In this blog, we welcome Andrea de Fraga, business analyst at Codence, a Claris Platinum Partner. She explains her experience with enterprise-level software and offers advice on what to do when ERP costs are way more than a small or medium-sized business (SMB) can afford. Hint – it involves Claris FileMaker.
Take it away, Andrea ...
Drawing inspiration from Problemista.
Okay, this blog was inspired by Problemista. Watching the movie and seeing FileMaker references made me think about how I got introduced to the platform years ago. I used to work for a production company that made documentary films, and we needed a tool to manage our budgets.
When was the last time you saw a documentary? Can’t think of a time? Well, that’s why documentary budgets are so small!
There are enterprise-level software packages for production budgets – just kidding, really there’s only one. Unironically, it’s called Movie Magic, like the accounting is where the magic happens. It’s also quite expensive, with a price point for people making blockbuster movies, not for folks making small documentaries that are lucky if 25 people see them.
Just because our company couldn’t afford Movie Magic didn't change the fact we needed it. Luckily, I had seen FileMaker used at a film festival and thought I would give it a whirl to create a custom app for budget tracking.
Building my first custom app with FileMaker.
When I was doing my investigation, YouTube wasn’t a thing, so I actually had to go to the library and read about using FileMaker Pro. With that information, I built a basic budget application.
Like so many businesses before us, the real need was to get the projected budget information from our teams before spending the money. In theory, that would put us in front of any bad decisions before the finances were committed.
After developing the initial app, I connected the budgeting tool to our existing purchase order (PO) system, allowing our producers the flexibility to enter PO placeholders, the details of which could change all the way up to receiving the actual bill from the vendor. So, if a producer thought they were going to spend $1,000 with a camera person (I told you our budgets were small), they entered that PO as soon as the thought occurred to them.
In our budget app, this money was “earmarked.” Once the bill came from the camera person, an employee attached the bill to the PO, and adjusted the PO amount to the actual bill amount. Only then was the money considered “committed.”
Our accounting department would search the budgets database and pull all the committed POs into the accounting system – of course, this was after we checked to make sure all the information was correct, and the vendor’s name was spelled correctly. After the bill was paid, the PO was marked “paid” in the production budget.
This system allowed us to see earmarked, committed, and paid funds for each line in the budget. Being able to view a report of all earmarked spending for a project allowed us to zoom out and view it in the context of the available funds. It helped us understand the impact our creative decisions would make before they were executed by the crew. This made it easier to make changes to the production plan without going over budget.
Determining how to enhance scalability.
My bright, shiny budgeting tool worked beautifully when we managed a few budgets at a time. However, as we started entering more productions and adding users to the database, things started to slow down. At the time, my coding ability was at a beginner level, and I knew I was in over my head trying to speed up the performance of my budgeting database.
I had created a tool that allowed our team a flexible way to enter and maintain expected costs for our projects. Now, I needed to make sure this application performed quickly and was intuitive enough for people to continue using it, regardless of how many new projects and users we added.
The lasting power of this application depended on its scalability, and to scale up the budget tool, I needed the mind of a more experienced FileMaker developer. This is how I was introduced to the world of FileMaker consulting.
Building a custom ERP piece by piece.
Even though the budget database did what it needed to do, its performance was an issue. It would take forever to load layouts with multiple unstored calculation fields (please note, in developer speak, there’s a big difference between stored and unstored). The user interface needed to be more intuitive, so when new employees joined the team, they could jump right in.
The worst part was our accounting team found more and more mistakes in vendor names and billing codes. I was baffled by not knowing how to make capabilities better, but the FileMaker consultant sure did.
Using the framework I built, the FileMaker consultant optimized the database architecture, enhancing speed for searches, edits, generating reports, and more. Then the consultant redid the layouts, so everything looked professional and clean.
Plus, instead of having a layout where every piece of data displayed, the developer used intuitive navigation to show users what they needed to see when they needed to see it.
The FileMaker consultant also introduced me to the concept of data integrity. Those vendors names, previously misspelled or entered more than once by the producers, were now available to select from a list. A brilliant yet utterly simple way to ensure the names were spelled right every time.
Gaining business value from FileMaker.
In the end, FileMaker delivered more value and cost way less than Movie Magic. Our production company profited from our custom solution built specifically for our work needs. While Movie Magic looked really cool, our system was enhanced to be as unique as our workflow. The custom software became an integral part of how we ran our production company.
If you’re looking at an ERP system to help run your business, look no further than Claris FileMaker – it's quite often the better choice. Even with outside help from development consultant, you’ll more than likely spend less time and money building a custom solution with FileMaker than buying and implementing ready-made, one-size-fits-most ERP software.
In the end, you’ll have the perfect custom solution to handle your specific operational needs.
While I would have loved to use the tool that supports blockbuster movies, the reality was our SMB company simply couldn’t afford it. More importantly, our business couldn’t afford for our producers to make bad budget decisions while making documentary films for 25 of their closest friends and family members to see.
In the end, Claris FileMaker was the more affordable solution and gave us everything the business needed, and so much more.
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Claris Partners, like Codence, have built their careers by creating unique, custom applications tailored to business needs – developing solutions that positively impact the bottom line. Take Andrea’s advice and check out the Claris App Success program to discover what one-on-one consultation from a Claris expert can do for your organization. Learn more.
Need more convincing? Explore another customer story showcasing how a Claris Partner used FileMaker to create a series of custom apps that became the company’s ERP. Learn more.