KiBiz Dramatically Saves Time and Money for
California Music Distributor
Business Challenge
To properly track and integrate each of Revolver USA’s business transactions for each of the company’s departments was the reason in 2001, Darren began his search for a business management software solution, as each transaction can involve a very high number of variables.
Revolver USA does a large number of transactions, between 500 and 2,000 line items on sales each day. Because they supply some very large retail chains, some of their orders can have well over sixty line items. To complicate the matter further, because they sell to individuals as well as large businesses, they get a lot of one and two item orders, which pushes the total number of orders up further.
It isn’t easy for any music distributor to keep track of all their transactions and track each one accurately. Especially challenging are the multitude of formats, pricing tiers, and discounts, which all vary depending on the type of buyer, be they a mail order buyer, a store, or another distributor. These transactions further vary depending on the type of sale: consignment, purchase or promo. Like any other business they also have to cut checks, track payments and carry balances forward for both Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable. In addition Royalty Statements must be furnished to record labels, all sales and returns must be tracked accurately for inventory control, monthly statements must be generated.
Later on, adding Amazon.com and iTunes as distribution channels added to the overall challenge as they each have certain requirements that companies must comply with in order to do business with them.
Revolver USA
Revolver USA began doing business in 1992 by selling records out of the trunk a car. Today, they’re a worldwide music distributor that sells music in every possible format – digital downloads, CD’s, LP’s, cassettes, 7” singles – as well as books, magazines, and related items, to individual consumers via Midheaven Mailorder & Web site, large chain stores, small stores and other distributors. They represent 45 to 50 labels exclusively and handle manufacturing for many of them, producing CD’s, LP’s etc. and downloads for some like Amazon.com, iTunes and emusic.
Revolver USA’s headquarters are in San Francisco. Business has grown steadily and as it has, so has their need for business systems.
When Darren Mock, Director of Operations, began working with Revolver USA in 1997, there were no systems in place to keep track of any part of their operations or integrate any of their business activities – everything was done manually – orders were written by hand; invoices were typed on a typewriter. Having some experience and familiarity with FileMaker, Darren began to organize the business to the extent his skills would allow. Eventually he realized the company’s needs were beyond his capabilities.
Successful Solution
KiBiz Dramatically Saves Time and Money for California Music Distributor From what Darren saw in the KiBiz Systems demo he knew that their system was much further advanced than anything he could develop and realized this was the place he needed to start.
KiBiz Systems, utilizing the powerful tools in FileMaker Pro, automated Revolver USA’s whole business process bringing all 30 people in the company together with access to real time data relating to every aspect of the organization. Custom features were added to easily handle pre-orders, promo items, consignment items, and returns. Sales entry screens were designed for quickly adding items. Sales automation scripts then processed the orders, to accelerate the order fulfillment and invoicing processes. KiBiz also built an efficient way to keep track of all the royalties owed to the musicians on their exclusive labels.
To comply with Amazon’s requirements KiBiz used EDI to automate all of the orders from Amazon. KiBiz has gone on to add more EDI links for other large customers. For smaller Revolver customers, KiBiz developed an automation script to parse data out of emails, converting email messages into orders.
What has worked most for Darren is that KiBiz has listened and learned enough about his company’s process to customize the KiBiz System to meet his unique needs, in a precise way. “I was never really able to stump the panel,” Darren says. “And I threw a lot at them, again we have so many convoluted issues to deal with. They were so capable and willing to customize everything for me. It’s been great working with Allen and really everyone on the KiBiz team. They’ve devoted a lot of time and effort to it.”
Customer Benefits
Revolver has now relied upon KiBiz for over 9 years to run all its essential business operations. Darren reports, “the amount of time it takes for us to process all the data we do has been drastically reduced. What used to take ten people all day to do, now takes us half a day and one person. The company would not have been able to grow the way it has without KiBiz in place for the past 9 years.”
The KiBiz System being used by Revolver USA today has automated and integrated every business function from managing their contacts, to processing sales, to doing the accounting. Thirty people use the system all day, everyday; everyone working off of the same database at the same time. Purchasing people are looking at the same inventory data that the sales people and the people fulfilling the orders are looking at. Everyone always has the same real time data to work with.
The extensibility, flexibility and scalability of the FileMaker Pro based KiBiz System enables Revolver USA to continue to grow in the “organic way” natural to their unique culture.
“What used to take ten people all day to do, now takes us half a day and one person. The company would not have been able to grow the way it has without KiBiz in place for the past 9 years.”
Darren Mock, Director of Operations