Workforce develops costing database software for Techtex

25 Jan '14

3 min read

Workforce Systems was launched in 1989 and now in its 25th year from its Bolton base it still provides IT support to North West based businesses.

The majority of Workforce customers do not employ their own IT staff. Workforce provides all the business IT services they require, including supply of hardware, installation, backup, bespoke programming and all support. For the customer, this is a very cost effective way of managing IT support and gives access to a wide variety of talents.

Workforce’s specialism is providing a “phone-to-engineer” service with no call centre.

This means when clients phone the Bolton IT support specialists, they are put straight through to one of the highly skilled engineers who can solve the problem in the shortest possible time.

Unusual in the industry, Workforce never gives up on a customer’s IT problem.

They believe there is always a solution.

Techtex required Workforce’s programming services to maintain and increase profitability in the business.

Techtex is one of the UK’s largest suppliers of healthcare and industrial fabrics, manufacturing a variety of branded, private label and generic products ranging from high quality wet wipes to non-woven geo textiles.

The company accepts many complex jobs that involve processing and converting textiles for individual customers.

Working out the costs of supplying this work is difficult and time consuming, due to the wide range of raw materials purchased, which are supplied in a variety of world currencies. As Techtex’s business IT support provider for 15 years, Workforce were asked for a solution to this problem.

Like many firms, Techtex was using several bespoke systems that were not integrated.

After reviews the existing sales, purchasing & stock control systems, Workforce soon realised that most of the data was already stored within the existing database and that a central control panel was required to allow Techtex’s Finance Director to analyse product profitability utilising a standard costing model.

This allowed Techtex to review the anticipated profit levels of specific customer’s products.

When key variables such as currency and shipping rates, material and labour costs changed, Techtex were able to input the changes and quickly produce a report to highlight the effect on individual customer’s accounts as well as overall company profits.

Techtex now has a system that, constantly monitors company profitability over a wide range of customer products and if a product falls below a pre-set profit level it alerts management so that action can be taken to resolve the issue.

In addition, all products must have a current costing, approved by management before a sales order can be accepted.

The result is a far more accurate costings system for Techtex, with the ability to make “what if” re-calculations with revised selling prices.

Finance Director Steve Oldfield commented: “We could have gone for a standard package but Workforce has written a bespoke costing system for us, which is great value for money as we have got exactly we wanted. The alternative was buying off the shelf software, which has things we don’t want and not enough of what we do. Workforce’s expertise is just so valuable to us, it’s like having our own in-house IT person, and I’m more than happy to recommend them.”

Workforce Systems

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