Saving Money, Time, and Hassle with Cloud-Based, Distributor-Designed, End-to-End ERP
It is hard to capture the excitement of walking into a tile and countertop showroom. The colors, the shapes, the patterns—creativity swirls from every direction, bringing endless possibilities to vivid life. Many homeowners, designers, and contractors in Delaware choose to get that rush at Tile Market of Delaware, a Nemo Tile Company. With three large design showrooms featuring two million square feet of tile and slab in stock, Tile Market helps wholesale and retail clients find the perfect fit for their projects.
Designed for distributors, Epicor Prophet 21 does everything we need it to do.
Since 2008, Epicor Prophet 21 has been the backbone of the business. Bill Schloer, Technology Manager at Tile Market of Delaware, reveals, “Epicor Prophet 21 is our everything. From inventory and accounting to sales and shipping, there is not a component of our business that Epicor doesn’t support.” He adds, “Designed for distributors, Epicor Prophet 21 does everything we need it to do.”
Over the past eight years, Bill has become an expert at wringing the maximum benefit out of Epicor Prophet 21, a talent he is also bringing to his parent company, Nemo Tile, and Stone. He has made it his mission to use every available feature to extract the full benefit and help ensure everyone can use the solution in the necessary ways. “I'm a firm believer in teaching a person to fish, and it has been my goal to get the systems in a place where everyone gets what they need without me being a bottleneck,” he shares.
One such improvement was implementing Epicor Tax Connect, an Epicor Prophet 21 module used to automate sales tax. According to Schloer, “Avalara is fully integrated with Epicor, so it works well.”
The difference has been significant. When entering orders, employees no longer need to keep track of tax jurisdictions; instead, it is automatically calculated correctly. Furthermore, the accounting department no longer needs to print and file tax forms. “The module has saved many manhours a month, as well as eliminating the hassle of thinking about basic tax issues,” Bill says. “The process has been completely streamlined.”
Another vital enhancement has been the automatic conversion of measurements. For example, a contractor or designer will order tile using square feet, but a homeowner typically purchases the material in boxes. Epicor Prophet 21 automatically converts all tile orders to square feet. Special items like mosaics sold by the sheet have a custom order field. Highlighting the benefits of this capability, Bill adds, “The feature is especially beneficial for new salespeople who quickly realize how much less math they are required to do.”
Tile Market utilizes a perpetual inventory process. Bill explains, “Epicor enables us to set up cycles to count each bin multiple times a year. We run a report that identifies which bins to count, and the employees have handheld scanning devices that walk them through the procedure step-by-step. It means we don’t need to close for a day to do the counts like other companies have to do in order to complete a full inventory.”
Epicor Prophet 21’s PO Requirements Generation report—has significantly improved the process.
“The PORG allows us to see all the orders placed that day and all the corresponding material that needs to be ordered,” he says. “We simply check the boxes, and Epicor automatically generates the POs and sends them to the vendors. It’s a huge time-saver for us and ensures no manual errors on the purchase orders [POs].”
It’s significantly more efficient because it creates a single consolidated PO per vendor rather than individual PO’s per sales order. In a cascading effect, the receiving department gets a single PO, and accounting receives consolidated invoices. “It has a ripple effect when it comes to the savings that stack up across the organization,” BIl acknowledges.
BIl estimates that the two companies utilize approximately 100 reports, more or less, including daily sales, shipping, delivery, and carrier reports, and a new customer report that goes to the accounting department to verify that the data was set up correctly. “The cool part about Epicor Prophet 21 is that you have access to the back-end database, so you can create our own reports and format them with crystal reports. Other reporting options include but are not limited to “reports studio” and Custom portals.” he notes.
One change the Nemo Tile & Stone and Tile Market of Delaware made together is migrating to Epicor Prophet 21 deployed in the cloud. Bill explains that while both were on the same system, they were using different ones. In addition, some of the hardware needed to be refreshed, so they decided to migrate to the cloud.
“It has been great,” Bill says. “It’s more cost-effective to be in the cloud, and we no longer must worry about hardware or upgrades. We can log in from anywhere. If we add companies in the future, it will be easy. And we immediately got Epicor Wireless Warehouse, which is a huge benefit.”
Both companies are in the process of implementing Warehouse Management Solutions (WMS).
“We project that we will save a significant amount of money and time with WMS because we will have real-time inventory to reduce the number of fulfillment mistakes, such as inadvertently sending a box of tile that is the wrong color,” Schloer says. Staging and receiving processes will also be simplified and streamlined, creating greater agility in staffing. “More people can perform more functions because the requirements are not as high. With Epicor, you don’t need to learn as much about the industry to be an effective employee.”
Bill says that one of his favorite things about being a part of the Tile Market family is that it is highly collaborative, with everyone working to find a better way. This philosophy supports his advice to employees regarding potential Epicor customers: “Don't be so stuck on your old processes that you cannot adjust to new ways.”
Epicor Prophet 21 offers many features and benefits. It’s worth investing in learning everything the solution offers so you can make the most of it.
He offered other examples of times when he was able to identify processes and options within Prophet 21 that allow users to complete typically time-consuming tasks significantly more efficiently. This includes reports, month-end/year-end accounting processes, and more.
Bill continues, “Epicor Prophet 21 offers many features and benefits. It’s worth investing in learning everything the solution offers so you can make the most of it.”