RACS (Roy Adams Computer Services) Pty Ltd

Founded in Brisbane in 1993, Roy Adams Computer Services Pty Ltd (RACS) is a boutique IT services company with an enviable customer base. With its focus firmly on small-to-medium organisations, RACS provides a range of IT solutions including systems integration, network deployment, plus ongoing service and maintenance of business networks. The company's founder and Managing Director, Roy Adams, attributes RACS' success to an overriding commitment to prompt, efficient and personal service.

The Business Issue

In its early days Adams used MYOB to maintain the company's accounts but by 2004 RACS had well and truly outgrown the software. With more than 130 sites under its care and up to ten consultants employed at any one time, Adams decided it was time to look at business software alternatives.

"Possibly our biggest concern with MYOB was that the time billing module was too limited," Adams commented. "As a service business this is a critical tool, yet the software couldn't cope with the degree of detail we needed to capture. Also the fact that MYOB stores data in a single file makes it susceptible to network problems and to potential data or file corruptions. We didn't want to keep taking that risk."

Adams started the replacement process by deciding on the three major requirements of his new software. "Data integrity was paramount. Secondly we wanted something scalable that could grow with us. Finally we needed more speed than was achievable through single file sharing technologies."

After evaluating a number of alternatives, RACS chose JIWA Financials.

The Solution

"JIWA is good technology," Adams explained. "It uses an industry standard with the Microsoft SQL database. It has a friendly and easy-to-use interface with a choice of menu structures. It is much faster for data entry than our previous software. I can access it from anywhere in the world when operating in a Microsoft Terminal Server environment. The Service Manager module is comprehensive, giving us more detailed data entry capabilities than any of the other packages we researched."

The Result

Since installing JIWA Financials RACS has experienced a vast improvement in its service reporting and documentation.

Using an e-commerce option, RACS has successfully implemented secure, web-based logins for customers, allowing online viewing of account reports, equipment details, job details and support packs. While the information now captured is much more comprehensive, Adams believes that the software's ease-of-use has made recording the data far less tedious for his team.

"JIWA has been great to work with. They have a good, honest product that has given us a range of tools to better manage our support company. Their help desk is always proactive and you really feel they listen to their clients. They're a big company with a small business attitude to service."