One System to Run It All:

Running the Business on Three Systems

For years, CTI operated its business across three primary platforms, including QuickBooks for financials, a homegrown order management system for US operations, and a parallel system in their Shanghai office. On paper, it worked. In practice, it created friction at every seam.

US account managers had a hard stop at 4pm each day. At that point, the China team's workday was beginning, and the two systems couldn't run simultaneously. Files were physically transferred between the US and Shanghai. Any update, credit, or change made in one system had to be manually replicated in the other to keep the financials aligned.

Month-end reconciliation required careful cross-referencing between QuickBooks and the order management system, and as the business grew, the margin for error grew with it. CTI needed a single platform capable of handling both the financial complexity of a global distribution business and the highly customized order workflows their team had built over the years. It was clear that QuickBooks wasn't going to get them there.

A Vendor Who Listened

CTI evaluated several ERP solutions during their search, including NetSuite. Most felt overly complex or expensive relative to what the business needed. Aaron Thomas at Northbank was referred to Susan by CTI's network administrator and was the only vendor they brought in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

What set Aaron apart came down to how he ran the first conversations. After Susan's team outlined their requirements, Aaron came back with a demo that addressed their specific workflows directly rather than defaulting to a generic product walkthrough. He acknowledged that CTI's order management needs were far from out-of-the-box and that certain things they did were going to require customization. He also recognized that CTI had a capable in-house IT team and had no interest in creating long-term technical dependency. He was willing to teach, answer technical questions, and let CTI's team learn to handle the management and customizations on their own.

CTI didn't look at another Business Central vendor. They'd seen what they needed to see.

Two Phases, One System, Built Around CTI's Reality

The implementation ran in two phases. First, Northbank migrated CTI's financials from QuickBooks into Business Central. Because CTI's order management system was still in active use, the Northbank team built a bridge between the two platforms to maintain continuity through the transition.

The order management migration was the more complex undertaking and was completed nearly four years later. Roughly half of CTI's processes run contrary to how Business Central handles them out of the box, a reality that became a running joke on the project team. "Every time we did something, we'd say, 'of course ours is different,'" Susan recalls.

The teams worked through it collaboratively. Susan's team would draft how a process needed to work, Aaron and Soren on the Northbank implementation team would identify where they had things backward, and together they'd build the right solution. Throughout, Northbank ran regular show-and-tells to keep the CTI team informed and came onsite when the work required it.

During this phase, CTI was also onboarding a new internal developer, Stuart, to become their Business Central platform lead. Stuart leaned on Aaron and Soren extensively as he learned the platform, and that working relationship has continued.

A Single Source of Truth and the Room to Keep Growing

Moving from three disconnected systems to one unified platform changed how CTI operates at every level, from daily order entry to month-end close to how their US and China teams work together in real time.

• Eliminated the 4pm hard stop: The China team now works directly in Business Central alongside the US team, with no file transfers and no artificial cutoff that blocked late-day US order entry.
• Single source of truth: Financials and order management live in one system. Credits, returns, and order changes no longer require double-entry, and there is one authoritative record everyone works from.
• Simplified month-end reconciliation: With QuickBooks and the homegrown order management system gone, the manual cross-system reconciliation process that came with every close period is gone with them.
• Role-based access for global operations: CTI built custom views within BC that give the Shanghai team the visibility they need without exposing sensitive customer pricing to vendor conversations.
• In-house development capability: CTI's internal developer can handle ongoing customizations and system management independently, with Aaron available as a resource when edge cases come up.