The name Andretti is known the world over, synonymous with greatness in racing. In 2001, they began to branch out into the world of entertainment and event hosting through their creation of Andretti Indoor Karting & Games, a premiere destination for family fun featuring games and rides ranging from go-karting to zip lines to arcades. Focusing on excellent customer experience, Andretti Indoor Karting and Games quickly established itself in the industry and has been rapidly growing and adding locations.
As the business began, they operated out of QuickBooks, but quickly outgrew the platform. After engaging experts at Enavate to help with their search, it was quickly determined that there was a need for enhanced tools, particularly in the accounting department. Various separate platforms, each tailored to handle a specific aspect of their business, were considered. However, they ultimately opted for an all-in-one solution, Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains, due to its user-friendly nature and its ability to meet audit requirements more effectively.
Dynamics GP was an effective solution for the business as it evolved, offering greatly enhanced financial controls when compared to QuickBooks. With different segments of the business and different locations able to access the same data and insights, the business flourished, fueling expansion. This expansion, however, shined a spotlight on a drawback to their current GP system- the cost of scaling to meet their changing needs was astronomical, because of the costs of a larger user-base coupled with on-site server maintenance.
Dynamics GP, while a good fit for their nascent stage, become more troublesome as the company evolved. Users reported finding the logging in and system access portions of their job stressful at best, and laborious at worst. Their growing user-base found accessing the data in the system difficult, and it was often not in the state they needed it in to do their jobs, adding more manual work to the process. There were also issues synchronizing workflows with outside apps vital for day-to-day business operations, which created more headaches and work for users.
Additionally, the costs associated with GP quickly became a hurdle to expansion as the company continued to grow. The costs associated with maintaining an on-site server farm began to outweigh the benefits. As they began to plan expanding their number of stores, they ran the numbers. Between the costs of operation and difficulties in scaling their IT operations, GP was no longer the ideal solution for them.
Their partners at Enavate presented another, better option- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. A modern, cloud-based solution, Dynamics 365 BC offered Andretti the accounting tools, data management, and scalability they needed to expand, all while remaining the more affordable solution.
Hear from Andretti in their own words:
Leadership found that BC checked all the boxes they were looking for. It was easier to use, particularly in regards to purchase orders, a pain point they were actively trying to alleviate. There was an overall uptick in ease of use, with users finding it more intuitive when it came to its business tools and data visibility. There was also a concerted effort to reduce manual tasks and processes, which made the automation tools in BC a key selling point.
"Moving to the Cloud is undoubtedly one of the best things you can do, just for ease of access. You can log in anywhere and
work anywhere. It’s easy for people. You’re not looking at a complicated server setup if you have multiple people trying to
access software like GP. And yet it gives you the flexibility to run quite a large company on Business Central which you couldn’t do on something like QuickBooks Online.” - Tammy Koehler, Chief Financial Officer
The transition from GP to Business Central was smooth. As a Microsoft-native, modern platform, users found Dynamics 365 Business Central intuitive in a way previous platforms were not. The experts at Enavate were able to tailor a comprehensive training and onboarding program for Andretti, lowering the learning curve for their employees, a key reason Andretti chose Enavate in the first place, and carried on with their second transition. The transition was made seamless because of Enavate’s ability to migrate over previous data, including transactions and account history, ensuring no manual re-entry would be required. Enavate also ensured that the business-critical integrations Andretti relied on, which handled payroll for external vendors and procurement processing, were set up from launch, ensuring no costly down-time. Setting up new users was also incredibly easy, with one supervisor citing the ability to “just set (them) up in Azure and it pulls over” as being a major impact on their efficiency.
“You always come across things after you’re out of training and you’re into the actual use of the product. Our Account
Manager was right behind us through the whole process. It was a very nice, smooth implementation.” - Tammy Koehler, Chief Financial Officer
Post transition Business Central functions as Andretti’s accounting foundation, handling critical tasks such as bank reconciliation, month end closes, and amortization schedules for the entire company. It serves as a central hub for the company, ensuring accuracy and compliance when data is entered from other systems. Store managers also utilize financial insights such as profit-and-loss reviews and a live-updating “declining checkbook” for budgeting and expenses, ensuring a lid is kept on overspending. As the business expands, leadership has begun to explore other areas in which BC can help enhance operations, including finding ways to integrate Power BI tools into their workflows. BC also integrated with external operations used to handle procurement and inventory management, serving as a central hub for the businesses’ data.
It is not just the power of the tools in BC that Andretti finds value in, but also their ease of use. This sort of non-quantifiable benefit is often overlooked, but for an expanding business, quick onboarding and easy navigation for new users can be the difference between a quick and easy orientation for new employees and a drawn-out, difficult one.
In addition to easy user setup, Andretti reported the native compatibility with other Microsoft products such as Teams and Outlook was vital for facilitating collaboration and communication across stores and departments. The ability to easily export into Excel was credited with a vast increase in efficiency, cutting down on manual entry and processing time.
Between users being included in the pricing of Dynamics 365 Business Central and the cost savings associated with not having to house and maintain physical servers on-site, Andretti’s switch to the cloud netted them a cost savings of between $300k and $500k. Andretti credits Enavate for not only advising them on the best solution, but a more affordable one at that.
By partnering with the ERP experts at Enavate, Andretti Indoor Karting and Games grew from a young business operating on the bare minimum to a vibrant, growing enterprise, expanding year after year. First transitioning from QuickBooks to Dynamics GP, then moving to the cloud in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Andretti has positioned themselves for steady expansion for years to come.