Distribution Company Streamlines Operations with Acumatica After 20+ Years on Dynamics GP
Customer: Blumer USA
Website: www.blumerusa.com
Location: Connecticut
Industry: Distribution
Former System: Microsoft Dynamics GP
New System: Acumatica
Customer Profile: Blumer USA Inc. is the North American importer and distributor for the Blumer line of label and card production machinery.
Download Distribution Company Streamlines Operations with Acumatica
The Challenge:
After 20+ years on Microsoft Dynamics GP (Great Plains), Blumer USA, the trusted source for premium banding and die-cutting machines, faced a critical decision when Microsoft announced Dynamics GP’s end of life. As Controller Bethany Hiller explained, “We didn’t really want to risk being on the end of it and running out of licenses and updates.” The company had been considering alternatives to GP due to its limitations anyways, and the end-of-life announcement accelerated their search for a modern ERP solution.
Like many businesses that implemented GP years ago, Blumer had outgrown the system over time. “Our Great Plains setup had become really challenging — duplicates, errors, and workarounds that had just accumulated over the years,” said Hiller. Without a clean, consolidated view of each customer, the team was dealing with pricing inconsistencies and spending extra hours on reconciliation and audit prep. It was clear the business had simply evolved beyond what the platform could comfortably support.
The Search for a New Manufacturing ERP
Blumer evaluated three leading ERP solutions: NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC), and Acumatica. Working closely with CAL Business Solutions, they viewed extensive demos of BC and Acumatica to understand each system’s capabilities.
While all three systems offered rich features and significant improvements over GP, Acumatica emerged as the clear winner. ”We looked at who our users actually were – people who needed to get in, get answers, and get back to work,” Hiller explained. ”Acumatica was just so much more intuitive. That ease of use was a deciding factor we couldn’t ignore.”
A crucial factor in the decision was Acumatica’s comprehensive core functionality, which eliminated the need for expensive add-ons. For example, currency management and financial reporting capabilities that would have required additional purchases with other systems came built into Acumatica. “At Acumatica’s core, currency management was a big one,” Hiller noted. “With Business Central, we needed an add-on to alter reports. With Acumatica, the core features that they had were built-in and were amazing and functional.”
The partnership with CAL Business Solutions proved instrumental in the successful migration. “CAL has an amazing team,” Hiller emphasized. ”They know Acumatica inside and out, and they took the time to really understand what we needed. They didn’t just hand us a system – they made sure it was the right fit for our environment.”
CAL’s team expertly handled the complex data migration, identifying and correcting years of accumulated errors and duplicates from the old GP system. On the customer side, duplicate billing records had created split payment histories, making it nearly impossible to track true buying patterns or get a clear picture of what any given customer was actually spending.
Vendor and inventory data presented a similar challenge. Duplicate item records had scattered cost of goods sold data across multiple SKUs, making accurate profitability analysis nearly impossible. CAL methodically cleaned and consolidated all of this data, both customer and item records, ensuring Blumer USA had a solid, clean foundation to build on.
The Benefits:
Streamlined Operations
“Acumatica has really streamlined everything,” said Hiller. One of the biggest shifts was how the system puts the right information in front of the right people. Dashboards can be personalized by role, department, or individual, so each user sees exactly what they need and only what they need. The new system simplified processes that were previously convoluted in GP. “Everyone can clearly see their roles and responsibilities. You come in, you know exactly what needs to get done and what’s already been taken care of.”
The transformation from their problematic GP environment was dramatic. With CAL’s help, Acumatica provided a clean slate with properly structured data and intuitive workflows. Tasks that once required multiple steps and workarounds now flow seamlessly through the system.
Building on the success of Phase 1, Blumer USA expanded into Acumatica’s Warehouse Management System (WMS) in phase 2, further streamlining operations. Hiller described the approach simply: “We implemented, we streamlined, and then we implemented again and streamlined again. And now, business runs seamlessly,” By rolling out the system in stages, Blumer USA was able to optimize operations incrementally, locking in measurable improvements at each phase before moving forward.
Enhanced Financial Reporting
“Acumatica’s financial reporting is excellent,” Hiller noted. “The ability to create and personalize reports is straightforward and gives you complete visibility into your business.” The flexibility allows the finance team to quickly adapt reports to changing business needs without requiring extensive IT support or expensive consultant hours.
