Not only is their asset portfolio impressive, but GoTransit is also recognised as market leaders in transit advertising.
A little different from other operators in the field, GoTransit boasts an impressive in-house creative and production facility, with the latest technology for providing high-quality artwork and unprecedented turnaround speeds to meet market needs.
In other words, GoTransit does it all.
“We sell it, we design it, we print it, we install it – we do the whole lot within one business”
- Caleb Harriott, General Manager, Operations and Finance
And because of this, the company’s client base is stretched across a continuum from small businesses to big household brands.
“We might have one client that buys hundreds of ads across all of our markets, and then we have hundreds of small clients in each market,” he explains.
Despite its varied reach and ever-growing list of advertising campaigns, the company’s goal is always the same: to pack the biggest punch with unmissable designs that hit the roads on time — and catch the attention of the Australian public.
For a company operating with this amount of transaction data from thousands of different customers, having the right system in place is critical.
Bursting at the seams with transaction data
Old system too small for business growth
While there was nothing wrong with GoTransit’s old system, it no longer had the right capabilities or functionality for a company of its size — and it was running into a number of issues.
“We raise between 1500–1800 invoices a month for a few thousand clients so our biggest concern as we’ve grown - and what triggered the change - was finding a system that could handle the volume of clients”
On top of that, the old system was an on-premise solution, so accessing client data off-site wasn’t an option. Because they didn’t have the right system in place, the accounts team would spend a lot of their time manually importing and exporting data, which slowed down their efficiency as a team.
“When we did statements, we had to manually tick them one letter at a time because if we did more than that, the emails would crash!” Caleb said.
New system is flexible, automates with ease
GoTransit stays with the MYOB family
Right from the start, Caleb knew he wanted the flexibility of a cloud-based system. He did a lot of research, looked at several ERP options and found the best solution was sitting right under his nose.
Having previously used MYOB, the company decided to stick with the brand they were familiar with and invest in MYOB Advanced Business. Not only was it cost-effective and easy to transfer data from the old system, but Caleb could also see it had all the functionality they needed and more.
“Over the last three years, we’ve seen a massive shift from what it was to where it is now – and there’s even more upgrades coming.”
MYOB Advanced Business could also be integrated with other applications the company uses to manage their clients and their advertising campaigns.
Million-dollar company can run with lean accounts team
Three years on — and GoTransit continues to see results
As a manager, Caleb says he’s always looking for ways to help his team work faster and more accurately to help drive business growth. Because of the flexibility of MYOB Advanced Business, they’ve been able to automate lots of manual processes — something that helps the entire business run more efficiently.
“We’re a multi-million-dollar company but we’re able to run a lean finance team of only 4.5 FTE at the most. The platform does so much for us so it means we can keep staff costs down even as we grow.”
Adding more integrations into the mix
Over the three years GoTransit has been using the new system, it’s been integrated with several external systems, including EzyCollect — a platform that accepts credit card payments, automates payment reminders and has completely transformed the way they manage their accounts receivable.
“The invoice goes out through EzyCollect, the payment follow-ups go to the customer, the customer then pays through their portal and it comes back in and receipts itself – we don’t have to process anything," Caleb explains.
"Our AR person now only works 3-4 hours across the week, so we’ve been able to repurpose their role elsewhere in the business,” he says.
It’s also improved customer service, by making it easier for clients to pay their invoices quickly. Caleb says:
“Historically they’d have to call up if they wanted to pay their bill with their credit card, so I think that’s been a big customer benefit. And I think it just sort of naturally happened where we’re getting those payments quicker.”
So much more than accounting system
It’s hard to put a dollar amount on time when you’re able to get so much of it back, Caleb says. His team is now able to focus on other things within the business, like generating more sales and more customers.
“The platform has huge amounts of scale. Every other day I click on the system and I go, ‘What other features are available?’,” Caleb laughs.
“We’ve found a platform that has a lot of capacity. It’s so much more than an accounting system.”
Caleb says the company is now underway with adding their biggest customisation to date, looking at how they can integrate a legacy project management system.
“What we saw was the potential for what we could do in the future and we’re starting now to realise it more and more – it’s pretty powerful,” he said.
Automated accounts with MYOB Advanced Business
Cloud-based system allows flexible working environments
ERP handles a large volume of transactional data with ease
No more manual data-entry: automated processes create better efficiency
Lots of room to grow: system will scale with business
Better customer service: thanks to integrations with external systems
GoTransit can focus on acquiring new customers and generating sales.
