Executive summary

Over the past year, Sievert Electric has made a series of practical, operations-first technology improvements centered on Acumatica ERP and a small set of high-impact integrations. The work focused less on “new tools” and more on cleaning up data, standardizing processes, tightening security, and automating the highest-friction financial and e-commerce workflows. The result has been faster close and reconciliation cycles, reduced manual effort, improved visibility, and measurable working-capital recovery.

Company context

Sievert Electric operates across multiple related entities (including e-commerce via Hoists.com and affiliated operations such as TLC/ACT), creating complex intercompany accounting, inventory, and order-to-cash workflows. Acumatica functions as the operational and financial system of record, with supporting integrations to payments, e-commerce, and expense management.

Starting point (key constraints)

• Fragmented workflows (spreadsheets, paper processes, inconsistent estimating/project structures).
• Data integrity and reconciliation gaps (inventory valuation, intercompany, AP/AR, credit cards).
• E-commerce and ERP synchronization friction (SKUs, taxes, refunds/returns).
• Security needed to scale (SSO/MFA, role-based access).

What changed: technology improvements implemented

1) ERP stabilization + accounting clean-up (Acumatica)

What was done

• Resolved project inventory layer issues and released more than $500K in costs tied up in inventory layer problems.
• Identified and corrected major accounting discrepancies including a ~$400K vendor credit discrepancy and a ~$400K AP bill paid in error.
• Identified unbilled sales orders and enabled billing/collections on many of them.
• Addressed PO accrual account discrepancies to reduce unbilled purchase receipts and reconcile AP bills.
• Improved intercompany clean-up between Sievert and TLC, including adjustments exceeding $425K.

Why it mattered

• Reduced noise and rework for accounting and operations.
• Improved financial accuracy and confidence in the numbers used for decisions.

2) Expense management automation (Ramp → Acumatica)

What was done

• Implemented Ramp with Acumatica AP integration for automated expense entry, receipt capture, and coding to projects/service orders.

Why it mattered

• Reduced manual expense processing and follow-up effort while improving allocation accuracy.

3) Payment processing + reconciliation automation (Stripe → Acumatica)

What was done

• Migrated from Authorize.net to Stripe and implemented a direct integration into Acumatica.
• Improved deposit matching and reconciliation flows.

Why it mattered

• Faster reconciliation and fewer “mystery deposits.”
• Reduced accounting time spent on matching and cleanup.

4) E-commerce integration improvements (WooCommerce / Hoists.com → Acumatica)

What was done

• Continued improvements to the WooCommerce ↔ Acumatica integration (order import, payment processing, inventory sync).
• Executed a major SKU duplication cleanup: reset “-CM” parts, deactivated 80+ duplicates, and standardized key items back to canonical SKUs.
• Ongoing work to resolve tax-exempt/refund sync gaps and tighten returns/credit memo processes.

Why it mattered

• Reduced operational friction and order exceptions.
• Improved trust in inventory availability and product master data.

5) Service operations improvements (Acumatica service order billing)

What was done

• Transitioned billing from appointment-based billing to service-order-based billing (SO/SO) and started rolling it into broader usage.
• KPI cleanup work to ensure billing teams see what truly needs invoicing (reducing queue clutter from zero-dollar and non-billable orders).

Why it mattered

• Cleaner billing queues and higher throughput.
• Improved ability to manage service profitability once foundational billing structure is correct.

6) Security & access modernization (Microsoft 365 / Azure AD SSO + MFA)

What was done

• Rolled out Active Directory single sign-on for users with sievertelectric.com accounts.
• Enforced Microsoft 365 credentialing with two-factor authentication.

Why it mattered

• Reduced access risk as the system footprint expands.
• Improved onboarding/offboarding control and auditability.

7) Operational dashboards + role-based visibility

What was done

• Built personal dashboards and operational KPI widgets (including project/production visibility).
• Implemented project restriction groups for role-based security and cross-entity access control.

Why it mattered

• Better at-a-glance management for leaders and functional owners.
• Reduced “spreadsheet shadow reporting.”

ROI & business impact (what we can quantify today)

Working capital and profit leakage recovered

• >$500K in costs released by resolving project inventory layer issues.
• ~$400K vendor credit discrepancy resolved and ~$400K AP bill paid in error identified.
• Unbilled sales orders identified and billed/collected, improving cash flow.

Time savings and throughput improvements

• Tax reconciliation speed: sales tax reconciliation for TLC completed in ~5 minutes after improvements.
• Expense processing: Ramp + receipt policy improvements reduced outstanding receipts and manual follow-up burden.

Risk reduction and scalability

• SSO + MFA and role-based access controls reduce security exposure and improve compliance posture.
• Cleaner master data (SKUs) and returns/refunds processes reduce downstream reporting errors and customer-facing issues.

Key lessons learned

• The highest ROI has come from “unsexy” work: reconciliation, data cleanup, and process standardization.
• Integrations deliver value only when master data (items/SKUs, customers, tax rules) is governed.
• Security and access controls are force multipliers; they enable broader adoption without increasing risk.