How Nonesuch Developed a Scalable Custom Office Management System

Kelly Tours provides bus tours and charter bus travel throughout the Southeastern U.S.

The Challenge:

Develop a scalable operations platform for a growing business

Charter tour bus companies have few options when it comes to office management systems.

Much of the industry uses outdated tools developed decades ago. These legacy systems get the job done, but they’re often slow, inefficient, and not easy to use.

Kelly Tours had an OMS for some functions, like payment processing. But many operations relied on employees manually uploading documents for each trip into a shared drive.

“It started as a spreadsheet. Then they turned to an Access database. They used it to power a website. Quite impressive really.” Nonesuch founder Rob Lingle explained. “But as they grew, they had problems allowing multiple users to work at the same time, and with scaling to meet customer demand. Problems with the app could be a disaster, so it was time to build something for the long haul.”

The Solution:

A powerful system to manage all operations

Nonesuch dug deep into everything Kelly Tours does – both on its tours and behind the scenes. Then we imagined ways to streamline those tasks.

“We didn’t reinvent all their processes,” Rob stressed. “We observed what they were doing and gave them a better way of managing the same functions.”

The new office management system lets employees create tours with a few clicks. They can manage hotel reservations, vendor contracts, and group preferences right from the platform.

“They can manage if this group needs sandwiches on the bus, who ordered which sandwich, and whether anyone is allergic to anything in those sandwiches,” Rob said. “They can see if they need to have T-shirts printed. They can see who ordered T-shirts. They can manage which hotel room each bus passenger is assigned to and send that list to the hotel.”

The system also manages the back end of the business. Tasks like financial reporting, sales commissions, and vendor contracts can all be handled through the platform.

Through an app or online, customers can make their reservations, receive travel advisories, even request refunds. It all feeds directly into the office management system in real time.

It was important to develop the new system without disrupting the old one. The legacy system was still storing data and processing payments even as Phase 1 of the new system launched. The two operated side by side so that when the time came, we could make a seamless switch.

The Outcome:

Efficient workflows and a scalable system

From the beginning, we built Kelly Tours’ operating system to be flexible and scalable.

The system continually adds new features to adapt to the market and the business’s growth. It’s also adapted to advancements in technology with updates to the underlying code.

What began as a way to simplify management of student tours has become an engine of efficiency. It’s securely processed thousands of transactions and tens of millions of dollars.

It saves countless hours of work, allowing employees to focus on high-impact activities that lead to long-term growth.