Sage 300 ERP Boosts Geisslerʼs Supermarkets Operations to Run With Efficiency and Ease!
Technology Used: Sage 300 ERP, Smart Grocer (Direct Store Delivery) System, POS System, Custom Reporting and Sage 300 ERP Custom Enhancements
Geisslerʼs Supermarket started in 1923 with A.F. Geissler delivering groceries to the small village of Broad Brook in the Town of East Windsor, CT. A family owned and operated business, Geisslerʼs has been in existence for over 90 years. Currently the familyʼs third and fourth generations are running the supermarketʼs day to day operations.
The supermarket has seven stores – six in Northern Connecticut and one in Massachusetts. Geisslerʼs is known for their great customer service and their excellent quality of food, especially their perishable foods department.
The Front Line Systems team has served as Geisslerʼs business technology partner (Sage 300 ERP Software and Services Provider) for over 16 years. Additionally, they have developed many custom designed enhancements for Geisslerʼs Sage 300 ERP system to simplify processing of complex business transactions, work efficiently and increase accuracy.
Jennifer Blanchard, Office Manager and third generation family member at Geisslerʼs says, “Front Line Systems is always able to take anything I imagine and turn it into reality!”
Maintaining House Charge Accounts Was Not Efficient
Challenge
Geisslerʼs Supermarket offers House Charge Accounts as a payment option to their corporate clients. The clients are billed on a monthly basis and pay their balance at the end of each month.
Before discussing their need for automation with Front Line Systems, Geisslerʼs employees were hand typing over 100 entries every week, and averaging over 500 entries each month maintaining their House Charge accounts. The administrative staff was spending a week every month entering these charges into the system.
Solution
Front Line Systems recommended and developed a custom import program for Geisslerʼs Supermarket. This custom program now allows Geisslerʼs to use the data files from their storeʼs point of sale system and transfer corporate account charges directly to the Sage 300 Accounts Receivable system. It integrates the POS transaction information with Geisslerʼs Sage 300 ERP accounting software, which eliminates duplicate data entry.
This enhancement to the core Sage 300 ERP system is made possible because of the open architecture and flexible design of Sage 300 ERP and the technical know-how of the Front Line Systems team. While there is great value in the robust feature set of the core system, the ability to build on this core system can fill gaps, permit the creation of greater value, and allow an excellent software system to become a great software system.
Results
Geisslerʼs Supermarket now enjoys a 99.1% time savings every month in data entry processes to maintain their House Charge accounts. The process that took approximately 40 hours now only takes 20 minutes.
Technology Used
Sage 300 ERP and Custom Import Program
Entering Sales Amounts By Department and Store Was Tedious and Prone to Errors
Challenge
Geisslerʼs accounting staff was manually entering all of their sales by department and store including their media totals (cash, credit cards and checks) weekly into the Sage 300 ERP General Ledger system.
The steps involved in the manual process included printing copies of the data from their Point of Sale (POS) system and then entering it into their Sage 300 ERP system. This method of entering data was error prone and time consuming. Geisslerʼs needed a more efficient process to enter their sales into their ERP system, so they contacted Front Line Systems.
Solution
Front Line Systems recommended and developed a custom import program for Geissler’s Supermarket to download their sales data from their POS system to their Sage 300 ERP General Ledger System.
The sales data used to be split up by day, now it is broken down by week, GL accounts and department. This custom program saved Geissler’s a lot of time. It allows them to export reports by each store, send them to the main office, configure and save GL batches.
Results
Geisslerʼs Supermarket saved 2-3 hours every week in data entry time after implementing the custom import program for entering Sales by Store and Department.
Technology Used
Sage 300 ERP, POS system and Custom Import Program
Manually Entering Vendor Invoices From the Direct Store Delivery (DSD) System to Sage 300 ERP Was Taking 8 to 10 Hours Every Week
Challenge
Geisslerʼs accounting staff was spending 8 to 10 hours every week creating invoices in their Sage 300 ERP system for merchandise they received via their DSD system. The manual process started when the merchandise came into the loading dock. The employees used the DSD system to scan the merchandise and then manually entered that data as an invoice in the Sage 300 ERP system.
Solution
Front Line Systems custom solution lets Geisslerʼs employees use the merchandise information they scan at the loading dock with their DSD system and import it as a vendor invoice into Sage 300 ERP. The DSD system chooses the department that the items are allocated to and the Sage 300 ERP system automatically converts that department into the correct GL account, cutting down on data entry errors to the wrong General Ledger account.
Results
“One of the biggest benefits of this custom import in addition to the time savings (8-10 hours every week) is the accuracy of the data in the system”, says Jennifer Blanchard.
Technology Used
Sage 300 ERP, Smart Grocer Direct Store Delivery system and Custom Import Program
Front Line Systems Delivers Beyond Expectations
Front Line Systems has minimized data-entry time, errors and cut costs in several other business processes for Geisslerʼs Supermarket. Some examples include importing credit card charges from Geisslerʼs corporate American Express and Visa accounts to Sage 300 ERP; importing payroll transactions from ADP to Sage 300 ERP General Ledger.
The custom financial reports that Front Line Systems has created for Geisslerʼs provide their buyers and upper management team access to decision making information quickly and easily.
Jennifer Blanchard says, “I really appreciate Front Line Systems ability to take the concepts that I need and design a program that will work to our specifications.” Jennifer also appreciates Front Line Systems prompt responsiveness and delivery when Geisslerʼs employees need to make urgent modifications to their business technology systems.
Fred Dean, principal business technology consultant for Geisslerʼs Supermarket says, “We are delighted to contribute to Geisslerʼs efforts for continuous improvements in their business by supporting their drive for technical efficiency. Working with the Geisslerʼs team is always a pleasure because of the forthright and effective way they manage their business and business relationships.
Download Geissler’s Supermarket Success Story (pdf) | Contact Front Line Systems
