Small / Mid-size Business User Case Studies
Ramsden Industries Limited (Medium-Large Sized Companies)
Ramsden Industries Limited, a manufacturer of permanent mold aluminum castings for various
industries and a loyal customer of PlanGuru since 2010, has benefited from the software
greatly. The company was looking for a product that would help them with extended forecasts.
As the controller, James Jones, admits, Ramsden Industries Limited previously used Excel to
build extended budgets; however, those budgets did not include balance sheets or cash flow
statements. With the help of PlanGuru, the company was able to create more accurate budgets
as well as financial statements such as the balance sheet and cash flows. These details were
needed because, at the time, Ramsden Industries Limited was going through some ownership
changes and needed to know how the cash flows were distributed.
Since 2010, the company has continuously used PlanGuru to update its budget and to build
forecast. The ability to input actual data has helped Jones tremendously in building more
accurate cash flows. These accurate cash flows help create ratios that compare the budgeted
versus forecasted inflows and outflows.
Ramsden Industries Limited continuously experiences positive interactions with the PlanGuru
support system and recommends the product to anyone who needs to build budgets.
All-Brite Glass and Tint (Small Business)
All-Brite Glass and Tint is a full service auto, home, and business glass and tint company that
has been around since 1992. They are in business mainly for replacing wind shields, servicing
car dealerships, trucking companies, and commercial and residential glass, as well as the
manufacturing of thermal paint.
Terry Aivaliotis, who is in charge of the finances at All-Brite Glass and Tint, used QuickBooks
and an integrated glass software with built in accounting functionalities to meet the basic
accounting needs of the business; however, when it came to looking ahead and seeing if the
company was meeting its long term goals, those programs required long hours of input and
were limited to the needs of the company with regards to forecasting, budgeting, cash flow
income, and performance indicators. All-Brite Glass and Tint was mainly concerned with the
inflows and outflows of cash and ratios due to the seasonality of the business. One of the
company’s employees, who was an Excel guru, spent hundreds of hours developing cash flows
and financial statements in Excel. But even then, the spreadsheets contained errors in the
formulas and were unreliable.
After long hours of resesearch, the company began using
PlanGuru. With the help of PlanGuru, Aivaliotis was able to import from Excel and to export
whenever needed as well as to use different methods to forecast its cash flows. The NonFinancial tab is very useful to All-Brite Glass and Tint. Through the data inputted in this section,
the company can measure the performance of its employees and to measure key indicators.
According to Aivaliotis, most businesses need to forecast their financial needs in order to keep
the business alive, and PlanGuru has enabled easy and quick access to these forecasted
budgets while providing consolidated master budgets.
Brite-Glass and Tint has experienced great support from the staff at PlanGuru, and it has been
able to use its time more efficiently ever since it started using PlanGuru.