U.S. Venture gains efficiencies and insights with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance

A difference on day one with Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance

Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance brings together Microsoft 365 Copilot with a finance agent in Excel to summarize spreadsheets, calculate queries, find information, and work with financial data faster and more easily. U.S. AutoForce, a division of U.S. Venture, deployed it on two recurring, time-consuming processes: reconciling credit card transactions and bank statements. It took just four weeks to set up, and now Copilot for Finance saves the accounting team more than 30 hours every month. According to Samantha Rooks, Assistant Finance Operations Manager for U.S. AutoForce, "I've been running Copilot for our US Bank reconciliations for three months and it's cutting 80% off the time I used to spend on them. It's freeing me up to do other functional tasks and making month-end easier."

Next up for Copilot for Finance is processing vendor statements, which can take 1.5 hours each when done manually, and cash reconciliation, which typically takes the accounting team several hours per month.

A need to modernize an outdated system

For more than 70 years, U.S. Venture has been recognized as an innovative leader in the distribution of renewable and traditional energy products and vehicle lubricants, tires, and parts. The Wisconsin-based company prides itself on using data-driven insights to manage energy and information in the global movement of goods. More than 5,500 employees work in 70 distribution hubs, warehouses, and offices across the nation. To improve business operations and support expansion in new regions, the company adopted Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance in 2021, expanded to Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management in 2023, and recently began leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance.

As the company expanded over the years, U.S. Venture faced several challenges with its dated IBM iSeries-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. The system was unintuitive to use and hard to navigate, which also made training new users difficult. Significant human intervention was required to handle business volume, and many work streams ran outside the system, leading to inefficiencies and higher costs. It was time to move to a modern solution.

After transforming finance and accounting with Dynamics 365 Finance, employees found that the improved workflows and new visibility into accounts payable and receivable saved them time. Dynamics 365 Finance was easier to learn than the legacy system had been, and it could be easily configured to meet changing business needs.

Leadership next focused on improving supply chain management at the company’s U.S. AutoForce division. A leading distributor of automotive parts and tires, industry-specific B2B software, and customized marketing services, U.S. AutoForce serves independent tire dealers, big box retailers, and car dealerships around the United States. The company implemented Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to improve operational efficiency,  gain business-critical insights, and scale up to support expansion in both the East Coast and West Coast regions.

With 80-90% of customer orders flowing through multiple in-house e-commerce platforms and 50-60% of the orders needed for same-day delivery, orders must be shipped almost as fast as they're received. Managing such a short cycle time requires optimized and automated ordering, picking, and shipping processes, all of which Supply Chain Management provides. The new system was also easier to use and to learn, with an intuitive, web-based dashboard and centralized data, and would eliminate the high cost of maintaining the on-premises legacy system. As Ben Hermus, Director, Operations – Systems & Training, explains, "While all of our systems worked, they had hit their efficiency and capability limits. With the business expanding, and more customers requesting same day deliveries, we needed an integrated solution that could automate processes and help us make the best use of our time."

Improved order fulfillment processes 

Better inventory visibility, cycle counting automations, and job status makes order fulfillment more efficient. For example, in the past, each SKU item for an order was scanned after picking and loading on the truck. If an employee overlooked an item or accidentally scanned one twice, the error wasn’t detected until later. Now, the system double-checks accuracy at each step, saving valuable time when a customer places an order for same-day delivery. "Dynamics 365 helps us support same-day turnaround in the automotive supplies business. After orders come in, there might be a cutoff at noon, and everything may need to be delivered by 4:00 PM. This creates a set of business problems, and Dynamics 365 helps us solve them,” says Ryan Metzner, Director of Enterprise Applications at U.S. AutoForce.

Teamwork without confusion or duplicated effort

Dispatchers are no longer solely responsible for tracking workflows for each order. Approved team members can now view who’s doing what and jump in where needed to help complete the most pressing orders without duplication of effort or confusion.

More accurate order tracking

A customer might have an order that can be partially fulfilled by the main warehouse, but the remaining stock needs to be transferred from a warehouse in another state. To streamline the process, the solution combines all loads into one order, allowing the items to be scanned and shipped together in a single delivery for smoother and more accurate tracking through the company’s “hub and spoke” distribution model.

Workflow automation eases pricing challenges

When a customer order requires billing a supplier, an automated workflow creates an accounts receivable invoice that pulls in the supplier pricing and matches it to the corresponding accounts payable credit, and automatically clears them in the system. A process that used to require manually cutting, pasting, and importing data now runs automatically.

More efficient warranty claims

Processing warranty requests is more efficient and accurate with automated workflows, too. For example, if a car dealership receives an order that was damaged during shipping and needs to be replaced, the claim is filed automatically, including any special pricing negotiations that are specific to the customer. When the reimbursement is received, it matches the correct amount due and can be resolved more quickly. “Our warranty related workstreams have been improved with the capabilities that Dynamics 365 offers. Having a system where all relevant information is easy to access increases our efficiency not only during the claim processing but thereafter. Implementation was seamless and we found it to be very easy to train associates,” says Trevor Hermus, Senior Manager, Warranty & Returns.

Promising results with AI tools

U.S. AutoForce plans to build an internal chatbot to automate complex warranty claims for the more than 40 tire brands the company sells. It’s also exploring building custom chatbots for key supply chain processes. Says Mary Koester, Director – Finance Digital Transformation, U.S. AutoForce, “Our trust in the products we’ve used for years, and Microsoft’s handling of our data gives us confidence to adopt new AI-driven tools. So far, it’s serving us well and we’ve just begun implementing Copilot for Finance.”

The results are promising. For example, the company deployed Copilot in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management for warehouse and operations employees to access when questions arise. So far, it references 110 operating procedures, when prompted the procedures display in the sidecar feature in Dynamics 365 using the Generative help and guidance with Copilot. Having answers at employees’ fingertips is saving time by eliminating the need to sift through SharePoint documents for answers to their questions. Other groups are expressing interest in applying AI to their teams and processes. According to Metzner, “AI will help give us visibility on granular information and Q&A that takes time gathering. It’s going to make a lot of manual processes just go away, in a good way.” 

Transformation based on trust

Since 2021, U.S. Venture has transitioned from its aging, on-premises ERP system to a modern, cloud-based solution and is already using the latest AI tools to help its teams operate more efficiently and effectively. As Metzner says, “We have trust in Microsoft. It’s that simple. We have no reason not to believe in their products and promises.”