With three stores spread throughout Busselton and Bunbury, Hillzeez had already been through the process of implementing SAP Business One with the Infinity point of sale solution written by Triquestra. The goal of the SAP Business One implementation was to provide visibility of activity across stores on real time basis, allowing for more accurate inventory requirements, and hence lower on-hand balances and associated costs. In the short term, this solution appeared to be working well, however it was not long before inadequacies in the integration between Infinity and SAB Business One began to cause problems. Whilst the business could persist with the current solution, Glenn Callegari, Managing Director says:

“I felt that the integration and support were not established enough to provide this business what it needed. The integration was written and supported by Enprise. The POS software was owned and supported by Triquestra. Essentially I needed 3 parties supporting 3 products on the same page.”

With these inherent integration issues, Hillzeez faced 3 strategic problems in choosing to persist with Infinity as their point of sale solution.

1. Inability to utilize SAP Business One patches and upgrades
2. Lack of understanding of each component by each party
3. Lack of understanding of the retail environment

As a result, Hillzeez was forced to look for alternatives. CitiXsys’ iVend Retail solution became a clear choice.

As described by Glenn:
“Some Retail software applications offer a lot, but any features they may have aren’t of any use if not supported by a seamless integration. It’s important to understand and remember that integration is bidirectional. To have a true centralized environment, SAP Business One needed to be able to control the Retail features and settings that any Retail solution offered. The Retail solution needed to transact efficiently, accommodate the demands of a modern retail environment, and replicate this data back to SAP Business One, mapping to all tables and fields with ease. Sounds simple enough, but to find this in the market has been a long search. iVend, a product built for SAP B1, seemed a logical choice.”

On selecting the CitiXsys iVend solution, Hillzeez perceived some immediate benefits to their business.

An integrated environment

All features the POS solution offered could be embraced knowing full well it was an ‘add-on’ to the SAP Business One product and thus fully supported by it. These features could be configured, manipulated and controlled by SAPB1.

“I’ve worked with many support partners on many solutions, and without hesitation, I can say CitiXsys has met my expectations in areas where many previous ‘support’ partners haven’t. They take an interest in your business processes and don’t expect you to compromise for the sake of the product. If you are not happy in an area that you feel has not met your expectation, they will act to remedy it at once, taking the approach that if one client wants this today, it will most likely be another client expecting it tomorrow. Remote support is no issue; it is like they are on your doorstep anyhow.”

Glenn Callegari, Managing Director

The mission of R3Global is to be the most superior Total Support System in the relational marketing industry by providing a complete range of Teaching, Training, Motivation, Inspiration, Communications, Calendar & Events, and Promotional Items.

With the passion to influence “Personal Development for Prosperity in the 21st Century” for each and every one of our customers, R3 Global reaches out to its customers through a well established network of distributors and members of its Relational Marketing Program.

As the business grew, with it grew the complexities and challenges of running a successful multi level membership business.

Even after replacing their aging QuickBooks application with SAP Business One, their existing POS system was not able to match to the pace at which transactions were conducted. Added to this was the unique business process where substantial portion of their sale was done in conferences and meetings.

The challenge was to have an application that could allow R3 Global quickly and easily set up mobile stores and kiosks to manage the transactional volumes. It was challenging to increase sales, reduce transaction processing time and reduce stock out & overstock situations. It was imperative to have flexibility in setting up promotions with inventory visibility across stores.

One of the other challenges was the ability to process debit cards – quickly and in off-line mode.

Required was a consolidated view of the retail operations, inventory and associated financials, and an easy way to transact with their customers, and members.

The move to iVend Retail with SAP Business One as the back end ERP was a clear step forward in integrating and effectively managing its retail and financial data more effectively. Selecting CitiXsys solutions to complement its SAP investment seemed the right choice as it easily integrated with SAP Business One.

The main benefits that the iVend solution provided R3 Global, was its ease of use, its complete integration with SAP Business One, and its overall speed of transaction processing. R3 Global has not only automated and streamlined its retail business processes but also gained a positive return over its IT investment for the present and in the long run.

Located in Georgia, Reeves Floral Products, Inc. has been servicing the floral and decorative needs of designers, florists, interior decorators, caterers and event planners throughout Southeast America since 1962.

What began as a greenhouse grower and supplier of fresh flowers in a small northern suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, has evolved into one of the largest importers and distributors of cut flowers, floral supplies, artificial flowers and decorative accessories in the United States.

The company has over 100,000 square feet of showroom and warehouse space in its main facility located in Woodstock, Georgia and offers an extensive range of floral products and services that include seedlings, cuttings, wholesale flowers, florist supplies and much more.

In addition, the company also operates out of Gainesville, Georgia where a full array of products and services are also available.

A growing demand for their products and services made the company reevaluate its current point of sale system and also determine it needed a point of sale solution that could integrate with SAP Business One and provide important functionality required in their retail ecosystem.

As a full service florist, they required a cost effective POS software that could process sales transactions, monitor inventory movement, manage order entry and integrate data in real time at their head office in Woodstock.

In addition, they required a solution that could confidently and quickly process transactions and credit card payments, offer easy check outs, was easy to use and could support future growth.

After evaluating various Retail systems, Reeves Floral decided to implement iVend Retal and Credit Card Add-on, iCharge from CitiXsys and both solutions were installed and integrated with Business One within one month.

