Kudos saves time and generates more profit in a busy marine workshop

Mariners Weigh is a relatively small marine engineers business that has used Kudos programs for over 10 years. They are a Mercury dealer and an authorised main Mariner Service Centre. They also have a general workshop which deals with any make of outboard engine.

Les is the owner and his father Mitch looks after parts and runs the store for three mornings a week. There is also a part time mechanic and bookkeeper, Louise, who works three mornings a week. Kudos' integration of functions is what appeals.

"It keeps the stores in touch with invoicing, as I work through jobs so the invoice is generated. Parts don't go AWOL - used on jobs, but not charged. I save time I would have spent on looking up parts, putting them on job cards, ordering them, checking them in, writing it down each time before finally doing a bill. With Kudos, it’s all one job - I only ever look it up once.

I generate all the invoices out of Kudos job tracking, so that all Louise has to do is take the invoice, enter it into her books and send it off. The time saved with Kudos is my time which is ideal as I am the money generator.

I save between 4 and 6 hours a week; that’s about £150 extra I can earn each week. I do all my billings on Friday morning and get home at a sensible time the rest of the week or if I am late it’s because I'm earning.

My father is over 80 and at first he was very wary of the new system. Now he's won over and in particular, finds the parts reordering system very useful. We do a lot of special ordering of items for jobs and tracking them is a great help

Kudos' link to the Mercury electronics parts catalogue gets a lot of use as well; being able to pass long lists of complex part numbers accurately saves considerable time and reduces errors. It’s a particular boon with estimating for repairs - another big time saver.

As a busy man, the quality of support is an issue to me. When I phone the support desk and pass on an idea for an enhancement and then see it put into practice on the next version, it’s wonderful. I don't feel like I'm dealing with a faceless tribe, and it’s nice also to talk to the same people.

Customer service is crucial to my business and I'm pleased that it is obviously the case at Kudos too."