Cellar Trends

ERP for a Fine Wine, Spirits and Champagne Distributor

Cellar Trends first system was Sage 100. Geoff Watts (Operations Director) explains how they "quickly moved on from this due to the limitations we felt the system had in handling stock and how duty is worked.

We then invested in Trinity, which is based on UNIX. We'd ruled out Vintner, a vertical market solution. Trinity was stable, but over time we found that the system was unable to grow and adapt as our business evolved and developed. It was hard to get info out of the system. The system wasn't evolving, but we were. We wanted to capture customer info into a CRM system, and then integrate this, but it was very hard to integrate this into the UNIX system. Also it was hard to get licenses for the system. We wanted to replace it with a system which runs on SQL server, which links to the CRM we had in mind."

To find out how de Facto S5 can benefit your business, Contact Us now on 01473 417 200 or Email Us.

Finding the Right ERP System - Evaluating Solutions

"We evaluated the new Trinity system, as well as Great Plains. Great Plains was too American for us. There were legacy issues with Trinity, and we felt their support services were poor. We wanted a clean break. Maginus was too complex for our business, and prohibitively expensive. It would also take a huge amount of integration and tailoring to suit our business. Our final choice was between Vintner and de Facto S5. S5 felt much more like a developing and progressive system. It was more open and had all the functionality we needed and more."

A Trouble free Implementation leads to improved Business Processes

"The Implementation process went very well. We were well prepared, and with De Facto's help, transferred all our stock the week before transition. Crucially, we had no invoicing problems. Educating our users about the new system was important, and we found that they got used to it and its powerful facilities with little difficulty.

There was an interesting technology issue for our staff. Previously we'd faxed orders down to distribution. Now we sent them electronically. Our people had to learn to trust this process as there was no paper anymore.

In fact, we were no longer having all sorts of bits and pieces done outside of the system. In the past we'd made various marketing calculations and discounts handling outside of the system. Keeping it all in the one system meant that far less could now go wrong from an accounting point of view."

S5 Paid for itself within 12 months

"Incredibly, the system fully paid for itself within 12 months! The EDI facilities are excellent. Previously we sent information to our Distribution company, and we had to pay them to transfer the information into their system. As a result of S5's powerful EDI facility, this is all done automatically and seamlessly, and so we no longer have those charges in our costs."

Sheer Access to Information

"It's so easy to get info out of de Facto S5, and to generate reports. S5 is a highly transparent system. As a result, we are able to solve problems as they arise. We quickly pinpoint where they stem from in the system, and then address them. We can see whether something has gone awry from a processing perspective, or whether perhaps it's a deal we shouldn't be doing.

We've been able to renegotiate our delivery charges as a result. We can analyse how proposed changes in delivery would impact upon costs. It's extremely simple to get this information. We just plug in the proposed new numbers and the system automatically generates the new delivery charges, allowing us to evaluate the benefit of the changes."

Confidence in our Financial Positions

"One huge benefit of S5 has been the increase in our confidence in our financial positions. Its ability to accrue retro discounts has been invaluable. Some of our customers are entitled to future discounts, which they can then invoice us for. S5 can automatically accrue this so we no longer have to do this manually. Once again we've removed an external process, which all the attendant benefits."

Comfortable and Progressive

"de Facto S5 is both comfortable and dynamic! Our whole company is at ease with the system, which fits our business well. Yet the system is always developing and constantly adding new facilities. Having access to the updates to the system has been a boon, with their various enhancements and developments. The ability to have some influence on where the system goes in the future is also great. De Facto is always receptive to our feature requests, and we know that they listen to their customers. As such, we feel future proofed with S5 as we know it'll be really difficult to outgrow the system."

Easy Integration with an external CRM System

"Having previously purchased a standalone CRM product (Sage CRM) prior to implementing S5, we were very pleased to note how easily integration between the two was.

"We basically have two sets of customers that we supply to. The first are wholesalers and supermarkets, the larger distribution segments. Our second set of sales is our indirect accounts. They stock our products, but they get them from their own wholesalers.

With active accounts, we transfer across our current financial position, for example what balance is outstanding or overdue. If the customer is on hold or not, we can see this, so that we know whether we need to talk to them if the product is not in stock.

We can easily integrate product information using extra tables on the product specs.

We do data transfers into the CRM system nightly. This enables our sales team which use the CRM to have up to date info to use directly on the phone, rather than having to phone the office for the information. This removes a certain amount of admin processing at the office, again saving us time and money."

Upcoming plans - EDI Integration

"We are about to start using the EDI import function for the transferring of orders. We currently manually type the orders into the system, and this will be replaced by electronic means of communication."

Support - when you need it

"The De Facto Software support team were very responsive during our first year end, which is a really important time for us. We've seen a continual development in support services over time. Concerning the new support website and systematic help desk methods – I feel that it's a good move, very structured and well organised."

In brief – S5 brings Numerous Business Benefits

"For a Wine and Spirits company like us, the duty handling side of de Facto S5 has been a great blessing. On Trinity, duty was a huge black hole.

Everything is so much simpler and easier to do than in our previous systems. It's no longer a battle to get information into the system, and it's so much easier to get the info out again.

Month End Processes are now simple and quick. This has freed up a lot of time to do other things, increasing our efficiency and lowering our costs.

Bank Reconciliation works very well. It's such a simple yet powerful facility in S5, you merely have to 'tick the right crosses' and it's done."