Between the various, orphaned spreadsheets in multiple locations, and the ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ syndrome with data input, your data – the source of all customer information – is in terrible shape. Incomplete records, zen-like customer profiles and worse, duplicate or multiple entries for the same customer.
Does this sound familiar?
Josef input a company name as John Smith Aggregates. Sean entered the same company as JSA. Siraj entered them as J. S. Aggregates.
Garbage in, means garbage out.
Each entry has sales and product activity associated with it, but when Benjamin, the Manager runs a report, he does not see the whole picture or understand where the other sales he knows were made, went. He is frustrated, feels he is missing his commissions for the sales he made and wants answers…that no-one can give. Worse, when Penny wants to run reports to see what is outstanding payment-wise and cannot reconcile what she sees in the accounting system.
Running any kind of comprehensive report is impossible with damaged, or incomplete data. Cleansing your data, record by record will take forever and consume valuable resource that could be busy servicing customers or getting new business.
The best policy is to get the data input right the first time.
With an ERP that prevents duplication and ensures all information required is in the record before it can be saved, your data will be your friend and your trusted source for all customer intelligence.
With a mobile workforce and project teams, data is being input from smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs. With the right interface, proper permissions and clear and well-documented procedures, your data will be your greatest asset once more.
With a cloud based ERP, it does not matter where you are or what device you are using. Herbst Software offers a simple and intuitive, mobile friendly interface for all industries.
To prevent bad duplications, your ERP must:
- Ensure all mandatory fields are completed correctly (Based on syntax rules) before a record can be saved into the ERP;
- Confirm staff have the right (individual) permissions to add, amend or simply access key data;
- Have an understanding that bad duplicates and good duplicates are clearly defined (yes, there are such things as good duplicates);
- Have the ability to have standardised ‘Status’ categories to identify active, dormant or non-paying customers;
- Have access to a comprehensive audit trail to know who has accessed the data and what they did (and when);
- Have access to extensive reporting features and functions;
- Clear and enforceable policies on data entry that are communicated to all staff dealing with your company data;
- Conduct random quality checks on the data to ensure all policies and rules are being adhered to.
Herbst Software’s multiple product offerings support a centralised, one-stop-shop for your ERP, which will align with your company business and data rules and ensure that only quality, clean data is entered.
Take control of your data and stop the duplication madness.