Fast-Growing Chain Relies on Activant Eagle to Help Achieve Growth Goals
Started in 2002 with aggressive growth goals, Family Farm and Home relies on Activant Eagle™ for Windows to manage all aspects of its business. Inventory is carefully managed to conserve cash. Inventory shrinkage is low. Accounts Payable is performed with a small staff. Business Advisor reports empower management with real-time data on location performance. Perhaps most important is the ease with which new stores can be added to the Eagle system.
Retail Farm Store Chain Required System to Accommodate Future Growth
Family Farm and Home is a retail farm store chain specializing in selling farm and home products to full and part-time farmers and rural homeowners. Since inception in April 2002, four locations have been added with aggressive plans to continue that rate of growth.
"In 2002 when we began the business, we looked for a system that would handle every aspect of the business… accounts payable, general ledger, purchasing, point-of-sale and inventory management. It needed to be a one-stop shop," said Bob Tarrant, chief financial officer, Family Farm and Home. "We found Activant to be the best solution for everything."
Strong Inventory Management Conserves Cash and Fuels Growth
According to Bob, "As a young company we used leverage to start the company. We need to responsibly manage our cash-flow by maintaining appropriate stock levels. We can't order truckloads for each store." Eagle achieves this goal by facilitating the smooth transfer of inventory between stores, by making cycle counting easy and accurate, and by providing real-time reports that monitor inventory levels at all locations.
By cycle counting 10% of its SKUs, Family Farm and Home can predict its shrink rate for the entire company. "Our shrink is currently 1.14% which is okay for a young company. We'd love to see it below 1% and we'll get there as we add policies and procedures and improve some of our processes," says Bob.
Eagle inventory reports help quickly identify potential problems, leading to faster resolution. These critical reports provide summary and detail level information down the SKU and location level. If inventory of a particular SKU is over plan, Bob works with the buyer for that product to determine the source of the problem. The product may have been received incorrectly or there may be an overstock issue.
Small Accounts Payable Staff Performs Big with Eagle
"With the Eagle Accounts Payable module, we get a lot of work accomplished with very few resources," asserts Bob. Family Farm and Home has a total of 300 direct vendors with as many as 150 being paid each week. One full-time employee and one part-time assistant are able to keep up with the volume. Eagle automates the paperwork flow from receiving to accounts payable. On screen, invoices are matched against products received and authorized for payment.
Business Advisor Provides Visibility Into Operations at all Locations
With seven stores spread across two states, the management team can't possibly be at all locations every day. And with Business Advisor, they don't need to be. "Business Advisor has really helped manage the business. It provides all the critical data in a summary format. From there we can drill into transaction detail for each location and identify potential problems. I can sort SKUs by gross profit and literally an hour after an item was sold, understand its gross profit at every location," says Bob.
Last August, Family Farm and Home's operations manager was looking at a sales audit report for the morning and noticed suspicious returns. By double-clicking on those line items, he noticed that the suspect returns were all made by the same clerk. That very day, the store manager pulled hard copy return slips and confirmed that the clerk was falsifying returns. "That single report saved us money. Who knows how long that would have gone on before we caught it?" muses Bob.
Rapidly Growing Business Easily Adds new Locations
"We opened three years ago with three locations and added another four locations since then. We plan to continue our rapid growth," says Bob. Part of the reason Family Farm and Home is able to do that is because it's so easy to add new locations with Eagle. When they open a new store, they copy formats and files from another location into the new store's database and train employees for a couple of days. "With the in-person training we get from Activant, additional phone training and the very good support center, we've had no system problems with rolling out new stores."
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