The contrast with GP is stark. It required add-ons and workarounds to generate the financial reports they needed; Acumatica’s built-in reporting capabilities provide everything out of the box. The ability to personalize reports on the fly means Blumer USA’s finance team can respond immediately to management requests for specific data views or analyses, improving decision-making speed and accuracy. For example, this is particularly valuable for Blumer USA’s multi-currency operations. With Acumatica’s built-in currency management and real-time exchange rate functionality, the finance team can instantly generate reports showing financial performance in any currency.
In the old GP system, this type of multi-currency reporting required expensive add-on software and lots of manual calculations. Now, when leadership asks, “What’s our true margin on that international customer after currency fluctuations?” The finance team can pull that answer in minutes instead of days, with confidence that the exchange rates and conversions are accurate and current. This responsiveness has transformed financial analysis from a backward-looking exercise to a strategic tool for real-time business decisions
Significant Cost Savings Through Built-In Functionality
One of the most compelling financial advantages of Acumatica was its breadth of built-in functionality and what that meant for total cost of ownership. During their evaluation, Blumer’s team discovered that both NetSuite and Business Central would have required additional licensed modules or third-party extensions to fully meet their needs, particularly around currency management ad financial reporting.
“When we looked at the add-ons, it was a lot of expense,” said Hiller. “As a whole package, Acumatica was the clear winner.”
This wasn’t just about upfront implementation costs. Every add-on or extension brings its own maintenance cycle, update dependencies, and support relationships, costs that compound over time. Business Central, in particular, is widely known as an extension-heavy platform as business processes become more specialized. NetSuite, while robust, often accumulates separately licensed modules that add up quickly. Acumatica’s industry editions, by contrast, are designed to cover more ground out of the box, giving Blumer USA an integrated foundation, more predictable costs, and fewer third-party variables to manage long term.
User Friendly Interface
Training long-time GP users on a new system presented various challenges, but Acumatica’s intuitive design helped ease the transition. “Acumatica’s menus are amazing. They’re streamlined and you can personalize the user settings for what they see,” Hiller explained. The ability to personalize dashboards ensures users see only what they need, reducing information overload.
The user-friendly interface was another reason Blumer chose Acumatica over Business Central. While Business Central offered powerful features, Hiller knew her team would struggle with its navigation. “Knowing the people that I had to train, they would have never been able to maneuver the menus,” she explained. Acumatica’s clean, logical menu structure and personalized dashboards made it the clear choice for long-term user adoption.
“I’m proud of the 20+ GP users that are now on Acumatica and how comfortable they’ve gotten with it quickly,” Hiller added. The rapid adoption rate across the organization validated the decision to prioritize user experience. Employees who had spent decades in the same system were able to become productive in Acumatica within weeks rather than months.
Exceptional Partner Support
CAL Business Solutions went above and beyond throughout the implementation. “CAL was amazing. They answered all our questions, providing guidance on best practices. They also provided me a demo environment of Acumatica, which isn’t standard across most publishers” Hiller recalled.
The pre-implementation demo environment proved invaluable, allowing Blumer USA to explore Acumatica’s capabilities hands-on before committing. This level of access helped the team make an informed decision and begin familiarizing themselves with the new system before go-live, significantly reducing the learning curve during implementation.
During the complex data migration from GP, CAL’s expertise shone through. They systematically identified and corrected the duplicates, errors, and structural issues that had accumulated over 20+ years. ”CAL knew exactly how to handle it. They extracted the data, cleaned it up, and got it into Acumatica correctly the first time.” Hiller noted.
The support is amazing and continues post-implementation. “I still reach out to CAL for little things like how do we tweak this or how do we personalize that?” Hiller said. The responsiveness is exceptional, even when CAL team members are in meetings or busy, they make themselves available for urgent questions. This ongoing partnership has been critical to Blumer USA’s success. In fact, Hiller was so confident in CAL that when she joined Blumer USA, she transitioned the company from their previous partner to CAL. “I knew CAL from my previous job and so I was confident switching partners was the right choice.”
From tangled data and outgrown systems to a clean, modern ERP built for growth, Blumer USA’s journey is a testament to what the right technology, and the right partner can deliver. CAL Business Solutions brought the expertise, the process, and people to make it happen. Ready to write your own success story? Give CAL a call.
