Easylife Kitchens, the leading kitchen specialist franchiser in South Africa that designs, manufactures, and installs kitchen cupboards and built-in cupboards, has integrated its operations on Pastel Evolution to improve control and reporting.
"With 25 franchisees nationwide, a factory each in Gauteng and the Western Cape, and a number of different companies within the group, we were struggling to produce management accounts for monthly board meetings in under three months. We now have this in seven days after every month end," says Easylife Kitchens financial manager Carl Rothero.
"Also, we report back on a monthly basis to our franchisees, who are our main debtors. Without up-to-date information, the assistance we could provide to them by way of business advice or simply maintaining and protecting the Easylife brand through their operations was much less effective than we wanted it to be.
"We had been using Pastel accounting products, but as separate entities. For instance, we had part of our creditors on Pastel Partner and part on a different package altogether. Our debtors and cashbook were also on Pastel, but run separately. So our bookkeeper had to work off hard copies to consolidate the accounts.
"Now, by integrating all our information and making it accessible in real-time at the touch of a button, Evolution has moved our management of the company to an entirely new level."
"As with most companies, the inertia of sticking to what we were comfortable with, even though it wasn't ideal, was easier than confronting the potential of disruption to the business of a large implementation and having to learn new ways of doing things," says Easylife Kitchens group managing director, Philip Kirby.
"As it turned out, there was no disruption. Evolution was installed within two months, we picked up our new opening balances, and haven't needed to call in our implementation partner, Beams Ahead, since.
"Also, at the beginning we spent time discussing and analysing our business processes with Beams Ahead and our accounting staff so that Evolution was configured to our needs rather than us having to adapt to it.
"In other words, the move was easy and the benefits of having information at our fingertips - in time to take remedial action if necessary or just make astute strategic decisions - are so much greater than staying with something that's outdated or isn't integrated."
As part of retaining the reputation for efficiency and productivity of the Easylife Kitchens brand, the franchiser has recommended the use of Pastel accounting packages to its franchisees.
"Although our system is not linked to theirs, the advantage of having franchisees use accounting packages from the same stable as Evolution means all the charts of accounts are very similar and we're able to compare apples with apples," Rothero says.
"And, of course, everyone using the same packages facilitates our job of providing financial and business support and guidance to our franchisees - because we know how their books are set up and how, ideally, they should be working."
Steven Cohen, managing director of Softline Pastel, says a number of franchisers use Pastel systems. "Most franchisees are traders and sales people and are not formally trained in accounting. They need to be able to take for granted that their accounts are being managed properly by whatever system they have so they can focus on bringing in and retaining customers. Pastel has a track record of doing that."
"At the same time, most franchisees are small businesses with no more than a few employees. So a massive ERP system is unnecessary, but they do need a package that works easily in tandem with that of the franchiser. Pastel's family of products that cover every kind of business from a sole proprietor to the National Lottery, make that possible."
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