Andretti Indoor Karting & Games Wins with D365 Business Central

Andretti Indoor Karting & Games, a premier entertainment and event destination, started in 1999 with a single location in Roswell, Georgia. They started expanding in 2015 and today have seven locations with plans to add three to five locations every year. Each location features games, rides and experiences ranging from an arcade and go-karting to bowling, zip lining and rock climbing, as well as a full restaurant and bar.

Early on, the company’s accounting team could comfortably rely on QuickBooks. When the time came to expand, they worked with Enavate to migrate to the Microsoft application that best fit their needs at the time—Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains (GP).   It was easy to use and learn, and more audit-friendly.

Most recently, Andretti Indoor Karting & Games made another move with Enavate, migrating from Dynamics GP to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central for critical financial tasks such as bank reconciliations, month-end closes and integration of amortization schedules. This upgrade landed their business operations in the Cloud, where access is simpler, processes are more efficient and further expansion is seamless.

The Complexity and Cost of Maintaining a Server
With Dynamics GP, the company relied on an on-premises server but people who needed to log in found it complex and awkward. Further, the IT department had to manage, update, license, and maintain the server. And the cost of hosting the server was steadily rising. The complexities and costs associated with on-premises server management were a bottleneck to their growth. So, when Enavate presented the cost of Business Central, which turned out to be less than the cost of hosting the server, the proposed solution was welcomed.

Limitations to Growth
While Dynamics GP was a significant shift in its operational capabilities, it didn’t provide the ease of use and access enabled by the Cloud. It was challenging to get complete visibility of their data, and using the system wasn’t seamless. It would’ve added complexity and cost to their expansion plans if they didn’t migrate to a more accessible system that provided better visibility, improved processes and reduced the need for manual workarounds.

“We met twice a week. We had technical meetings with the developer andproject management teams. Emails flowed back and forth with ideas,requirements, bug investigations, demos, and other monthly projectmanagement matters. We did everything that you might do within a productteam with Enavate. So, they were effectively an extension of our developmentteam in the U.K.”

Tammy Koehler

Chief Financial Officer

Simpler Access and Use from Anywhere
For Andretti Indoor Karting & Games, having a Cloud-based flexible and scalable solution that everyone could quickly and easily access and use from anywhere was one of their primary goals. In addition, Business Central was immediately more straightforward.

“The more I use it, the more I like how straightforward it is,” Koehler said. “You just set up a user in Azure and boom, you’re done because we’re on a complete Microsoft platform. Business Central just makes sense in every way you can think of.”

More Seamless Integrations
Another critical goal for the company was to have their system integrate entirely with the other software they use and plan to use, so all their applications could talk to each other. They integrated Business Central with Coupa, a procurement software they implemented simultaneously with the new system. They also integrated Business Central with their inventory software, Intuit.

Improved Efficiency
Moving to Business Central has helped the company be more efficient in many ways. With the Coupa integration, they now have complete visibility into their spending and can more consistently enforce the use of purchase requests. This process has cut credit card usage by more than half and has boosted compliance with purchase request submissions from roughly 40% to 98%.

Better Resource Utilization
Reducing manual processes has enabled the company to better allocate employee time. As a result, they won’t require additional expansion resources they’d need if they continued using Dynamics GP.

With the integration, Koehler’s staff no longer has to manually type supply invoices into the inventory system. Koehler has plans to repurpose that time saved.

“The employee doing cost of goods, she can be a store accountant on top of handling cost of goods,” Koehler says. “My accounts payable manager will be able to handle one or two stores and oversee the other person in accounts payable.”

“Moving to the Cloud is  undoubtedly one of the best  things you can do, just for ease ofaccess. You can log in anywhere andwork anywhere. It’s easy for people.You’re not looking at a complicatedserver setup if you have multiplepeople trying to access software likeGP. And yet it gives you the flexibility torun quite a large company on BusinessCentral which you couldn’t do onsomething like QuickBooks Online.”

Tammy Koehler

Chief Financial Officer

Why Andretti Indoor Karting & Games Chose to Partner with Enavate

When Andretti Indoor Karting & Games first worked with Enavate to migrate from QuickBooks to Microsoft GP, the company considered other partners, but Enavate stood out. Enavate had the best program, making it easy by outlining the exact details and providing an excellent training program throughout the process. When the time came for this recent migration from Dynamics GP to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Enavate was the clear choice.

Koehler was impressed by the staff then and now.

“The staff has been great to work with, I’vealways had good client managers. They’vealways been willing to help if we had aproblem and handled it quickly.”

Tammy Koehler

Chief Financial Officer

Learning and Training
The team found that Business Central was easy to learn, and the training was thorough. When they came across challenges, their Enavate implementation partner solved the challenges with them and kept the process moving seamlessly. In addition, the training was well structured with a clear schedule.

“You always come across things after you’re out of training and you’re into the actual use of the product,” Koehler said. “Our Account Manager was right behind us through the whole process. It was a very nice, smooth implementation.”

Straightforward Migration
The company set a target migration date and started training on the software. Enavate set everything up to pull over, got the transaction details for the prior and current year, then made the move to Business Central.

Managing Integrations
Before the migration, the company used Dynamics GP for payroll. A separate company managed check stubs and payroll taxes. They now use this external vendor for full payroll processing since Business Central doesn’t offer a payroll module. As mentioned, while implementing Business Center, they implemented and integrated Coupa for the procurement process, improving the complex manual processes they had in place with Dynamics GP.

A Partnership they can count on

The Andretti Indoor Karting & Games team relied on Enavate to deliver a seamless migration, thanks to their clear direction, a detailed training schedule and full support as the company worked to understand processes after implementation. This trust and dependability were evident during their first migration to Dynamics GP and held true throughout their latest migration to the Cloud with Business Central.

Enavate

Visit Enavate.com/talk-to-an-expert to learn more

Learn More

Andretti Indoor Karting & Games

Challenges Andretti Karting Faced with Dynamics GP

Tammy Koehler

How Migrating to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Is Fueling Expansion

Tammy Koehler

Why Andretti Indoor Karting & Games Chose to Partner with Enavate

Tammy Koehler

The Implementation Process

A Partnership they can count on

Join our blog