The Challenge

With growth comes change, so over the years Fowler’s paper-based management system evolved to a character-based software package. This served the company well until continued growth and the advent of Windows® brought pressure on the company to upgrade further.

The Solution

After reviewing the market, Fowler Hire and Sales chose to go with MCS. The MCS team set about transferring the data from the old management system to MCS-rm. Once completed, Fowler’s undertook MCS training and the journey with MCS began.

Contracts, off-hires and invoices

“When a customer hires a piece of kit, a contract is raised in MCS-rm. When this item is returned, the system raises an off-hire ticket and ultimately the invoice - all from one data input. The system also ensures that a piece of equipment is recorded as off-hire until it is returned to the depot and available for hire again”.

Flexible invoicing

Often a hire customer will return some of the disposable items unused. For instance if he has taken away 10 sanding belts and has used only six, we can alter that item on the invoice and charge him accordingly.

All-in-one hire system

We have found that the ability to view all customer and financial information in one, unified package makes a big difference to the accuracy and efficiency of our operation. This was a major factor in our choice of a hire management solution.

Workshop

We are authorised repair agents for a number of leading DIY brands such as Black & Decker, Stihl, Makita and Bosch, so the workshop service is an important part of our operation.

The Benefits

Since using MCS-rm, Fowler Hire & Sales have been able to:

• Edit invoices to remain reactive to customer demands.
• Offer a comprehensive, fully integrated financial package.
• Enjoy automatic alerts that enable a more proactive service as well as an up-to-date source of financial information that aids the decision-making process.
• Use the barcode reading capability on its sales counter.

Looking to the future, Fowler Hire & Sales are looking to implement the Workshop & Maintenance capability to help organise and manage Fowler’s entire servicing and repair operation.