Arrow Transport’s motto is ‘Big enough to get the job done, but small enough to care’ – and it’s this commitment to top-notch service (plus a clever pricing strategy) that has seen the company quickly become a key player in the Australian transport and logistics industry.
The story of Arrow Transport
Founded in Melbourne in 2011, Arrow Transport is a family-owned and operated Australian business with over 300 employees across three states.
An innovative leader in the transport and logistics sector, it provides services to the import, export and freight-forwarding industries, including transport, warehousing and distribution, logistics and CFS (container freight station) and quarantine wash and fumigation.
With sites in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, the company is likely to hit $65 million turnover in 2020.
Running basic reports would often crash system
The company had been using Xero since the early days, and even though the system had served them well, it was beginning to slow the team down. It was taking far too long to run certain reports because of a significant increase in transactional data – sometimes even causing the whole system to crash.
“We were constantly chasing our tail and limited to month-end reporting. It would take us two weeks to finish and by that time, we were already two weeks into the following month – and the learnings weren’t relevant anymore,” Adam explains.
The business also required more sophisticated capabilities including comprehensive divisional reporting and budgeting.
Streamlined reporting improves performance assessment
For Adam, it’s the simple changes that have yielded the greatest improvements. Being able to customise and run whatever reports he needs – and in real-time – means the business can assess performance at a granular level.
“From day one, the new system ran budget-versus-actuals for all our divisions. That may not seem ground-breaking to some, but it’s visibility that the company had never had before,” he says.
They’ve been able to streamline reporting processes, thereby reducing manual workarounds and removing any downtime that was a result of a crashed system. Monthly reporting has moved to weekly, and as Adam explains, “The impact is, people know what is going on as its happening.”
While the team will always have “bread and butter tasks”, they can do the work efficiently and with accuracy.
“It just means we’re not spending time worrying about whether the report is correct, having to double or triple-check whether the report is compiled in the right way. There much less room for error,” Adam says.
Increased reporting capabilities give the company better visibility of business performance.
Velixo integration provides custom, real-time reporting within minutes.
System gives staff tools to run comprehensive financial reports, reducing manual workarounds and improving worker productivity.
Increased efficiency and accuracy allow managers to focus on higher-level tasks.
