While these growing pains are common, they’re often indicators that your organization has grown past what its current accounting platform was designed to support.

Here are five signs it may be time to evaluate whether your financial systems are helping your business grow or holding it back.

1. Critical information lives within spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are valuable tools, but they shouldn’t be the primary way your organization manages business data.

If employees regularly export information from your accounting system to create reports, track projects, analyze profitability, or monitor business performance, it may be a sign that your system isn’t providing the visibility your teams need.

Over time, spreadsheet-driven processes can create multiple versions of the truth, increase manual effort, and make it harder to trust the data being used for decisions.

2. You keep adding software to fill operational gaps

As companies grow, they commonly introduce new tools for functions such as:

• Purchasing and procurement
• Expense management
• Inventory tracking
• Project management
• Reporting and analytics

Initially, these tools solve specific problems. Eventually, however, they can create a fragmented technology landscape where information must constantly move between systems.

When teams spend significant time importing, exporting, and reconciling data, business processes become less efficient and more error prone. Connected systems can help reduce those handoffs and provide greater visibility among departments.

3. Leadership struggles to get answers quickly

Growing businesses need fast, well-informed decision-making.

Questions about project performance, cash flow, purchasing activity, profitability, or utilization shouldn’t require days of research to answer. Yet many organizations pull information from multiple sources every time leadership needs a clearer picture of the business.

When reporting cycles become lengthy, and leaders lack access to timely information, opportunities can be missed, and issues can take longer to address.

A modern ERP platform helps make operational and financial data more accessible so decisions can be made with confidence.

4. Business complexity is increasing

Many accounting platforms work well for organizations with straightforward operations. Challenges commonly emerge when businesses expand into:

• Multiple locations
• Project-based work
• Manufacturing operations
• Inventory management
• Job costing
• More sophisticated financial reporting

As complexity grows, companies often compensate with additional manual processes and workarounds.

While these fixes may work temporarily, they can become difficult to maintain as transaction volumes, customer demands, and organizational requirements continue to increase. At some point, growth requires a stronger operational foundation, not just additional effort from employees.

5. Your systems support accounting, but not the entire business

Accounting is only one part of a successful organization.

Operations teams need visibility into purchasing. Project managers need insight into costs and profitability. Leaders need a clear view of performance across the business.

If most employees can’t access the information they need without going through finance or relying on manually generated reports, your systems may be supporting transactions without supporting decision-making.

The most effective platforms connect departments, giving teams access to the information they need while maintaining data consistency across the organization.

See How DMC Approached the Same Challenge

When QuickBooks Couldn’t Keep Up, DMC Made the Move to Acumatica and Unified Their Operations

Like many growing organizations, DMC experienced increasing demands for reporting, operational visibility, project accounting, and cross-functional collaboration. Rather than continuing to rely on disconnected processes, DMC undertook an internal ERP modernization initiative to create a more scalable foundation for growth.

Learn how our firsthand migration experience helps organizations modernize with confidence.

Read the Case Study

Looking beyond today’s challenges

Many accounting platforms work well for organizations with straightforward operations. Challenges commonly emerge when businesses expand into:

• Multiple locations
• Project-based work
• Manufacturing operations
• Inventory management
• Job costing
• More sophisticated financial reporting

As complexity grows, companies often compensate with additional manual processes and workarounds.

While these fixes may work temporarily, they can become difficult to maintain as transaction volumes, customer demands, and organizational requirements continue to increase. At some point, growth requires a stronger operational foundation, not just additional effort from employees.

The post 5 Signs You’ve Outgrown Your Accounting Software appeared first on DMC, Inc..

DMC recently identified a critical need to enhance the speed and accuracy with which we handle incoming customer inquiries. Historically, our dedicated team of Project Coordinators managed this process. They played a crucial role in filtering and routing inquiries from potential customers who reached out through our website’s contact page. This manual process, while effective, posed challenges in scalability and speed as DMC continued to grow.

The Need for Innovation

Our goal has always been to respond to potential clients swiftly, as we believe promptness is key to building trust and demonstrating our dedication to potential customers; however, the manual process required Project Coordinators to:

1. Continually monitor a shared Outlook inbox for new leads.
2. Pre-qualify each inquiry to filter out spam and identify legitimate leads.
3. Determine the most appropriate service area within DMC for the lead.
4. Assign the lead to the most appropriate engineer and ensure a timely response.
5. Create a new lead in our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

To streamline these steps and enhance our responsiveness, we introduced Sales Buddy.

