Cat Dealer Still Likes Coda for IBM i Financials

February 28, 2012 Alex Woodie

Thompson Machinery, the authorized dealer for Caterpillar equipment in central and western Tennessee and central and northern Mississippi, has decided to stick with Coda Financials running on the IBM i OS, and in fact will expand its usage of the Java-based software, UNIT4 CODA announced last week.

The ability to “fire” a service provider, as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney put it recently, is one of the biggest benefits of our capitalist economic system. And while Romney admitted to getting a bit of joy out of firing health care providers that don’t stack up, the same level of fiduciary glee can result when corporate representatives give the axe to software providers whose products aren’t up to snuff.

It’s with this backdrop that we look at the relationship between Thompson Machinery and UNIT4 CODA. Today, the CODA group within global IT powerhouse UNIT4 has a long history of providing financial packages to the nation’s Caterpillar dealers, who have long relied on the IBM i platform for running back-office applications.

But back in 1994, Coda Financials was not proven as one of the go-to solutions for Cat dealers. So it’s worth noting that Thompson Machinery was one of the first Cat dealers to take the risk of installing Coda Financials software on its AS/400 equipment. Implementing a financial package is a big deal for any organization. But at least it could always fire the software company.

That hasn’t happened, and after 18 years, Thompson Machinery is now expanding its use of Coda Financials across its operation, which includes 500 employees in 11 locations.

UNIT4 CODA CEO Steve Pugh has some thoughts on the long relationship. “Running on the IBM i system, Coda Financials provides a long-term, blended solution that integrates perfectly with the Dealer Management System,” said Pugh stated in a press release.