How Hilly Ridge Sales & Service Leverages Ideal’s Gravity Payments Integration to Manage Transactions Effectively as They Grow

Like many other equipment dealers, Hilly Ridge Sales & Service started as a mom-and-pop shop.

Derwin Seibel, a second-generation owner of Hilly Ridge, started the business with his dad in 1999, right after Derwin got out of school. Back then, Hilly Ridge was a specialist shop. Now, 22 years later, they have expanded to become one of the largest multi-line dealers in Western Pennsylvania.

The Seibel family and their team at Hilly Ridge have worked hard to create the kind of business communities love. Their motto is, “Where Quality and Service Come First”. They pride themselves on being a team that is both knowledgeable and will charge you a fair price for parts and service.

But as they’ve expanded, Hilly Ridge, like many other power equipment dealers, have faced their share of growing pains—one of the biggest being their need to find a better way to process payments.

We chatted with Derwin to learn how switching to Ideal and using the Gravity Payments integration has helped them continue to deliver on the quality of customer service they strive to deliver.

What would you say had helped Hilly Ridge stand out from the competition, over the years?

Derwin: What we’ve focused on over the years is creating a good service, a quality service, and communicating well with the customers. Also, offering a quality product, with the equipment that we sell.

Can you tell us a bit about your day-to-day at Hilly Ridge?

Derwin: Through the years, as the business has grown, I’ve taken care of a lot of the management side of it, and even a lot of the financial decisions.

Before switching to Ideal, what software were you using at your dealership?

Derwin: We used QuickBooks until 2005 when we had started using Ideal. We started with Ideal for Windows and have been using it all these years. I love the program.

Why did you decide to make the switch to Ideal?

Derwin: Back in that time, if we had to do a price update with QuickBooks, you had to go through and manually update the prices—and it wasn’t a simple process for parts pricing. So, that was a big one, being able to just download products when the prices changed.

Another big one was being able to keep track of the work orders and work history that we’d done on customers’ units.

Along with that, we wanted to maximize the inventory side of it, the pricing structures, the custom price codes, and all that kind of stuff.

We saw some of the demonstrations of how Ideal works and some of the reviews of people that had used it and were impressed with that, and I guess that’s where we had decided to go with them.

Why did you see the need to start using Gravity Payments?

Derwin: The reason we went with the Gravity Payments was the ease of use. We liked that you could print the receipt right on the invoice rather than needing a separate receipt, and not having to key it in twice, making that checkout process faster. That checkout procedure and making it a faster process was a big thing. The rates were very reasonable as well.

How has using Gravity Payments helped as your business grows?

Derwin: The business has probably tripled in size since we started using Gravity Payments. If I had to go back to double-key in entries all the time, it would drive me crazy now.

Before, you’d figure up the total, and you’d have to punch it in on that separate machine and run their card. Not having to do all that stuff, just that ease of use, was really the big thing. If I had to go back and do the transactions that we run through today back then—the quantity of transactions is so different, it doesn’t even compare.

How has the support been for Gravity Payments?

Derwin: It’s been great for both companies. I’m not going to complain about it.

What is one of the biggest changes you see happening in the power equipment industry?

Derwin: We have noticed some uptick with curbside pickup, online orders, and online checkout. I can see that it’s something we have to be willing to change to adapt to.

To learn more about how you can use Gravity Payments to streamline transactions at your dealership, reach out to the Ideal team at 800-737-1620.