AI, explained in plain English.
Peak Business Navigation is based in Madison, WI, serving clients in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana.
What Can AI Actually Do for My Business?
There’s a lot of noise about AI. For most companies, the useful part is practical, and it comes down to three things. Here’s what each one means in plain English.
Live Dashboards
Financials, sales, operations, inventory and job cost in one place, refreshed automatically from your ERP. No more waiting for month-end or rebuilding the same spreadsheet.
AI Automations
Routine follow-up and data entry handled on schedule: past-due reminders, quote follow-ups, vendor invoices checked against your system, with anything unusual flagged for a person.
Extending Your ERP
When your ERP almost does what you need, we build the missing piece around it: approvals, production schedules, budget entry, CRM and pipeline, all on the data you already have.
Live dashboards
Your Numbers, Current and in One Place
A dashboard connects to your ERP and refreshes on its own. Everyone sees the same numbers, and you can click from a total down to the transactions behind it.
Before
- Reports rebuilt in Excel each month
- Problems found after the month closes
- Two people, two different numbers
After
- Refreshed automatically from your ERP
- Issues flagged while there’s time to act
- One version of the truth
AI automations
Routine Work, Handled on Schedule
AI is good at reading, drafting and checking. We put it to work on the repetitive tasks around your ERP, and anything that needs judgment goes to a person.
Before
- The aging report gets run once a month
- Only the biggest balances get a call
- Nobody knows who was contacted or when
After
- Reminders go out on schedule, in your voice
- Replies and payment promises are logged
- It stops once the customer pays
Extending your ERP
Fill the Gaps Without Replacing Anything
Replacing an ERP is a big project. Filling its gaps doesn’t have to be. We build the missing piece around your system and keep your ERP as the system of record.
Before
- Approvals lost in email threads
- A key schedule lives in one person’s spreadsheet
- A costly upgrade to get one feature
After
- Approval queues with an audit trail
- A shared schedule fed from your orders
- Built to fit how you already work
Where AI Helps, and Where a Person Stays in Charge
AI is good at
- —Reading invoices, POs and emails and pulling out the details
- —Drafting routine messages in your voice
- —Checking documents against your system and spotting mismatches
- —Summarizing what changed this week
A person stays in charge of
- —Anything unusual. Exceptions get flagged, not guessed at
- —Decisions about customers, vendors and money
- —What the automation is allowed to do, and when it stops
- —Your books. Your ERP stays the system of record
Common Questions
Do we need to replace our ERP?
No. We work with QuickBooks, Sage, Business Central, NetSuite and other ERPs. Your ERP keeps doing what it does well; we build around it.
Where does it run, and who can see our data?
We build it in your own cloud account, signed in with your company logins, so your IT team can see everything. If a project uses AI, we can run it under your own account and settings.
Will AI make decisions on its own?
Only the routine ones you approve, like sending a scheduled reminder. Anything unusual is flagged for a person to review.
How big a project is this?
Most clients start with one dashboard or one automation. Each piece is scoped and quoted before work starts, so there are no surprises.
Do we need technical staff to keep it running?
No. It refreshes on its own. We hand it over with clear notes on the few things someone should keep an eye on.
Let’s Find Your First Win
Tell us which of those sounded familiar. We’ll show you what a fix could look like for your business.