How Sales Buddy Works

Sales Buddy is an AI-powered Slack Bot that automates the initial stages of our customer inquiry handling process. It integrates cutting-edge technology using Azure OpenAI models, Slack’s Webhook API, and Microsoft Power Automate. Here’s how it functions:

• Monitoring and Qualification: Sales Buddy continually monitors our shared Outlook inbox for incoming leads. Utilizing Azure OpenAI, it evaluates each inquiry based on sophisticated criteria to determine its legitimacy and relevance.
• Intelligent Routing: After qualifying an inquiry, Sales Buddy identifies the most suitable DMC service area to handle the request. This decision is based on predefined logic that understands our service offerings and their alignment with the potential needs of the customer.
• Seamless Integration: Once an appropriate service area is selected, Sales Buddy communicates this via a message to one of many designated Slack channels, ensuring that the right sales teams are promptly notified about new opportunities.
• CRM Integration: Finally, Sales Buddy automatically creates a new lead record in our Microsoft Dynamics CRM system. This reduces manual data entry, enabling faster and more efficient follow-ups from the DMC team.

Benefits and Impact

The implementation of Sales Buddy has transformed the way we manage customer inquiries. By automating the pre-qualification and routing processes, we have significantly reduced the response time, allowing our engineering teams to engage with potential clients quicker than ever before. This not only enhances customer satisfaction but also allows our Project Coordinators to focus on more strategic tasks, thereby improving overall productivity.

Furthermore, Sales Buddy serves as a perfect example of how AI and automation can be leveraged in a low-code environment: making advanced technology accessible to non-developers. This accessibility ensures that our teams can easily maintain and adapt the system as our needs evolve.

Looking Forward

The success of Sales Buddy is a steppingstone towards more comprehensive AI integration across various facets of DMC’s operations. We are committed to continuous improvement and innovation, ensuring that we not only meet but exceed the expectations of our clients and stakeholders.

The post Enhancing Customer Service with AI: Introducing Sales Buddy at DMC  appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Before the party began, Dan took some of the Chicago office visitors sailing in the Boston Harbor. The weather was great and everyone got to see an amazing sunset. Some of the DMCer's had never been sailing before, so it was a unique experience. 

We were thrilled to celebrate our 20th Anniversary with clients, friends, family and DMC employees from across our offices. The party was in full swing all night with a caricaturist duo, DMC videos, video games, mini golf and lots of food and drinks. We featured food and flags representing DMC's five offices.

The caricaturist duo was a big hit. One of them drew and the other colored in the picture. They drew an awesome picture of Adam, which you can see below. 

Guests also had the opportunity to enjoy experiencing permanent office fixtures like the Bongo board, mini golf and giant bean bag chairs. In the 1996 room, representing the year DMC was founded, Phil set up an old school video game. Frank May demoed the FANUC robot arm to great fanfare.

Just like the Chicago party, everyone enjoyed all of the 1996 videos. Once again, everyone was able to guess which photo was which employee back in 1996. Throughout the night, the office sound system was playing music from 1996 as well. Everyone loved grooving to these old school hits.

The food and drink menu paid tribute to the five cities where DMC has an office. We served New York style pizza, Houston brisket, Chicago style hot dogs, Boston Crème Pie  and Denver beer on tap. According to the guests polled, the New York style pizza was hands down the best in terms of food.

Many guests loved trying the Boston Crème Pie in Boston. Out-of-towners didn’t know what real, authentic Boston Crème Pie was like, so the Boston natives were excited to show them how great it actually is. 

The DMC Boston party had the same opinion on Malort (a bitter Chicago spirit) as Chicago and Houston's parties: it must be an acquired taste that no one has the intention of developing. Except, Bill seemed to be the only one that enjoyed the taste and said it tasted like "flowers". 

Guests left the party with a huge range of DMC SWAG items including 20th anniversary mugs, frisbees, dancing robots, ring pops, slap bracelets, magic eight balls, playing cards, mini footballs, and sunglasses. The evening was very successful and we thank everyone who came out and helped us celebrate our 20th Anniversary! 

The post DMC Boston’s 20th Anniversary Party appeared first on DMC, Inc..

DMC's 20th Anniversary Party – Boston
June 22, 2016
4 – 10 p.m.
20 Holland St., Suite 408
Somerville, MA 02144
[Directions]

Our 20th Anniversary Party will feature food and beverages from our five office locations across the U.S., including Chicago vs. NYC pizza, Denver microbrews, and hometown Boston cream pie. Stop by anytime throughout the evening, and feel free to bring along significant or insignificant others (spouses, colleagues, girlfriends, college roommates, etc.).

If this is your first DMC event, check out highlights from some of our past parties: Chicago Oktoberfest, Boston Mad Science Party, Denver Opening Day Opening Day.

