A year ago, Residential Systems Inc., a 30-person custom integration firm in Denver, was struggling to find a better way to manage the flow of products in and out of their warehouse. About that time, Residential Systems staff member Jim Ford stepped up and shared his idea with company co-founder Travis Leo for creating an iOS app to streamline the process. The resulting Tracknicity app initially was developed just for internal use, but after Leo shared it with his peers in the Azione Unlimited buying group last fall, he felt that it could benefit other companies in the industry, as well.
“Tracknicity was born out of frustration from the lack of a truly integrated inventory solution in Quickbooks and D-Tools,” Leo said. “We designed Tracknicity to solve a problem that faces tens of thousands of small businesses across the globe. Tracknicity is a thin and simple web-based application that leverages the tools you already use today. It’s inexpensive, easy to deploy, and can revolutionize your warehouse operations.”
The iOS app is designed to be used by both field workers and installation technicians who handle parts and inventory for customers. It seamlessly integrates with QuickBooks, both desktop and online, with just one click.
“We set out to create something that could support multiple locations–multiple warehouses, multiple vans, and multiple staging areas, through native barcode scanning,” Leo said. “All other pre-existing solutions involved proprietary technology and thousands of dollars in RFID and bar code scanners, and that just didn’t make sense for a small company like us.
Tracknicity turns the camera feature of an iOS device into a bar code scanner that easily allows technicians to check parts in and out and even make custom requests for parts delivery and user-configured notifications.
Leo offered a use case: “Technicians, for instance, might need to know when a 65-inch TV for the Smith Family job arrives. Invariably, our purchasing person would forget that they needed to remind them when that came in, and it would be sitting in the warehouse,” he said. “They would ask, ‘Did that TV come in?’ and the response would be, ‘It’s been there for a week.’ We set up notifications, so you can receive a ping when that ordered item is in.”
Pricing, Leo said, is affordable enough for small businesses, ranging from $100/month to $200/month (depending on how many mobile users are in the company). This provides a company with full functionality, unlimited inventory items, the mobile app, push notifications, cloud storage, and support.
Tracknicity also has announced a partnership with D-Tools, which combines inventory management with D-Tools SI project estimation, system design, and project management software. The combined offering also transfers appropriate product and labor information to QuickBooks for financial accounting. According to D-Tools CEO Randy Stearns, his company had been hesitant to add inventory management to its platforms because it infringes upon financial accounting, which is a line that the company deliberately chooses not to cross. He was swayed, however, by Tracknicity’s ability to successfully bridge the inventory management gap between D-Tools and QuickBooks and further solve many day-to-day challenges associated with running a systems integration business.
