For the crew at Damar Building Supply, the past two years have been a whirlwind. In 2023, brothers David and Marcus Yoder saw a need for building supplies in their rural Southern Kentucky location, and within a few years Damar has become a trusted supplier to contractors and DIYers within a 30-mile radius of their store. In addition, about 10% of their business includes shipping post-frame building supplies as far as Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Since 2023 they’ve grown from 5 to 11 employees. One of the original hires – operations manager Albert Hostetler – highly recommended they choose an ERP system to bring their business functions together and manage the many products they supply to their customers.
Why choose an ERP so early?
Most small businesses start with general accounting software like Quickbooks, or even just Excel spreadsheets. But Albert felt strongly about having an organizational system for the whole business right from the start. He grew up watching and learning as his father operated a bulk food store, where Albert saw first-hand the importance of managing inventory.
“I knew how important it was to have inventory management that you could track very easily, and how important it was to be able to connect your sales with your inventory and the accounting side of it.”
Albert took on the task of researching potential ERP systems. He identified three he liked for different reasons; in the end, he chose Koble. He liked Koble’s ERP because it could do everything Damar needed it to do without having to sacrifice performance in any area. Not only did Koble provide the business and financial reports that owners David and Marcus wanted to see, but Albert also liked that it was proven to work in companies like theirs.
“As I talked with Brian [Koble representative], he showed me three different companies doing exactly what we were planning to do, and that sold me.”
Albert also appreciated that Koble’s team was not pushing a sale, but seemed interested in making sure this partnership would be a blessing to Damar and help their company achieve their goals.
“Brian walked me through every aspect of it,” said Albert. “He was asking questions like: ‘is this really going to fit? What are you going to be doing with it?’ He was doing more than just trying to sell me a product.”
Implementing ERP before business started
Albert and Brian determined that Koble’s ERP would be a good solution for Damar and Albert started using it immediately—three months before Damar Building Supply even opened! His pre-planning made it easier to introduce the system to his team, who use it now for proposals, sales orders, shipping, payroll, bookkeeping—and of course, inventory.
“It was very important to me that we were able to track all our inventory very, very closely, because in the building industry there are so many products that might sell for a year and then get phased out,” Albert explained. “Koble made it very easy to keep close track of what's actually moving, and it's helped us tremendously.”
Albert says that 2024 was a year of rapid growth for the company, immediately proving the value of having a system that gave them strong inventory control connected to financials. He expects a bit of leveling out over the next few years and is looking forward to having more time to integrate Koble’s ERP with his vendors’ product catalogs. The Koble customization team has already created a custom module that works with Simpson Strong-Tie vendor tools, easily moving their product data into Damar’s ERP.
“I contacted Koble and they helped me import data with the click of a button. I expected it to be more complicated!”
As Damar grows, Koble’s ERP will be able to grow with them, bringing the team the data they need to make smart decisions and plan for growth.
Melanie Hess is a content writer at Koble. She loves diving into relevant business topics and sharing what she learns through writing articles, blog posts, and more. When she's not learning about ERP implementation, business financials, or inventory management, she likes long walks, podcasts, and trivia competitions.
