Durafibre Turns Up the Heat with TRAVERSE

It isn't easy to start a new business, and it's even more difficult when that business is in a non-existent industry. That's the position the folks at Durafibre, Inc. found themselves in when they launched their emerging technologies company in Canora, Saskatchewan. Durafibre is a joint-venture business owned by Cargill Ltd., the Saskatchewan government and a local-area agricultural consortium.

Durafibre is the first North American commercial processor of natural-based fibers. Flax straw (the raw material) is run through a separation process and refined into two key product groups. One is used in the manufacturing processes of auto manufacturers, building product manufacturers and a variety of pulp and paper applications; the other is used as a filler or packaged as a premium large-animal bedding product.

Durafibre's environment is a continuous bulk output that operates 24 - 7. Inventories can only be obtained twice a year and products are shipped in bulk on a high-volume basis to large-scale manufacturers. The company offers an environmental advantage to all users of its products and is an environmental solution to producers (farmers) who would otherwise have to burn the flax straw (its physical properties do not allow for reincorporating back into the soil).

In its infancy, the company had a strong concept and a pilot plant, but little operational focus and little cash; what capital they had went into R & D. As a result, the accounting operations were only semi-automated. An Excel-based platform of interconnecting spreadsheets was used. After several years, the plant activity sky-rocketed from an annual transaction volume of about 750,000 to over 8 million. It was high time for an accounting system.

Durafibre CFO Carla Douglas and an assistant searched the Internet for a mid-market solution that offered flexibility, adaptability, and expandability and could offer a relationship with a reseller that had a personal flavor. However, the timeframe was very short. The software had to be found, tested, implemented and running within three months - and it had to be within budget.

After discovering TRAVERSE Accounting Software on the Open Systems, Inc. web site at www.osas.com, Carla contacted Open Systems and was referred to reseller SysAcc Software, Inc., with offices in both Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario. After determining Durafibre's needs, SysAcc managing partners Zoltan Szakal and Steve Sharpe installed a full suite (ten TRAVERSE applications) at the company's administrative office, located in Cargill's headquarters in Winnipeg.

"That three-month window was probably the most aggressive accounting software conversion schedule I've ever seen, particularly given our transaction base," says Douglas. "We are still getting our feet wet to a degree, but the key advantage in using TRAVERSE at this time is the ability to integrate the software with Microsoft Office applications, particularly Excel. I can reconcile and dissect data and reports that are either new or serve to bridge the transition between processes. This utility was key in our decision-making process with respect to suitable software."

SysAcc has written two modifications that have further simplified and automated some of Durafibre's processes and needs; specifically, a mod that determines whether or not their purchases are self-assessed (a Canadian tax process). Another mod automatically calculates and posts realized gains that are incurred when clearing exchange differences on foreign currency transactions.

"There has been a massive reduction in double and triple entry of data to different reports," says Douglas. "Automated check printing alone saves days of work. Printing checks used to take two to three days per check run. Now it takes about fifteen minutes. It used to take us at least five ten-to-twelve-hour working days to close a month-end; now we can do it in two days. The most significant and notable change in the workplace has been the ability for me and my staff to work some normal hours!"

Durafibre currently operates in a client/server environment. The server is located in the Cargill IT Division server room in Winnipeg. As the industry grows, however, Durafibre's needs will escalate. Douglas says, "One of the reasons we went with TRAVERSE was the ability to grow up into the SQL environment, which would also allow us to make use of the manufacturing component. Corporate growth will dictate when that will take place."

Since the plant is a five-hour drive from the administrative office, the plan is for the plant to go online and to dial it in remotely, issuing sales orders from there. The TRAVERSE Advanced Financial Analyst application may also be added. Carla Douglas looks forward to getting more transactional data under their belts, learning the system more intimately, and completing the integration of the plant. Says Douglas, "There is a lot more the system will do for us."