The goal is to maximize your flexibility as well as choose the best tools for your business. Utilize size where it counts while supporting the other family-owned businesses. For your internet presence, larger companies have cracked the code of finding customers and funneling them to you, such as Cyncly, with their acquisition of both Mobile Marketing and Broadlume. For family-owned businesses, look to Engineered Floors for product, Qfloors for ERP software, and Purchasing Ally for electronic purchasing integrated with Quickbooks. The available family businesses, Engineered Floors and Qfloors are well-known in the industry. While Purchasing Ally may be less so, it was founded by a long-term industry expert. Purchasing Ally lets you use the same Fcb2b technology as the big guys, but also lets you communicate with all your vendors through a patent-pending process, unlike the industry ERP’s. For the Quickbooks users, it meets you where you are and talks to your cloud version of Quickbooks. Purchasing Ally believes we run our business, not yours, and will never tell you how to run your business, just give you a tool to help run it better. Some of the other investor- owned companies suggest your business isn’t viable if you aren’t using their software, despite your providing a service to your community and a living for your family, as well as other local families with your business. Purchasing Ally was founded by Jim Buckles, who has consulted for more than thirty years in the flooring industry with flooring companies of all sizes in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. He has seen many companies being left behind
with electronic purchasing in the industry. Depending on who you ask, there are between eight and ten thousand flooring contractors working in our industry who cannot use any of the ERP companies since they do not have the financial or employee resources to use them. Many, if not most, of these companies are using Quickbooks to run their family business and prior to Purchasing Ally, did not have the B2B capabilities to get electronic catalogs, to send electronic purchase orders, and get vendor invoices sent to Quickbooks automatically. Purchasing Ally is now accepting requests to be on the priority waiting list for their software at info@purchasingally.com. Or you can call the founder, Jim Buckles, directly at 256-469-0485. We are excited to help other members of the industry use electronic tools to help them today and, in the future, helping them know their business better, and to grow.
Premier Flooring Retailer TISE | 2025 61 “ Small family businesses are the backbone of the flooring industry, proving that passion, adaptability, and community connections can rival even the largest of corporate competitors when paired with the right tools and resources.”
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