Will Edwards wanted to right a wrong. The problem was that Sydney, Australia – despite its origins as a moonshine-loving penal colony – somehow lacked an independent distillery. Enlisting the help of experts and starting with a blank canvas, Founder and Managing Director Will leads a team that’s created a modern distillery that’s proudly Australian. Today, Archie Rose Distilling Co. has developed a big reputation for a small, independent distillery, producing high-quality Gin, Whisky and Vodka.
“It’s not easy going up against the might of the distilling giants, but the drinking public has shown that despite economic uncertainty, they will pay for quality and something a little bit different. And that’s precisely what Archie Rose delivers,” says Will.
As the business grew it was clear that the old ways of managing the business weren’t good enough. According to Will, it was very much a case of “what got us here, won’t get us there.”
The key issue for the Archie Rose team was that the tracking of their materials and final product were all done manually. This, coupled with the inherent complexity of spirits manufacturing meant an awful lot of time was wasted managing regulatory compliance, especially reporting to the Australian Tax Office (ATO).
“Spirits manufacturing is a bit difficult. Every single batch of production yields a different result. It depends on the environment and a number of other factors,” explains Will. To manage this complexity, Archie Rose was using…
…spreadsheets.
“Prior to Cin7 Core being put in place was basically a very manual process whereby we had Excel spreadsheets for each phase of production,” says Will.
“So it was just a really, really onerous system. It worked okay when we were smaller, but then as we grew it just became too clumsy and potentially prone to error.”
Luckily, Will and the Archie Rose team had Waypoint to help them.
“We worked hard together to get to grips with Archie Rose’s Bill of Materials and costs, which given the nature of the product, was particularly complex,” says Mathew Grant, one of the software implementation experts at Waypoint.
“We evaluated every aspect of their inventory management and reporting requirements to help identify their ideal process,” says Mathew. “This included reviewing the individual Excel spreadsheets that they were using at that time. Once the requirements were understood, we selected Cin7 Core as the perfect technology partner.”
Waypoint always takes a “process first, technology second” approach to make sure that any piece of software is going to meet a customer’s operational requirements in a functional way. Their team stays in communication from an implementation’s beginning to its end. This ensures the customer’s team is fully trained and optimisation of the system is at its maximum throughout the lifespan, empowering Archie Rose to use Cin7 Core to its full capacity.
One of the most challenging things a business can do is implementing a new inventory management system while maintaining operations. Do it wrong, and the entire business can stop functioning. But Waypoint were able to help Archie Rose implement their software solution without a hitch.
“Archie Rose has been one of the more challenging, but ultimately because of it, most fulfilling clients that we’ve worked with,” Mathew says. “Implementing a new inventory management system when you’re already operating is a challenge. But Archie Rose was able to use Cin7 Core, use Xero and use our assistance to ensure that everything worked – they had one shot and they got it right the first time.”
Archie Rose now has the ability to report to ATO with just a few clicks. That includes simple compliance-based reporting, right the way through to complex reports which cover alcohol-related excise information. They also have the ability to monitor stock levels at the warehouses of their suppliers. “What it all means is that they’ve saved a considerable amount of admin time,” says Mathew.
Archie Rose agrees – they say the benefits of moving from a spreadsheet-based system to automated inventory management software are huge. “Having a robust manufacturing module was great. The other important aspect we were looking for is a really rigid system with regard to data flows, because the federal government reporting requirements are really really stringent,” Will says. Waypoint’s implementation of Cin7 Core has made what was once hard and time-consuming much, much easier.
“Whether it’s building your bill of materials through to processing batch documents – it’s all there, and I can trust it.”
Will now has far more confidence in the operations across the entire business. It’s allowed him to manage the here and now with real-time reporting, while also keeping an eye to the future thanks to Cin7 Core’s forecasting capabilities. And with sales and their reputation continuing to grow, that future looks very positive.
“There’s a couple of reasons why Cin7 Core has really improved the way we do business,” Will says. “That combination of knowing where our goods are at all stages of production in different locations around the country and being able to deep dive into a bit more of the analysis around production efficiencies and performance are probably the two things that give us the most value.”
With onerous compliance requirements largely automated away, and thanks to the reporting capability built into the new system, Archie Rose can now concentrate on spending time to make money.
“I can now generate a report and spend more time analyzing the results, which is great. It makes my life much easier,” Will says.
“It’s a system that can minimize or eliminate human error and allow us to see all of the changes throughout and every step of the process. To manage that scale with only one or two people is fantastic.”
“ Archie Rose was able to use Cin7 Core, use Xero and use our assistance to ensure that everything worked – they had one shot and they got it right the first time ”
Implementation Expert, Waypoint
Founder and Managing Directory, Archie Rose
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