RSVP using the following quick links: RSVP Yes, RSVP No, RSVP Maybe or contact Jessica Mlinaric at 312.255.8757 or jessica.mlinaric@localhost.

The post Celebrate Our 20th Anniversary With DMC Boston appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Over 70 guests joined the DMC Boston team for a fun night at office, located in the heart of Davis Square. Everyone filled up on barbecue and mac & cheese from nearby Redbones BBQ and sampled a pale ale and bourbon ale from our office kegerator in commemorative party steins.

Visitors were greeted by our friendly infrared RC flying dolphin. This being a DMC party, there were plenty of opportunities for friendly competition including games of bags, putt-putt, and video games as well as an Anki DRIVE course. Another hit of the evening was our photo booth, which gave guests a fun reminder of party to take home. 

We capped off the evening with a champagne toast and ribbon cutting to officially dedicate the office. The party was a great way to celebrate DMC’s first expansion office, and we look forward to a bright future of solving problems, cultivating relationships, and having fun in Boston. Thanks to everyone who was able to attend and all those who have shared in DMC’s growth!

The post DMC Boston’s Grand Opening Party appeared first on DMC, Inc..

DMC Boston's Grand Opening Party

June 5, 2014

4 p.m. – 10 p.m.

20 Holland St., Suite 408

Somerville, MA 02144

[Driving Directions]

Join in celebrating DMC's newest office at our first ever Boston celebration. Stop by any time throughout the evening for food by Redbones BBQ, drinks, and fun. Feel free to bring along significant or insignificant others (spouses, colleagues, girlfriends, college roommates, etc.).

If you haven't attended one of DMC's events check out our highlights from some of DMC's past parties: Boston Bash, Tres De Mayo, Oktoberfest 2011, Oktoberfest 2012, and Oktoberfest 2013.

RSVP using the following quick links: RSVP Yes, RSVP No, RSVP Maybe or contact Jessica Mlinaric at 312.255.8757 or jessica.mlinaric@localhost.

We hope to see you there!

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Dan Freve, Project Director Hometown: Elkhart, IN Education: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Certifications: Siemens Solution Partner, MCPD Windows Developer 4 Favorite Gadget: Raspberry Pi First Concert: Red Hot Chili Peppers I’d Like to Meet: Tom Brady Party Trick: Juggling Favorite Thing About Boston: Fenway Park Watch Dan’s Employee Spotlight video.     Dan Lawler, Systems Engineer Hometown: Rochester, MN Education: University of Wisconsin, Madison Certifications: Siemens Solution Partner, LabVIEW Developer Favorite Gadget: Phone saves the day when navigating spaghetti-like Cambridge Random Fact: I’m way too good at Mariokart, almost embarrassing Slogan for Life: Be nice Proudest Achievement: Grade school chess champion! Favorite Thing About Boston: The Boston accent, the movies don’t lie Read Dan’s Employee Spotlight interview.     Frank May, Systems Engineer Hometown: Franklin, MA Education: UMass Amherst Party Trick: Reciting pi Favorite Gadget: A broken one that I’m allowed to take apart Proudest Achievement: Winning a 5K in a banana costume If I Won the Lottery: I’d buy a few hundred remote control helicopters and start scheming. Slogan for Life: Google it Favorite Thing About Boston: The disorganized roads – just kidding. Probably how important the Boston Marathon is to everyone.    Jason Mayes, Project Engineer Hometown: Longview, TX Education: University of Notre Dame Certifications: Certified LabVIEW Developer First Concert: Beach Boys (with a guest appearance by John Stamos) Random Fact: I’ve broken my nose 7 times Proudest Achievement: Finishing my Ph.D. What Inspired Me to Engineer: MacGyver and late 60’s muscle cars Favorite Thing About Boston: Regina’s Pizzeria makes us forget Chicago. Mike’s Pastry cannolis are worth the trip alone. Watch Jason’s Employee Spotlight video.  Bill Sowerine, Systems Engineer Hometown: McKinleyville, CA Education: U.C. Santa Barbara, C.U. Boulder I’d Like to Meet: John Mitzewich, internet chef On the Weekend I Love: Hiking, rock climbing, and any opportunity to get outdoors Random Fact: I’m knowledgeable about edible mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest If I Won the Lottery: I’d reinvest in lottery tickets What Inspired Me to Engineer: A lifelong interest in science and a need to understand how things work Favorite Thing About Boston: Fresh seafood  Adnaan Velji, Systems Engineer Hometown: Mwanza, Tanzania Education: Georgia Tech Languages: English, Gujrati, Swahili, Kutchi, Hindi, survival Spanish, Python, C#/C/C+, MATLAB, Java, Siemens S7 First Concert: T.I.P. coming from G.I.T. Slogan for Life: I have a different slogan every week. Open to suggestions. Guilty Pleasure: Suits and boots Party Trick: The tongue click Favorite Thing About Boston: It’s very bikeable and there are many options for day trips   Adam Wójcik, Systems Engineer Hometown: Pila, Poland Education: University of Notre Dame Languages: Polish, English, French, attempting German, C++, C, MATLAB, Java, FORTRAN 77 Favorite Gadget: 3D printers First Concert: ACDC – old, but still great Proudest Achievement: Translating a Polish novel to English I’ve Always Wanted: To augment myself What Inspired Me to Engineer: A childhood dream of creating a robotic pet dinosaur.  Also LEGOs.

