Customer Stories: Aidan Gray Home

Home décor company uses QuickBooks Financial Software, QuickBooks Merchant Services and ACCTivate! Distribution and Inventory Management System to deliver exceptional customer service

Aidan Gray Home, an up-and-coming home décor and furnishings company, got its start in 2003 when founder Randal Weeks turned his passion for design into reality. Realizing he'd need help if his brainchild were to succeed, he enlisted a fellow grad school friend, Sheila Butler, to serve as COO. QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Financial Software is also on hand to help keep things running smoothly.

Armed with a talent for unique design and an eye for excellence, this small team expanded their product line to include candlesticks, décor, furniture, garden and lighting products. Today, the company enjoys a sterling reputation for quality and customer service that is flawless. With orders coming in from a catalog, website, factory representatives and several annual sales shows, Aidan Gray is thriving.

Business Challenge

Finding customers has never been a problem for this carefully cultivated brand. Interior designers and furnishing dealers across the U.S. and Canada wait patiently up to three months to receive their orders, which arrive from factories located around the world.

What was proving to be a challenge was the company's phenomenal growth—nearly 500% over the first two years. When they reached 1,000 orders per month Randal and Sheila realized that they needed help. Both partners are big proponents of technology, so before they added staff they explored ways to leverage what they already had.

"Our accountant started us on QuickBooks," said Sheila. "It was great for the financial aspects of our business. Yet as our customer base grew, we recognized we needed additional tools we could integrate with QuickBooks to help us keep up."

According to Sheila, customer service had become a key ingredient to their success—especially since there could be a two - three month delay between when a product was ordered and when it arrived from overseas. In addition, a majority of their customers pay by credit card, which can top $200,000 per month. Staying on top of order status and processing an ever-growing quantity of payments had become critical.

Solution Overview

At the suggestion of QuickBooks Support, Sheila looked at the QuickBooks Solutions Marketplace. She found ACCTivate!

Impressed with the way ACCTivate! could track thousands of orders, manage inventory, and place a customer's entire history, contact and shipping information right at their fingertips, Randal and Sheila were sold. They especially liked the way their QuickBooks software could seamlessly integrate with ACCTivate! and share the same database through their server—no need for double data entry where the chance for errors could creep in.

The ACCTivate! system was purchased in December 2005 and their QuickBooks inventory and customer information was migrated over in just one night. On January 1, 2006 they went live. According to Sheila, the transition was effortless.

The third part of their overall solution for greater efficiency and accuracy was the addition of QuickBooks Merchant Services to process the growing number of credit card payments. Prior to this, the firm used a standalone credit card reader. That method was vulnerable to errors, Sheila said. An incorrect amount could be entered and the charge would still go through. Not until a customer received their statement would the discrepancy be noted. With QuickBooks, QuickBooks Merchant Services, and ACCTivate working together, potential errors are flagged immediately if the invoice and charge amounts don't agree. Just one more way Aidan Gray delivers exceptional customer service.

Sheila also likes the speed with which customer information from the QuickBooks database can be pulled into ACCTivate! and compiled with credit card transactions and then transmitted through QuickBooks Merchant Services for processing. "We were looking at adding another full-time person just to process credit cards," she said. "Now, with the entire system working quickly and flawlessly and I can spend my time on other parts of the business."

Business Benefits

Integrating QuickBooks software and QuickBooks Merchant Services with ACCTivate! has given the management of Aidan Gray Home the tools they need to handle all aspects of running their business more efficiently while providing the functionality they can grow into.

With this potent combination, they can easily handle their business accounting and finances, track inventory levels, generate and fulfill orders, create shipping labels and invoices, and process credit card transactions to get orders out the door quickly. Plus, the CRM capabilities in ACCTivate! have eliminated frustrating, time-consuming searches for specific information when customers call. Everything a staff member needs to deliver world-class customer service is right at their fingertips.

For the management team at Aidan Gray Home, QuickBooks and ACCTivate! are the perfect accessories for helping their expanding business succeed.

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