Since the rollout of iVend Retail and iCharge, the company has realized various business benefits. Access to real time information has enabled better supply chain planning and efficiency. In addition, sales figures are easy to obtain at any given point of time at either of their locations, providing visibility and streamlining retail operations. The company is also able to track orders in real time, manage growth and meet customer expectations for higher service levels to support repeat business. Improved forecasting and enhanced visibility across the business has also helped improve business performance providing a scalable platform that supports the company’s plan for rapid expansion

Industry: Retail – Industrial Strength Workwear Gear

Located in Perth, West Australia, Workwear Industries has been supplying world-class protective wear for various industries ranging from heavy industry, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, to medical research. The range of products includes work garments, protective coveralls, disposable protective gear and other protective gear. Workwear Industries continues its tradition with emphasis on quality and commitment in providing the safest work wear and protective gear to its customers.

Challenge

• Fully integrated enterprise accounting application with retail operations
• Improve inventory and customer management
• Improve employee productivity and overall store performance

Solution: iVend Retail with SAP Business One

Benefits

• Increased visibility across all sales and purchasing transactions
• Intuitive solution scalable for future growth
• Improved customer management & retention through gift cards and layaways
• Comprehensive view of the company’s revenue, costs and inventory valuation in real-time

“We love the way iVend Retail integrates with SAP Business One, from the way it handles the transactions, ease of access of the transaction information, ease of use through touch screens and extreme ease to learn & train others.

iVend Retail with SAP Business One has greatly improved our information tracking through every part of the software.

It is now very easy to process information and the overall reporting is far more accurate and crisp”

Leeann Stewart,

GM Finance & Administrator Workwear Industries

Greiche & Scaff was founded in 1976 by Dr. N. Scaff and Dr. R. Greiche. Innovative leaders in the field of optometry, they were among the first optometrists to open in the mall environment.

Greiche & Scaff has over 75 locations throughout Quebec with more than 300 sales associates and 80 optometrists. The company also has its own laboratory for surfacing and edging ophthalmic lenses.

Ranging from designer sunglasses and frames to prescription glasses and contact lenses, Greiche & Scaff provides to its customers the one single destination for all their optical needs. With extensive expertise and capabilities in the optometry field, Greiche & Scaff (G&S) not only has across the counter retail & prescription sales, but also offers corporate plans to companies for their employees.

One of the biggest challenges was to seamlessly tie up patient appointments with Optometrist’ schedule and maintain a track. With all the appointments recorded manually, it was becoming very difficult for G&S to keep track of re- scheduled or cancelled appointments. It was nearly impossible to communicate back to the customers in case of a change in Optometrist’s schedule.

Similarly it was becoming very difficult to keep track of the services rendered by an Optometrist to accurately calculate the guarantee amount committed to Optometrist.

Eye glasses and contact lens qualification process was extremely cumbersome and required fair degree of technical expertise from the POS users. The process was prone to errors resulting in wrong deliveries and poor customer satisfaction.

Optical industry has a unique process of Bag & Tray Management where prescription and instructions are sent for surfacing, edging and other associated processes to be executed on ophthalmic lenses. The challenge was to manage the “Bag” containing the “Trays” with Lab Orders which may or may not contain a frame.

The move to iVend Retail – Optical Management System with SAP Business One as the back end ERP was a clear step forward in integrating and effectively managing its retail and financial data more effectively.

iVend Retail – Optical Management System now allows G&S to book appointment of patients and schedule Optometrist at the stores. The appointments and scheduling can be either done centrally from the Head Office or locally at store. Once the appointment has been fixed, customer has the option to be informed via e-mail for his scheduled appointment. Reminders can also be sent.

In case the patient does not show up or cancels his appointment, the slot becomes available for other patients to be scheduled. All this enables G&S to effectively utilize the services of the Optometrist across stores.

Optical Retail screen

With its products sold throughout Australia, Europe and China, it was important for the backoffice and point of sale solution chosen by MiniJumbuk, to be robust and easy-to-use. The company began to explore the possibility of investing in a solution that could integrate their business processes and information across their enterprise. In addition, they also evaluated the possibility of acquiring a solution that could provide real time (POS) data, visibility and insight into sales numbers and help in accelerating and improving the execution of transactions. Their greatest challenge was to find an affordable, easyto-use solution that would help them manage their critical business functions across sales, financials, and operations in one single integrated system.

The main benefits that the iVend solution was perceived to provide MiniJumbuk during the review process, was its ease of use, its complete integration with SAP Business One, and its ability to recall transactions for refunds and reprinting receipts. The staffs who use the system also commented on iVend’s friendly user interface and how quickly they grew accustomed to it.

Previously using Attache, MiniJumbuk elected to implement SAP Business One and its integrated point of sale solution iVend Retail – which would be used at their retail outlets. The solution was so complete; there was no need to source alternatives. SAP Business One and iVend Retail offered it all. According to Angela Hahn, Finance Administrator at MiniJumbuk, iVend Retail was rolled out in exactly four days.

“Due to our location, the CitiXsys team arrived on Saturday night, and on Sunday, they began training some of the staff that were commissioned to handle this transition at MiniJumbuk. The software was loaded on either Sunday or Monday and was tested out that very day. It’s incredible but we actually went live on Tuesday,” she said.

“We needed a better system to support our company, so we went with SAP. Our retail shop also needed an easier, user friendly system which integrated with SAP so we selected iVend Retail. We are now better able to track transactions through the system and can also create gift certificates on the fly.”

Angela Hahn,
Finance Administrator MiniJumbuk