Capital Cargo Agency (ERP is the Compass)

Description of an automation object

Capital Cargo Agency (CCA) Ltd takes the leading positions among transport companies of Moscow. The agency transports different loads on a railway system of Russia, providing to customers delivery practically in any point where there are railroads, including cargo delivery to regions. Cargo delivery is performed not only directly to the railway station, but also by the principle "from a door to a door", thanks to cooperation with the regional railway and automobile transport-forwarding companies. Thus, the most part of works is performed on the basis of agreements of subcontracting. At the same time the agency performs complete calculations with the client, listing the main part of the amount to subcontractor and keeping only forwarding remuneration. This circumstance leaves the mark on the organization of accounting in the company.

Important point in work of the agency is need of operational calculation of cost of cargo transportation between the most different localities taking into account the most various conditions. One more peculiar feature of functioning of the company at the time of the beginning of the project was existence of an extensive network of branches which part had low-quality telephone lines at the order.

Software Selection

The choice of the software for control automation by the enterprise was performed by IT department of SGA in 2001. What as a fixed asset of automation was decided to stop on the ERP system "COMPASS", is explained, according to customer representatives, by the maximum compliance of software to the main selection criteria:

• existence of means of operational setup under different tasks (software "COMPASS" allows to perform it using the MASTERS tool);
• existence of the broad spectrum of modules allowing to automate all key processes of the enterprise on the basis of a single platform;
• the flexibility and openness of a system giving the chance to integrate into it highly specialized modules, in particular by calculation of railway tariffs.

General Description of the Project

The first stage of the project was implemented by consultants of the Moscow branch of KOMPAS company - KOMPAS-TSENTR LLC during the first half of the year 2002 of Software its termination completely automated such business processes as:

• complete document flow;
• accounting;
• tax accounting,
• payroll;
• unloading of data in PF and FTS in electronic form;
• registration of personnel with control of the staff list;
• personnel office-work;
• accounting of fixed assets.

During 2003 by employees "the COMPASS – the CENTER" was performed the second stage of the project during which procedures of communication with the system of calculation of railway tariffs Trunk are created, interaction with branches of the company is organized, specific procedures of recording of actions of users are developed. Afterwards the functionality of a system was increased by specialists of IT department of the agency.

From a response of the Deputy CEO of Capital Cargo Agency Ltd for business concerns V.Ya. Pchelintsev: Having stopped the choice on a corporate information system "COMPASS", we purchased the modern software and the reliable responsible partner ready to come to the rescue instantly in difficult situations. High qualification, working capacity and the personal liability of specialists of COMPASS-the CENTER branch validate our choice.

Some Specific Features of the Project

• The main part of employees of SGA is inherently account managers and service providers. They are engaged, mostly, in "paper" activity. Therefore for 75% of the automated jobs in the agency the module "Document flow" is installed.
• Activity of the Customer assumes existence of a broad spectrum of the specific managerial documents which are not provided in standard delivery of the ERP system "COMPASS". Therefore using the visual tool "MASTERS of the COMPASS" about ten new screen and tabular document forms were developed, specialized registers for their storage are organized.
• The intermediary nature of forwarding activity demanded development of non-standard procedures of automatic selection of forwarding remuneration from the total amount of payment of the Customer and setting of the selected amounts on accounting of the Sales ledger and the Magazine of Economic transactions what it was necessary to develop difficult standard economic operations on payment and shipment of the transported goods for.
• In implementation process of the second stage of the project communication with the system of calculation of railway tariffs Trunk using which calculation results automatically get into the invoice prepared for the client in the COMPASS system was developed.
• ERP system "COMPASS" is set in the branches of the company using for communication modem connection on low-quality telephone lines. Therefore it was impossible to organize work in the single database even on a basis the terminal server - in each branch the DB is used. With respect thereto specific procedures of unloading and import of documents were developed. For example, a part of fields of the document is filled at the central office then the pack of documents is unloaded from base and using e-mail is transferred to the branch located directly at the railway station. There employees make sending of a load according to the data specified in the received documents and fill other fields of the same documents. Then unloading and the return sending in the central office where documents are synchronized with data in the main DB using specially developed procedure is again made.
• Specific procedures of recording of all actions of users for work with documents are developed. The history of all changes is traced.
• Forces of staff of IT department of SGA using the MASTERS of the COMPASS tool develop functionality of budgeting on the basis of the rules adopted in the agency.
• Forces of staff of IT department of SGA using "The master of reports" develop a significant amount of the non-standard managerial reports considering specifics of activity of the enterprise.