Greentree drives Gray Line to faster processing

It was a technology barrier that spurred the decision to upgrade Gray Line’s accounting package. The company was using DOS -based CBA, but General Manager of Operations, Ajay Vagha, says it was very limiting. Gray Line can send out up to 200 job quotes on some days, but CBA was unable to email quotes. “We’d have to physically type them out,” Ajay says. “CBA was very bland and scientific, and you couldn’t even adjust the view in terms of printing.

“We liked the system, but it was just too simplistic. We tried to find a connection to a more user-friendly system.” Although Gray Line was shown many demos, and even transport-specific packages, none of them felt right. “They were trying to be too complicated and too tricky. And they sounded awfully expensive. We’re in the business of making money out of coaches, not having pretty computer systems. Then we saw Greentree, and things just snowballed from there,” Ajay says.

Greentree had the right specs and the right price. The changeover took a little longer than expected, but Ajay says the complexity of the business contributed to that. “As far as workability goes, there were no glitches.” The system has been customised for them, with two custom programs written, and it now has around 20 users. Ajay says the users found the functionality easy to learn, which meant they soon found out how to get the benefits from Greentree.

Very, very flexible

He likes the flexibility that Greentree has given him. “I’m big on getting the raw data that we put in every day and turning it into figures and statistics. We used to have Crystal Reports linked to our old system, but now we just press a button and Greentree extracts the reports.” Ajay also likes the immediacy of the program. “Accounting-wise, in terms of live updates, Greentree has certainly helped the accounts department keep their sanity!” He says users also appreciate being able to use their existing Excel skills to make reports and spreadsheets. “You don’t need any special coding. It’s very straightforward.”

He believes almost every single person’s day-to-day job has been made easier by Greentree. “The user-friendliness is great. We can do quotes in such a hurry now,” he says. “A Windows-based system has been much easier.

“All the other programs we are using are Windows-based, and accounting was the only area that was lagging,” he says. “Now it is compatible with everything else.”

Very, very accessible

Removing DOS from the equation has been a big benefit. “When we installed it, we wanted to upgrade to something that would last for the next few years. We didn’t know what was going to happen to DOS in terms of support, so it was one of the key reasons we changed,” Ajay says.