Footprint Books
Footprint Books
Business
- book distribution
Footprint Books is a total distribution service, incorporating the sales, marketing and warehousing of high quality academic and specialist books.
The business has over 92,000 book titles representing publishers from the USA, UK, Canada and New Zealand with an annual turnover exceeding $6.8 million. The distribution and warehousing facility is based in Sydney employing 20 people.
Their business goal is to make educational and reference material available for professionals, business people, students and lovers of learning in the Australasian marketplace.
Challenge
Footprint Books were facing daily challenges, their existing financial package did not have the features required for the advanced processing needs of their growing business. The current software would only allow ten users to simultaneously access the system.
Requirements
- expansion & scalability
- inventory management
- order management & fulfillment
- inventory searchability
- business process automation
- customer relationship management
- etc
The challenge is to find a solution that can incorporate the financial aspects of the business with detailed inventory and order management. The solution must have the capacity to store over 92,000 book titles each containing large amounts of indexed and searchable information. The stored information is used by customers to easily search for book titles when purchasing online.
Solution
Sage 200 Evolution, a robust flexible solution, was implemented along with additional modules from Systems Practice ‘SP Toolkit’ which assisted with the automation of the business processes and the development of electronic communication to customers.
Automated ordering and dispatch a breeze with Sage Pastel Evolution
Orders are received by phone, fax and the website. Upon receipt the orders are allocated through the Order Allocation module which assigns existing stock to the orders based on various criteria such as urgent orders and oldest order date. Once the allocation is complete, the module prints picking slips for all orders with allocated stock. Orders then move on to the Scan Pack Module which allows the warehouse to pick and pack the allocated quantity using barcode scanners. This part of the process ensures that the correct books and quantities are picked for the order.
Systems Practice ‘SP Toolkit’ integrates with Sage Pastel Evolution
The SP Toolkit comprises a range of add-on modules covering warehousing and inventory management. The modules used by Footprint Books are: Branch Transfer, Scan Pack, Scan Receive, Dispatch, Reorder, Order Allocation, Import Cost and CRM Assist. Each module has been interwoven into the core of Sage Pastel Evolution to create the automated ordering and re-order process.
Results
Follow the footprints to an automated business
Sage Pastel Evolution is a robust flexible solution that integrates with additional modules to facilitate the automation of business processes.
Footprint Books has increased staff productivity and reduced staff numbers since implementation.
Sage Pastel Evolution’s SQL database is a robust foundation which can manage extensive indexed and searchable information for 92,000+ book titles. Footprint Books can rest assured that the solution will continue to grow with the business.