Flow-Rite designs, manufactures, and distributes fluid control devices for lead-acid batteries, recreational fishing boats, and laboratory applications. The company currently has about 130 employees and is headquartered in Michigan (USA), but its products are distributed nationwide and internationally.
Flow-Rite Controls Company Landscape. Source: Flow-Rite Controls.
Flow-Rite had been actively searching for a budgeting software solution that could integrate with their Epicor Kinetic ERP system while modernizing their approach to reporting and budgeting. They needed a solution to move away from manual, spreadsheet-based processes to a more structured and manageable workflow to address existing pain points.
The most important factor for Flow-Rite was finding a budgeting solution that directly connected to the ERP system, delivering accurate, real-time results to give them a clear picture of their business performance.
Challenges
Temwani Mtonga, an accountant at Flow-Rite, described the challenge:
“We were doing all of our budgeting in Excel. It was a very manual and complex process. Coordinating with the VPs to gather input required a lot of effort. Monthly budget reviews were also a burden. Every month, I had to manually pull data from Epicor, update both the budget and actual numbers, and compare them manually.
Nobody in finance liked doing everything in Excel. We wanted to simplify budget reporting and have the ability to access budgets at any time within the system. We needed better usability and visibility, while also restricting the scope of data displayed to ensure employees could only see the numbers they were authorized to access.”
Temwani recalled how they discovered Epicor Financial Planning and Analysis (Epicor FP&A):
“We first saw Epicor FP&A at the Epicor Insights event. The Epicor team enthusiastically demoed the software, and my boss was incredibly impressed with what she saw. She saw all the potential it could bring. She particularly liked the budgeting workflow and the visual dashboards. We also evaluated other options like Prophix, Power BI, and another Epicor solution. But based on what we saw at Insights, we knew Epicor FP&A was the best fit for our needs.”
Implementation
“From the moment we decided on Epicor FP&A to going live, it took around 2.5 months. We set an aggressive timeline, but configuring the Chart of Accounts (COA) in our ERP system was the most time-consuming part.”
The implementation had its challenges but was overall a positive experience. Temwani said: “We were quoted 55 hours for the FP&A setup but only used 47 hours, leaving us with 8 hours left over.”
According to Temwani, the Epicor FP&A team was very responsive:
“Whenever we needed support or had questions, they responded and resolved issues within 24 hours. Regarding implementation, I felt the training we received was sufficient. We just needed time to get comfortable with the system. It might have been easier if we’d had prior experience with similar systems, but because we were so used to Excel, we needed time to adjust our navigation habits.”
“Once everything was set up in Epicor FP&A, creating a budget took only a few hours. It’s just a matter of copying the template and changing the year. What used to take three days of manual work in Excel now takes just a few hours in Epicor FP&A — that’s how I measure the benefit.”
Reflecting on the process, the Flow-Rite team shared:
“We would have benefited from clear documentation upfront on how to set up the COA before implementing FP&A. We’d been running ERP for years before we purchased FP&A, but in hindsight, we should have been better prepared. Aligning the ERP structure with how FP&A processes data was challenging.
For example, some accounts had department codes and some didn’t. This consistency should have been ensured earlier. We had to do extra work to make the data flow seamlessly. This forced us to review and reorganize the COA to align with company reporting requirements and US GAAP standards.”
Initial Experience with Epicor FP&A
Flow-Rite went live with FP&A in December 2021. It’s been over two years since they moved away from Excel. They created the entire 2022 budget entirely in Epicor FP&A.
Currently, Flow-Rite uses FP&A for budgeting and is transitioning to using it for reporting. They like the web interface but also want to get comfortable with the Excel interface in the future.
There are eight regular FP&A users at Flow-Rite. Temwani shared:
“Ad hoc reporting is so much easier now. If I need to track a transaction, it’s much quicker and simpler in FP&A. The transactional details are more organized and easier to search. In the ERP system, it took many steps. Since using FP&A, no one bothers me for reports anymore; they can get them themselves. Now I have time to focus on other work, and I’m confident people can update their budgets independently without needing my help.”
On efficiency: “After setting up FP&A, creating a budget only takes a few hours. In contrast, preparing the Excel template alone used to take 16 hours of focused work, with another 8 hours to finalize it — and I wasn’t working continuously because of other tasks. In total, we went from three full days of manual Excel work to just a few hours in FP&A.”
Feedback from the Finance Team
“The finance team loves it; nobody liked Excel before. Now people can drill into data, analyze, and investigate numbers themselves. Nobody needs me to pull details anymore. FP&A gives our finance team independence.
With any software, you need time to get used to it and accept its navigation style, especially if you’ve never used a similar system before.”
Advice
Temwani considers Epicor FP&A a significant upgrade to their budgeting process:
“I recommend Epicor FP&A for both reporting and budgeting. It gives you independence, transparency, and more efficient management of the entire process. It’s the right direction.”
“In terms of addressing pain points, on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d rate it an 8. We’re still early in our journey, but I believe it can reach 10. For implementation experience, I’d also rate it an 8. The primary reason is that our ERP setup slowed the FP&A implementation, not FP&A itself. There were things we should have prepared beforehand but didn’t know.”
“The web interface is very user-friendly and doesn’t require being tied to the ERP. In our case, I can access data even when traveling or at the airport. That’s amazing.”
3S Software Co., Ltd.
To successfully upgrade a business, businesses need an experienced and trusted partner. 3S will be a partner accompanying businesses on their path of development, helping businesses become more comprehensive and increase productivity at lower costs. Along with compliance with the Epicor Signature Project Implementation Methodology, it will help businesses increase production efficiency and improve profits at a very reasonable cost. 3S believes that it will always bring the most satisfaction to customers.
The 5 main solutions of 3S include:
Epicor ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning
Epicor MES – Manufacturing Execution System
BPM XSOL Solution – Business Modeling Solution
ECM DOCSTAR Solution – Digital Content Management Software
Epicor CADLINK solution – The solution allows transferring information from CAD drawings such as AutoCAD, Solidworks to Epicor ERP
More references: A.Y. MCDONALD: GROWING WITH EPICOR KINETIC & MES
