M & E Equipment Traders is a mechanical and electrical equipment trader. They mainly wholesale to companies and builders in the trade at a discount, and to the public at the recommended retail price.

by Wendy Tranter

While dealing with over-the-counter transactions, M & E found that SAP’s Invoice + Payment function could handle all payment methods other than card payments SAP Business One’s card payment entry functionality features numerous mandatory fields, many of which are not required by M & E as they don’t store customers’ card details. In Australia, all card transactions are authorised on the spot through an EFTPOS terminal when users swipe their payment card, so entering all of these details is actually entirely unnecessary.

Given these circumstances, payment card handling in SAP Business One was deemed too cumbersome and time-consuming for M & E. The time it takes for a user to fill all of these fields with redundant information is time that other customers have to wait in line. A long queue of customers at checkout puts pressure on the sales staff, and this inevitably results in them making errors while keying in the customers’ data. Incorrect payment data results in failed transactions and this just adds more time and pressure to the situation, and the longer other customers have to wait, the worse their overall experience is. As we’re fond of saying: time equals money, and customers who have to wait for extended periods are likely to look elsewhere when they next need to make a purchase.

In order to resolve this problem, we approached M & E and implemented a macro for card payment processing on their system, automating the entry of required data in all mandatory fields in the Card Payment Means screen, and assigning the triggering of this process to a button on the Sales AR Invoice screen.

As a result, all that a member of the sales team has to do is click the Credit Card button on the Invoice entry screen once they’ve finished entering the invoice details. To take this approach one step further, we also created a button to increase efficiency for other payment methods. Now a job that previously took them several minutes to complete only takes a few seconds.

Nowadays at M & E Equipment Traders, the long queues, angry customers, stressed sales staff and the inevitable lost sales are a distant memory, and all transactions are dealt with quickly and efficiently.  As an added bonus, there is no longer any chance of erroneous data being entered into their system:  data integrity is assured by the script’s automation. Staff and customers alike are more happy and relaxed, and the business can focus on a brighter future.