The growth of pasta manufacturers, Maria's Pasta, has been fast and constant over the last 20 years. Since 1989 Maria’s Pasta had relied on CBA to manage the financial and distribution data, but their growth dictated the need for a new system.

The overriding need in the new system was to formalise their processes and a have a system the company could continue to grow with. Paul Italiano the General Manager says, “Greentree will support our business. There is so much potential for use as we develop and grow.” He continues, “We now have our finger on the pulse of the business, more than we ever could in the past.”

“Greentree has taken us that next step further. We now have our finger on the pulse of the business, more than we ever could in the past.”

Greentree met their criteria over other competitive products, as it provided a comprehensive accounting system overall, enabled GST compliance and moved the company to a Windows based system. Paul says, “No system fits any business perfectly, but Greentree was a 95% fit for our business. It met our criteria being a powerful accounting engine and the integration into the inventory and CRM systems were added advantages for us.”

The JADE thin client technology also influenced the Greentree decision, as the travelling or off-site staff would use the remote access to get live information. Paul believes this ability is “quick and effective”. Built on a reliable database Greentree provides the management team with on-line back-ups and full data security. Paul explains, “When I leave for a holiday, I know it’s done. I have the comfort of knowing the system is secure and robust.”

Large quantities of their pasta products are sold to caterers and wholesalers throughout Australia and some exports markets and, in order to keep up with this demand the distribution system has to be flexible to their production style. Pauls adds, “Greentree handles our inventory and pricing wonderfully. It has enhanced our processes.”

Greentree allows multiple units of measure to be defined against each stock item, including the conversion rate from one unit to another. Items may be purchased, transferred, stocked or sold in any unit of measure and Greentree will manage the conversions. Each unit of measure may also have a defined selling price, allowing volume prices to automatically apply if a customer purchases a larger quantity. “One great thing we get from using ‘units of measure’ is that we can easily see how many kilos of pasta or sauce were sold regardless of the unit it was sold in. This was done manually in CBA,” comments Paul. Using the conversion rate from one unit to another has enhanced their processes and allows them to better understand their performance and develop product lines. Paul explains, “We can now run a sales analysis of the conversion of pasta sauce in the volumes used and we are able to compare the output.”

“The system, unlike many others I looked at, was flexible enough to fit around us, rather than the other way round. It’s offered us improvements and effi ciencies, without forcing us to re-engineer.”

Multiple formats for packing slips can be created as part of their sales order system and are completely user-defined, allowing them to print “standard” extended descriptions, specifications or detailed notes from the sales order process. The packing slips can be “hot printed” directly from the Sales Order Entry screen; ensuring orders are processed quickly with minimal paperwork and lost time. “Our packing slips are now exactly how we need them, the right size and, through a user defined field, they print with our internal short hand descriptions on each order. It’s been a huge bonus to have this flexibility for our processes.”

The Sales Orders module is fully integrated with the Inventory and Accounts Receivable modules to ensure Maria’s Pasta customer and stock availability information is always up to date. This also means that customer and stock item discounts or special pricing arrangements are automatically detected and applied, reducing the risk of costly mistakes. Paul says, “Greentree has taken us that next step further. We have been able to re-engineer our sales process, but with the production process, I’d say in fact that the benefit of Greentree has been that we’ve not had to change things. The system, unlike many others I looked at, was flexible enough to fit around us, rather than the other way round. It’s offered us improvements and efficiencies, without forcing us to re-engineer.”

With customers waiting for an immediate response to queries, efficient access to information is essential. Greentree provides an on-screen order enquiry facility that allows the team to find the status of orders by customer number, sales order number or the customer’s purchase order reference. Orders, packing slips and invoices can then be easily “drilled down” for viewing the complete details and status of each line. “We can now easily run queries on sales orders, using trees and user defined fields for specific product information. We can now produce a daily ‘production list’ with quantities directly from sales orders, a really important process, ” says Paul.

Having “a powerful accounting engine” was essential for the management team who now have a fully integrated General Ledger, previously not used in CBA. Paul says, “It has been really helpful to see more structure to our business. Our accountant can use Greentree’s clever tables and Excel for importing figures. It’s the usability and ease of manipulating the data that’s important.” He continues, “Customer account reconciliations were lengthy and had to be re-keyed in CBA, now we have a more user-friendly system, saving administration time.” Commenting on the quicker month-end processing Paul explains, “Being date driven Greentree is delightful! We have actually saved one day a month. It has taken a lot of pressure off these periods.”

The Greentree Workflow module provides a dynamic desktop view with information updated to all relevant desktops across the organisation as soon as it is entered. Debtor information can be included in financial desktop objects, making debtor management even easier and more efficient. “We use this more and more. It has been especially useful for debt collection.” Expanding on other useful functions Paul says, “Screen customisations has also helped us. We can ‘switch off’ certain functions we do not presently require. Training is much easier this way also.”

The Italiano family have over 70 years experience in the food industry, so they have accumulated a vast range of historical sales and contact information. Greentree’s Customer Relationship suite provides a powerful base that allows them to have a central system, define the organisations their business comes into contact with, and what the nature of the relationship is. Paul explains, “All the customer information that we all had historically in our heads is now going into Greentree and accessible for everyone. We can use this information flow and we’re far more efficient as a result.” Paul adds, “CRM gives us the potential to do more with our business contacts. We can be more responsive to our customers, track sales information and overall formalise our sales process.”

About Maria's Pasta

A.G. & F. Italiano Nominees Pty Ltd, trading as Maria’s Pasta, is owned and run by the Italiano family who have over 70 years experience in the food industry and is 100% Australian owned and operated. Their pasta products are sold to caterers and wholesalers throughout Australia and some exports market. The growth of Maria’s Pasta is fast and constant with a turnover of $1.6 million a year and17 staff at its branch in Melbourne, Australia.

For more information visit www.mariaspasta.com.au