CASE STUDY
Chesser Engineering Ltd
Precision Engineering business migrates from Sage 50 to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Who are Chesser Engineering Ltd
Established in 1984, Chesser Engineering Ltd is a sub-contract precision engineering company based in Edinburgh. A small company that takes pride in its personal approach ensuring the Chesser team responds quickly to its customers’ needs. Chesser Engineering only manufactures high quality parts, quickly and economically serving its many repeat customers and new customers alike.
The challenge
Chesser Engineering were long standing users of Sage 50 Accounts and supported their manufacturing operation with a bespoke Access programme. The lack of accurate real time data created ‘blind spots’ in critical business areas and the directors wanted and needed to move on to an ideally Cloud based solution with bar code data collection capabilities*, that would provide best information across the business from sales, through to purchases and production. As a smaller business, any solution would need to be scalable, affordable but comprehensive in its functionality. The admin team were also spending unnecessary and valuable double entering data which was frustrating and prone to errors.
*QiJobTrack and QiStockTrack refers – please contact Qi for more information.
The solutionPrecision Engineering business migrates from Sage 50 to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Migration from Sage 50 Accounts & Access to Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS with Qi Ltd
While based at the other end of the country, Chesser opted to elect Qi as its business partner based on their understanding of SME Manufacturers and its QiMigrateNow! toolkit to provide full Sage 50 data migration to Business Central. It was important to the business owners that their nominated business partner would deliver clear and concise training in an approachable manner, thus supporting Chesser staff through the transition.
The outcome
Confident quoting based on real time information and a drastically reduced administration overhead.
All Sage 50 data was successfully migrated to Business Central. Staff training was completed via Microsoft Teams in manageable training sessions.
Because Chesser Engineering now has access to accurate real time information it is now able to quote with much greater accuracy, ensuring that customers access the keenest price possible whilst maintaining the required profit margin. The admin overhead has been greatly reduced leaving staff to spend time on other areas of the business with error free data to rely upon.
Qi have developed extensions (enhanced functionality) for Chesser to ensure that job cards carry the additional information they require (sales notes, scrap for example) and to enable parts to be revised and updated across all relevant job documentation.
The business owners can now access their Business Central data from any internet capable device which supports the wearing of ‘many hats’ – as is normal for owner managed smaller businesses! No more being tethered to a desk & PC to access real time information across the business!
Qi have given us the help and support we needed to set up and use Business Central at Chesser. The support team are friendly and prompt in helping us. Of course, there was a learning curve for our finance manager moving away from Sage – but it was manageable, and we got there! Business Central continues to prove a great choice for our business. It’s affordable and gives us vastly better business information than Sage and Access ever did.