Learn more about DMC’s company culture. 

The post Meet the DMC Boston Team appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Team A:  Devon Fritz, Dan Freve, and Rick Rietz

Team B:  Jesse Batsche, Ken Brey, Spencer Glesmann, and Jason Mayes

We played a scramble format on the 9-hole course, and everyone had a blast golfing adjacent to Lake Michigan. Team A finished 1 over par and Team B finished 3 over par.

We’re excited to tee it up again soon, so look forward to future updates from the DMC “Golf Club!”

The post DMC’s First Golf Tournament appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Enter, the automated ping pong game! We decided to build a machine that plays ping pong – autonomously! Here’s a video showing the machine in action:

The beauty of this demo is that it involves many of the technologies and equipment that a DMC engineer works with any given day. Obviously, there was no way for us to encapsulate everything we do into one demo, but this demo includes quite a few of them.

The entire ping-pong demo is driven by a LabVIEW program.The LabVIEW program can be broken up into the following subsystems:

Camera: The camera we are currently using is a Prosilica monochrome camera with a resolution of 1280×1024 pixels.It takes around 40 pictures of the playing field per second.We use several of the NI vision VIs to identify the position of the ball on the illuminated background and filter out unwanted objects.

Trajectory Prediction: As the ball travels around the playing field, we keep a buffer of previous ball positions.We use a very basic least squares curve fit to predict the quadratic trajectory of the ball.

Servo System: To locate the hitting mechanism under the ball, we are using a Yaskawa Sigma-5 servo amplifier to drive a motor that is coupled to a linear slide. DMC developed a LabVIEW driver that communicates with Yaskawa Sigma V drives over their MECHATROLINK II protocol. Using these driver VIs, the predicted point of contact is being continuously relayed to the amplifier. Acceleration parameters are set on the drive to produce the fastest possible positioning.

Digital I/O: We are using a National Instruments USB-6009 module for our digital I/O. When the ball approaches the hitting head at the bottom of the playing field, it crosses a LASER line.Since we know the velocity of the ball (from the camera), and the distance between the LASER and the hitting head, we can calculate the precise time to hit the ball. After the necessary delay, the program activates an output to drive the solenoid that is mounted on the hitting mechanism.The solenoid is only pulsed for a very short time period (~15 ms).

A side note: One might think that the LASER is unnecessary for timing.We can get the velocity and distance of the ball from the camera, so why do we need the LASER for timing?The answer is that the information from the camera is simply not accurate enough. Since the solenoid is only activated for about 15 ms, we need very precise timing to ensure a clean hit.

During a recent brainstorming session, we came up with a few ideas for future improvements:

1. “Inverted Pendulum” mode: The algorithm would position the hitter in such a way to keep the ball bouncing exactly in the middle of the playing field.
2. “Target” mode: Use the curved hitting head to aim the ball at several targets on the screen.
3. “User” mode: Give the user the ability to control the position of the hitting head (possibly using a Wii controller).

Feel free to comment on any ideas for future features that you may have!

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It turns out that most stepper motors will tend to vibrate enough that they can produce quite an audible tone at the frequency at which you are providing pulses. For instance, if you provided a pulse frequency of 440 Hz, the stepper motor would hum the pitch of concert A.

It occurred to me very quickly that I could easily program my device to use the stepper motor as a “speaker” and play a song! Programming each note one by one seemed too tedious, so I programmed a simple MIDI parser.

My project reads a MIDI file in from a USB flash drive, parses the file to gather note events, then plays the song using the PWM output on the microprocessor.

Below is a video of the player in action. Of course, the classic Mario theme was my song of choice!

Comments and suggestions are definitely welcome! I’ve attached my project files, so feel free to build on them.

Download Project Files

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