OSAS - Perfect Fit for Florida Keys Resort

Hawk's Cay Resort is a beautiful destination resort located 90 miles south of Miami in the heart of the Florida Keys. Hawk's Cay began as a 176-room hotel. Now—just a few short years later— the facilities are comprised of the hotel, 226 villas, five fine restaurants, a marina, a clubhouse, and a convention center. It also offers a number of activities, including a dolphin interaction program, scuba diving, sunset cruises and more. The resort has experienced an unprecedented increase in business due to the expansion, resulting in a 67% increase in revenue between 1996 and 2000. Talk of even further development is underway, and it looks like nothing is stopping Hawk's Cay from having an even more successful future.

Due to the nature of Hawk's Cay's ever-expanding business, they needed an accounting system that could grow with them and adapt to the constant changes in their accounting needs. Sandy Wilson is the controller and a member of the executive committee at Hawk’s Cay and is charge of all the financial operations for the resort. Sandy believes that OPEN SYSTEMS® Accounting Software (OSAS®) is the perfect fit for the resort’s requirements. When Sandy started working at Hawk's Cay they were already using OSAS, primarily using just General Ledger, Fixed Assets and Accounts Payable. But as the resort’s size has increased, so has the accounting needs, and OSAS has grown with them. Sandy says she was happiest when they added Bank Reconciliation to their suite of modules, allowing them to stop doing everything in long-hand with spreadsheets.

Hawk's Cay's IT director, Todd Erickson, says that the flexibility of OSAS has made it easy to run Crystal Reports in a Citrix environment. Because it is easy to merge Crystal Reports with OSAS, and because Window NT/Citrix allows users to access real-time OSAS data from multiple locations, OSAS is the perfect fit for this large and complex operation. Erickson says there are four main advantages to running Crystal reports in a Citrix environment. "It allows detailed reports, it is a more visual environment, it generates reports at 'warp speed', and users who are non-accounting people are able to use these reports without even needing to know OSAS," he explains. Crystal enables users to write very detailed reports and extract data that OSAS reports do not provide. This is important to Hawk's Cay because it allows users to look at posted and unposted data at the same time. Using this feature, department heads are able to run weekly projections and look at individual invoices by any criteria they would like.

Getting the whole system up and running was made easy because OSAS does not use proprietary data like many other accounting systems (forcing the user to use their report writing tools) and because it is ODBC compliant. Therefore, Erickson was able to purchase an ODBC kit in order to use it as a connectivity piece between OSAS and Crystal. Citing performance, security, and ease of installation as the biggest benefits to running Crystal Reports in a Citrix environment, Erickson gives a glowing review of OSAS. "It is a superior product and it’s one of the best accounting systems that I’ve used. It is the most flexible system I have ever used in all environments. It's pretty remarkable, actually!"

The resort has used OSAS for many years, and for many reasons. Some of the ways that they have managed to utilize OSAS are unique indeed. Sandy Wilson describes the time when they were in the construction phase and had many simultaneous projects going, for which they used the Job Cost module. "We used it not because we were a construction business or a contractor, but because we could use it to capture data for us in the format we wanted. We used it to keep up with how much money we had spent, whether we were over budget, and what the cost would be. Just a vehicle, so to speak, to hold all of that data until such time that we had completed the project and set it up as an asset."

Hawk's Cay's Open Systems value added reseller (VAR) is Richard Thomas, President of TBC International in Salado, Texas. Hawk’s Cay’s needs are always changing, so modifications and customization can be frequent; therefore, a good working relationship with their VAR is very important. Sandy met Richard in 1998 when she was referred by their previous VAR who was changing careers, a meeting that she says she is very happy about. "When he first came to the property, we talked about what we had and what our needs were. We sat down and made a long range plan on how we were going to get there. I have to say it's been quite successful and we've been able to add modules along the way as we’ve needed them." Thomas has also been able to make important customizations for the resort's specific needs. "We've had Richard do some custom programs for us. The ability to do that is vital in our business. It's really hard to find a property management system that has a good back office. With OSAS we have been able to do quite a few modifications to fit our needs."

One only has to view their website to grasp the scale of this operation. Like a small city that has all of its financial operations run by one accounting software, Hawk's Cay is the ultimate success story. It seems that scalability and customization have made OPEN SYSTEMS Accounting Software the perfect solution for this ever-blossoming resort nestled in the Florida Keys.