoicing and vendor payments.

With Microsoft Great Plains:

  • Chargebacks are entered directly into the system
  • Chargebacks are automatically reflected in invoices and vendor payments
  • Invoices can be sent to customers by e-mail
  • There is no need to reenter data into invoice templates
  • Monthly financial data can be viewed quickly and easily

Future Plans

Joan Rivers Worldwide also planned to:

  • Replace its internally developed purchase order system with the Microsoft Great Plains Purchase Order Processing module
  • Deploy Integrated Cash Management Solutions from Microsoft Business Solutions
  • Enable electronic payments and receipts without writing or depositing checks

The Benefits

By replacing Macola with Microsoft Great Plains, Joan Rivers Worldwide realized immediate and measurable benefits.

Jeanette Pena, Senior Accountant for Joan Rivers Worldwide, said:

“After we implemented Microsoft Great Plains, we saw immediate benefits. It was amazing how quickly our accounting processes were streamlined.”

Reduced Invoicing Time by 50 Percent

Joan Rivers Worldwide invoices its customers once a week. Under the old solution, the process took at least two days to complete. With Microsoft Great Plains, this time was cut in half.

William Andersen said:

“With Microsoft Great Plains, I can schedule a day for invoicing and be confident that I’ll get it done. With the old solution, there were so many variables that it took me longer, and I was never sure how long it would take.”

Streamlined the Invoicing Process

The invoicing workflow improved dramatically.

Previously, employees had to:

  • Type invoicing data into a template
  • Print and photocopy invoices
  • Mail invoices manually

Now:

  • Invoicing data already resides in Microsoft Great Plains
  • Chargebacks are calculated automatically
  • Invoices are sent by e-mail

Andersen summarized the impact:

“Microsoft Great Plains makes my job so much easier. I just enter the numbers, and it does everything else.”

Boosted Cash Flow

Joan Rivers Worldwide also reduced the amount of time it takes to get paid, improving cash flow.

Halliday attributed this improvement to the ability to e-mail invoices directly to the correct recipients:

“Previously, we had to mail invoices, and we weren’t sure they got to the right person. Using Microsoft Great Plains, we e-mail them directly to the right person and are notified if the e-mail message isn’t delivered.”

Invoicing issues could also be resolved more quickly because customers could respond immediately by e-mail instead of relying on letters or phone calls.

Cut Time to Process Vendor Payments by 20 Percent

The new system reduced vendor payment processing time by 20 percent.

As a result:

  • Vendors received payments four days faster
  • Vendor relationships improved
  • Payment workflows became more predictable

Andersen noted:

“Vendors now receive payments four days more quickly than they did in the past.”

Eliminated Payment Errors

The company no longer needed to cross-check customer chargebacks against vendor payments using spreadsheets. It also stopped issuing checks for incorrect amounts.

Jeanette Pena explained:

“With Microsoft Great Plains, we know that the payments we send our vendors are correct. As a result, our vendors are happier, and we no longer have to go back over chargebacks to see if we paid too much or too little.”

Decreased Year-End Financial Processing by Two Months

Another major gain was the reduction in the time required to close the books at year-end.

Pena said:

“With Microsoft Great Plains, we have reduced the amount of time that it takes to close our books at the end of the year by two full months.”

Improved Record Keeping

Under the previous system, once an invoice was created and printed, it no longer existed in the system. Finding a past invoice required searching through paper files.

With Microsoft Great Plains:

  • Invoices are stored within the system
  • Employees can retrieve records by invoice number
  • Hard-copy file searching is no longer necessary

Pena said:

“If I need to pull up an old invoice, I can just enter the invoice number. Microsoft Great Plains stores all the data so I no longer have to search through files.”

Halliday also emphasized improvements in financial statement preparation:

“I no longer need to enter information into a spreadsheet to generate financial statements. This is a huge boon for us at the end of the month, as well as at the end of the year.”

Increased Responsiveness to Customers

Joan Rivers Worldwide sells both cosmetics and jewelry, and customers wanted financial breakdowns by product type. The old solution could not provide this level of detail.

Using Microsoft Great Plains, the company could now deliver detailed customer information quickly and easily.

Bob Smith, Consultant for eIS Business Solutions, said:

“We put together a solution based on Microsoft Great Plains that helps Joan Rivers Worldwide be much more responsive to its customers.”

Improved Business Reporting

By using Crystal Reports with SQL Server 2000, Joan Rivers Worldwide improved its business reporting and its ability to make long-term business decisions.

Halliday said:

“Microsoft Great Plains makes it much easier to capture information for detailed business reporting because [the data] all exists within the system.”

Results at a Glance

  • 50% reduction in invoicing time
  • 20% faster vendor payment processing
  • Two months saved in year-end financial closing
  • Improved accuracy in vendor payments
  • Better record keeping and invoice retrieval
  • Increased responsiveness to customers
  • Stronger reporting and business intelligence capabilities
  • Better cash flow through faster invoicing and payment cycles

Technologies Used

Software and Services

  • Microsoft Business Solutions
    • Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains
  • Microsoft Windows Server System
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2000
  • Business Objects Crystal Reports

Hardware

  • Dell PowerEdge 2500 server computers

Partner

  • eIS Business Solutions

About Microsoft Business Solutions

Microsoft Business Solutions offer integrated business applications and services that allow small and midsize organizations and divisions of large enterprises to connect employees, customers, and suppliers for improved efficiency.

Its financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications work with other Microsoft software, including the Microsoft Office System and the Windows operating system, to streamline processes across an entire organization. This gives businesses insight to respond rapidly, plan strategically, and execute quickly.

Microsoft Business Solutions are delivered through a worldwide network of channel partners that provide specialized services and local support tailored to a company’s needs