“It’s been a very easy, very straightforward transition”
For over 35 years, Connect Electronics’s mission has been simple: Build the best cable assemblies on the Australian market using the best products available.
Their dedication to this mission has seen them become a leading supplier of custom cable assemblies for all kinds of markets - telecommunications, electrical, robotics, medical, government – and earn the highest endorsements in quality assurance.
Kerry Ilic has been deeply entrenched in this mission for most of her life, fulfilling a variety of administration and management roles at Connect Electronics before taking over ownership of the business from her parents.
She told us they had tried multiple software solutions in their early years, and found Sybiz was the only vendor able to meet their needs.
“The only program that worked for us for a long time was Sybiz Vision Classic with (Concept Engineering’s) IMS manufacturing program on the side.”
However running two distinct older technologies had caused regular complications and bottlenecks.
“We had a lot of glitchiness and clunkiness between IMS and Classic. We were always reindexing and clearing caches.”
Double entry was slowing down the business and carried too many opportunities for human error.
“I would have to create a new part number in Classic, then I would have to log in to IMS, then I would have to do a new Bill Of Materials (BOM) and then save a BOM and put all the notes in.”
“If you made a mistake it was very hard to unmake it. It was a very rigid set of rules when using that software.”
Making a change
“I got in contact with Monica over at Visionaries and we had a look at the latest version [of Sybiz Vision]. I hadn’t looked at any of the updates for such a long time. I had no idea where it was at manufacturing wise!”
The expert consultation from an Authorised Sybiz Business Partner provided Kerry the confidence her business needed to move forward with a new business management solution.
“She knows what I mean when I say something, I know what she means when she says something.”
“That’s where the benefit of having someone like Monica coming in and actually knowing what she’s doing, knows accounting and knows how to set up that bookkeeping side of things.”
“I’m so glad someone gets it!”
When the team at Visionaries showed off the native manufacturing capability in Sybiz Vision, combined with the vast operational improvements across the solution, the decision to upgrade was easy.
“[Monica] came out and I had a look and I went, ‘Bingo. Let’s just do it’.”
“To actually be able to do it all under the one banner is really convenient. It just made sense to stick with the one product.”
No longer needing to rely on an external solution to meet their needs, the new Sybiz Vision proved a quantum leap in efficiency and functionality. Connect Electronics can now manage their sales orders, supply chain, inventory, manufacturing and work orders, import costing and more, all with a single ERP solution.
Finding more to love
Kerry is amazed how the new version is changing her workflows for the better.
The flexibility of Sybiz Vision to be able to change orders on the fly means Kerry and the team can quickly make alterations to suit a specific order, without needing to create a whole new BOM.
“The Bill Of Materials can change from customer to customer; to 1 metre, to 1.1 metre, 1.2 metres. It was hard to find anything that would do what we wanted it to do at the level we used it at.”
“If I’ve got 15 items that are all different, I can change it on the fly and invoice it out. If they use a different part instead of something else than they did on the BOM, I can just delete that line and add that line and it’s done.”
Connect Electronics needed the ability to keep up with the demands on a leading supplier for innovative and fast-paced industries, and Sybiz Vision is packed with features that have helped accelerate their capability.
When we mentioned the New From functionality – letting users create new transactions with many of the details carried over from one just processed – Kerry lit up.
“I love that! That is the best. That just saves me so much time. I just click ‘new from’ and I’ll change a length in something or change one digit in a description and everything’s there. Click save and then we’re done!”
With quality assurance and accreditation comes traceability requirements. And great for Connect Electronics, Sybiz Vision was up to the task.
“The printing capabilities [are] unbelievable.”
“It has made life so easy. I raise the sales order, click across a tab, right click and say create order and then I say print."
“It’s already saved in the system which tray it’s got to come out of and what colour paper it has to be on.”
“There’s no more backwards and forwards and in one software and into another and out. It’s made it much easier. A lot less room for human error.”
And this ease of use has been apparent to other staff across the business.
“The biggest feedback I’ve had is from one of my other team members. Even she’s said it’s so easy. For her where it used to be an even slower process - maybe a 5-minute process to get an order through - now she might be done in a minute and a half.”
The opportunities unlocked by new technology and on-demand data insight is also changing how Kerry thinks about analysing her business performance.
“I got Visionaries to make me a custom report. I was so hellbent on having a report that looked like this and had to do this and it had to have that. And when I actually looked at the filtering options at the top of every column, I realised ‘you could have done that yourself’!”
“I had a lightbulb moment. It’s only something I’m going to get better at with time.”
Better connectivity with payroll
Connect Electronics had already been using Sybiz Visipay to manage their payroll, but having upgraded to the latest Sybiz Vision, they now work together almost seamlessly.
Double entry has been replaced with an automated process that uploads necessary information from their payroll solution into Sybiz Vision.
“I had to do everything manually into every ledger account and it was very clunky. But now everything is set up so it’s all in a journal and it all goes across by itself. I click a button and the magic happens!”
Like many business owners, the looming burden of Single Touch Payroll was a concern for Kerry. But the ease and simplicity of Sybiz Visipay’s STP capability has completely dispelled Kerry’s fears.
“I was terrified and thinking ‘Oh my god. How much of my day is this going to take up?’ I was dreading it.”
“And it’s nothing. Because Sybiz has done all the work in the back end and set the portals up it’s been easy. It’s been simplified to the point anybody can do it.”
“Initial set up took about 15-20 minutes.”
Sybiz Vision and Sybiz Visipay are now helping Kerry and her team to deliver high-quality cable and loom products with greater efficiency and clearer accountability across manufacturing, supply chain, importing, sales and payroll.
And thanks to the expertise of Sybiz Authorised Business Partner Visionaries, they experienced an easy transition and a truly personalised solution where it counts.
“I’m really happy with the functionality. Especially for someone who has to sit here and use it all day, it’s really good.”