Having taken over daily operations, Jake, Operations Manager for Gretna, Neb.-based Husker Diesel, knew using QuickBooks as an invoicing tool wasn’t cutting it. “We made it work,” he says, “but it was clear [QuickBooks] had become a limiting factor in how fast our business could grow and how successful we could be.”
Jake’s search for a replacement solution led him to several of those ‘all-show, no-go’ shop management solutions, none of which check the boxes, he says.
“I demoed several systems before I stumbled across Protractor. It just kept popping back up as hitting all the key capabilities I thought were important,” he says, adding that he eventually decided to run Protractor in the background for three months while the shop continued to run on QuickBooks.
"I instantly found how much more efficient I was with Protractor,”he says. “Today, we as a shop are more efficient and more profitable because of Protractor — from the standpoint that I couldn’t track things or even give you an accurate P&L cost analysis with the old system. I wish I had converted to Protractor earlier.”
FREEING ADVISORS TO SELL
Jake entered his search for an SMS with one main objective, which revolved around the use of automation to eliminate advisor processes and free them to sell more services. With QuickBooks, entering parts margins was a manual process, and so was managing core returns and part warranties.
Protractor’s pricing capabilities, including its linear price matrix, meant advisors could focus on selling services vs. pricing them, while the software’s integrations with parts suppliers like RepairLink eliminated the 15 screens his advisors clicked through to complete a repair order.
“Before, we had to go to the supplier’s website, look up the price, and then go back into the system to enter the price and part description manually. Now, it’s one click to add a part before it comes into Protractor at our margins,” Jake says. “Building an estimate used to take a half hour on larger jobs. With Protractor, it now takes minutes.”
“Protractor’s integration and automation has freed up so much of our advisors’ time where they can now have customer interactions and talk about future scheduling or repairs down the road,” he adds. “You know. Develop preventative maintenance plans.”
A SHOP MANAGER’S MUST-HAVE
What Jake likes most about Protractor is its remote capabilities, allowing him to log in from anywhere with internet access to “see exactly where the shop is, whether you’re fat somewhere, or bleeding somewhere else,” he says.
And nothing gets missed because Protractor’s built-in inventory management and accounting tools are integrated right into the software’s write-up workflows. Protractor also automated the way Husker Diesel tracks tech efficiency. With QuickBooks, tracking tech efficiency was virtually nonexistent, with the estimated hours keyed right into the job ticket.
“And that’s what got billed, but there was no way to track what actually went into the job,” Jake says, adding this about his ability to get a live look at a profit-and-loss statement: “So many P&L statements are retroactive that if you even have the time to review it, you’re looking at 30 days after the fact. By the time you put another plan in place, you’re another 30 days down the road.”
OMNICHANNEL SUPPORT
Then there’s the omnichannel support he gets, including Protractor’s Facebook support group. Even there, responses to user questions are virtually immediate. “What I love about the tech support is they’re always willing to jump on a call to help solve a problem,” he says. “I also like how they’ve created a portal where you can tell them about features or changes you’d like to see.
“I’ve been doing this job for 25 years,” Jake adds. “Not only is Protractor the best software I’ve ever used from a tech standpoint and advancement in new features, it’s the most proactive technology company when it comes to listening to end users.”
