Oxnard Building Materials, a family-run company established in 1926, is operated today by third-generation owner Larry Rogers. Oxnard has grown through acquisitions, adding Great Western Building Materials in Arizona in 1987, and through expansion, opening a second location in Corona, CA in 1988.
In 1998 Oxnard acquired ProWall Building Products, a manufacturer of 4' x 4' x 16' foam billets, which the foam-cutting shop in Corona cuts into decorative shapes, tongue-and-groove sheathing, and sheet insulation.
Simplifying accounting with one shared system
One of the special challenges Oxnard faces is maintaining individual companies with separate general ledgers and financials, yet sharing their inventory on one Activant Falcon™system.
These potential headaches are eliminated by the Falcon Millwork module and powerful accounting tools. Falcon's transfer system ensures the correct posting of entries, creating all entries in the correct fiscal years and all the correct Accounts Payable entries in each location.
When a transaction is entered into the Millwork system at Great Western, it automatically creates a purchase order pointing to ProWall. A ProWall order is then created, which transfers material out of inventory and starts the manufacturing process. Finally, it transfers the finished goods back to Great Western by automatically generating the correct shipping documents and related invoices. The inventory is retrieved and replenished at all locations, and labor and costing is allocated to the correct companies. The system allows the company to share inventory at its multiple locations and gives staff instant answers about quantities-on-hand at each location.
Reconciling POs and Accounts Payable--automatically
In the past, processing an order at Oxnard meant keying in the purchase order, breaking out and subtotaling items by one of 43 inventory departments. The Accounts Payable amounts then had to be entered into the correct General Ledger account, making sure they were in the correct accounting periods.
"Not only was it prone to errors," said Jim Moore, Controller for Oxnard, "but reconciling was a nightmare. If there was a variance, you would have to do a quantity cost adjustment, recalculate the PO, recalculate the distribution and reenter all of those values."
Now with Falcon's AP/PO interface, the PO receipt automatically posts itself to general ledger. Then the PO number is entered into Accounts Payable and, if the amounts agree, the process is done. "Now if there is a problem," says Moore, "just import the PO into the AP screen, find the problem, fix the PO and the system retroactively makes the correct adjustments, including correcting the FIFO layers if an item has been sold with the incorrect cost. It's very powerful."
Providing a wealth of sales information
For Moore, one of Falcon's handiest features is Cyberquery™ Report Writer, which he uses to generate detailed sales analysis. "I can rank customers from top to bottom by highest sales volume, gross profit percentage or in combinations in any way I want to see it," Moore said. "I can include the past 12 months' sales history as part of the report and compare to current month to see how they are tracking--improving or lagging, etc."
He also uses it to share selected balance sheet information while maintaining the confidentiality of the general ledger. "I can create, save and automate reports that pull profit and loss information out of the general ledger, put it in a text file and e-mail it out to my managers quickly, and very easily."
