Avis Fleet Services (AFS), a leader in vehicle leasing and fleet management solutions, has invested in Sage ERP X3 as its future financial platform. "This strategic investment is part of our company's future growth and expansion strategy and the need to provide sustainable IT platforms," says Mike Re, Chief Information Officer.
"Our investment in Sage ERP X3 will help the company to move from highly manual financial processes and transactions towards a more streamlined and automated system for procurement, accounting, invoicing and the payment of suppliers and staff," says Michelle Erasmus, Chief Financial Officer at Avis Fleet Services.
"Further to this, the solution will allow for real-time financial reporting and intelligent dashboard information, which will, for example, enable us to effectively manage the payment of suppliers and address any possible problem areas.
"The solution is extremely cost-effective and also well supported by other companies in South Africa, which ensures for local expertise of the software. It is user-friendly with various functionalities that can be upgraded at any time," says Erasmus.
AFS provides fleet management and leasing services to a number of corporate and government customers, together with value-added services such as fleet accident management, fuel card provision and management, intelligent fuel management, traffic fine management, and ad hoc vehicle rental. All financial functions are managed and controlled at the head office, in Isando, and regions have the ability to capture payments and query or view financial transactions. All accounting, with the exception of specific regional offices, is performed at the head office.
"Sage ERP X3 is a proven solution for organisations with international and multinational requirements, as it reduces costs, saves time, offers full interoperability among various sites or teams, and improves the overall customer experience. Sage ERP X3 is available on all leading platforms in the market and is perfectly suited to the operations of a fleet management services company through the fully featured integrated Web-based modules," says Keith Fenner, senior vice-president for sales at Sage ERP Africa and Middle East.
"Sage ERP X3 provides a flexible and scalable platform to standardise your processes and business rules on a single database, allowing you to adopt best practice in delivering services internally and externally by having control of key operations. This means you can easily impose and update standard processes across the organisation, enable fast set-up with easy deployment when bringing new divisions and customers onboard, and have the ability to cope with the ever-changing requirements of the business. Organisations can undertake continuous improvement and development, while they maintain data integrity, reduce manual processes and get real-time reporting," says Fenner.
Lorge, a leading partner within the Sage ecosystem, with over 27 years' experience in implementing and crafting ERP solutions, will assist AFS with implementation, training and ongoing project support. "We have chosen Lorge as our partner mainly because of their proven track record with similar installations, especially within a back-office environment, their excellent project management capabilities and their ability to facilitate integration and customisation between the Sage ERP X3 financial management system and the fleet management system," says Re.
Derek Porter, CEO at Lorge, says: "Our focus is to implement a simple-to-use, integrated Sage ERP X3 solution using our proven methodology. Maintaining weekly project management meetings will be integral to ensuring that the deliverables are on schedule, budget is being tracked, deadlines are being met, risks are being identified and attended to, and change control is continually monitored.
"The Sage ERP X3 solution will be configured and customised to handle various methods of invoicing, based on AFS' customer requirements and reporting specifications. It will also be configured in such a way that it enables AFS to effortlessly add functionality, should the need arise later on, thereby allowing the solution to grow with AFS," says Porter.
"One of our key requirements from Lorge is their support to effectively integrate the Sage ERP X3 solution with the AFS Fleet Management System," says Re. According to Porter, they will therefore utilise the built-in integration mechanisms of Sage ERP X3 to build a fast and reliable integration tool, which, in the end, will ensure the new financial management solution integrates with various modules within the overall fleet management system.
Implementation of the new Sage ERP X3 solution will commence in August and the system will go live early 2014.
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