From humble beginnings in 1993, Melbourne-based Linen House has grown to become one of the most innovative and successful wholesalers of bedlinen and homewares in the Southern Hemisphere.

Today it employs 80 people and has expanded with subsidiaries in New Zealand and South Africa.

In the competitive manchester and homewares markets, swift and accurate order fulfilment and information flow are business imperatives. As the company secured major retail customers this became even more critical. In addition, Linen House was committed to industry best customer service and distribution.

Challenge

Linen House originally managed its front office via an Epicor system and additional processes with other bolt-on systems, which made data integrity and information flow from one operation to another very cumbersome.

As a consequence, allocating receipts with numerous transactions for major customers could take as long as five hours. Reconciliation difficulties meant that GST BAS returns took a minimum of four hours, and balancing subsidiary ledgers to the General Ledger could take a full day. Even input of electronic orders was only a semi-automatic function that would take three to four hours.

Mark Bartolozzi, Director of Linen House said, “Quite simply, basic but essential business tasks were too cumbersome and this was affecting cashflow, service and strategic planning.”

Linen House recognised the need for a comprehensive business management solution that could support and synchronise all of its key operations, from order processing through distribution, to invoicing and other customer communications. It also wanted more powerful reporting capabilities that could help it assess all operations and plan further expansion.

The company recruited experienced systems integrator, Enabling, to provide a seamless, enterprise-wide solution.

Solution

Following a review of possible options, Linen House selected a 50-user Sage solution incorporating Accpac ERP, Sage CRM and Accpac Warehouse Management, along with an EDI management solution that enables electronic orders and invoicing to be exchanged via the major retailers to their exact standards. It also purchased five years of Sage’s SupportPlus on all products.

Mr Bartolozzi said, “Sage was the only vendor that could supply a truly integrated end-to-end solution, with no third-party software or communication required, and at a realistic price point. Online Business Systems demonstrated a commitment to understanding our business processes and being able to provide valuable input to operational change brought about by system change”.

Following a three month implementation, the system went live in Melbourne in November 2005. Such was the positive return of the system, it was subsequently rolled out to a subsidiary — Company Aura Lifestyle P/L — in July 2006.

Result

Following the Sage installation, Linen House immediately experienced several major time and labour cost savings.

Key to this result is the seamless flow of information through all of the Accpac modules, coupled with the quality task-flow enforced by the system, and the automated action alerts that ensure the system is operating within the means it was designed for. All this has led to operational efficiency and greater service levels throughout the entire organisation.

For example, now, when a new order comes into Linen House via EDI, the Accpac system imports the order and verifies pricing and stock availability. At the same time the warehouse has visibility of the order, enabling preparation of the picking process before the order has even been received by the warehouse. Invoices and carton contents reports are automatically generated upon completion of each order being picked, along with the freight manifest which is electronically forwarded to the transport company each evening.

Consequently, Order Entry for electronic orders has been reduced to just twenty minutes. Because all stages of an order’s journey are tracked, there is also increased accountability which ensures that Linen House’s high service standards are maintained.

In the all-important accounts department, the system has drastically reduced the time required for administration tasks — by up to 50 hours per month.