Epicor sued by ParknPool

Case study presenter : Vineet Sansare

About ParknPool

Company Name

ParknPool

Headquarters Lexington, Virginia, United States of America

Type Privately Held

Industry Retail

Founded 1998

Company Size 11-50 employees

Website http://www.parknpool.com

Clients Hotels, restaurants, apartment complexes, schools/ universities, military institutions, HOA's, campgrounds, park and rec departments, and many more

Goal To provide unparalleled integrity & competence throughout the entire purchasing & installation process

Mission Their mission is simple, but powerful – to create happy clients.

Selecting an ERP system & a service provider

• ParknPool was using QuickBooks system, an accounting software for small businesses by Intuit Inc.• They were paying $3,500 a year for it.• ParknPool was looking to move up from its QuickBooks system, which

it was outgrowing.• ParknPool, evaluated a number of systems in the marker & the final

choice came down to Epicor & a product from Sage.

Problems during the implementation process

• An Epicor partner, EstesGroup, performed systems integration work on the job.

• Epicor said they could implement the project in seven weeks. ParknPool gave them seven months, & got zero.

• The faulty software from Epicor couldn't process orders.

• ParknPool is a "drop-ship" operation, wherein it acts as a type of middleman, keeping no items in stock. Instead, manufacturers, sometimes a number of them, ship orders once they are placed.

• As they're a drop-ship business, they need to invoice their client after the last item ships, because they could ship from multiple locations. The Epicor system couldn't deal with that.

• Another snafu led to doubled commission payments for ParknPool's sales representatives.

• Epicor also performed something of a bait-and-switch with ParknPool, initially saying that the company's need would be met with a specific set of software modules, but then saying that more were required after the project started.

Results

• A lawsuit was filed on November 23rd that year in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

• ParknPool's suit asked for US$250,000 in damages along with attorney's fees and other monies.

• The company had spent at least $250,000 on the Epicor project, according to Jim Fonner, Administrative Manager of ParknPool.

• ParknPool continued to use QuickBooks system.