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Stallings Brothers Holdings, Inc. |
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 In
1948, Mr. Oris Stallings opened a gas station in Middlesex, NC. Oris’
son, Jeff, worked for him at the station. When Jeff was 21, he
decided it would be a good business decision to buy their own tanker
and haul the product themselves instead of paying someone else to
deliver it to their station. That was the beginning of Stallings
Brothers Holdings, Inc. The little company with a gas station and single tanker truck has grown quite a bit since those early days and has become a much more diverse company. They now employ 18 drivers and operate 20 trucks. They do business in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia and are the Sunoco racing fuels distributor for area race tracks. In addition, the company owns and operates six c-stores with 35 employees. They sell fuel to their stores, along with 200 other customers. Stallings Brothers, Inc., their freight company, has approximately 450 customers and has seen a lot of growth in the past year. If that isn’t enough, they operate home delivery of LP gas and heating oil to a customer base of 3000. And let’s not forget their lubricant and cardlock business. The quest to expand and diversify their business has been a fairly recent one for Stallings Brothers. For some time, the company’s growth had stagnated and they had stalled at three drivers and trucks. In 1995, Jeff Stallings decided it was time to forge ahead. He hired Kathy Pitts as his Office Manager and began to reevaluate his business goals and envision the future of the company. Making the move to grow and expand their business was a daunting task. Not being able to keep up with all of the different records and books was holding them back. “Jeff asked me to look at some different accounting programs. I looked at Peachtree, AIMS’ COMPAS system and I even checked into having someone write our own program. All of them but AIMS would have required us to make double-entries into the G/L,” Kathy says. She made it very clear how she felt about the extra work that a double-entry system required and she said, “No way.” Kathy’s evaluation of their software
options at that point led her to invite AIMS to their office for a
visit. “I asked Stan Hargus, AIMS’ Sales Manager at the time, to
come in and demo the COMPAS system for us. Jeff liked it so we
bought it.” Kathy was confident that the right decision had been
made. “AIMS took what was sometimes a very long and hard process and made life easier for Debbie and I," Kathy happily admits. “All that was done by hand is now done with just the push of a button.” COMPAS’ efficiency and automation put the wheels of growth in motion and keeps them moving smoothly. |
“Judy has
taught me about the
detailed workings of our COMPAS system, so now I make it work for
me. We have very few errors and are able to track any and all things
in our office, including our stations’ sales,” Kathy is pleased to
report.
She admits
that the transition was difficult at first. She knows that some
people, including their customers, just don’t like to experience
change. But the changes brought about by COMPAS have been for the
better, and now Stallings Brothers is able to provide additional
benefits for their customers, as a result. |
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