Flannerys Organic & Wholefood Market

About Flannerys

Flannerys is Australia's leading natural organic health food stores and wholefoods market, providing healthy alternatives for over 30 years. Flannerys has become the locals' number one favourite destination when looking for certified organic and chemical-free products. Their product range includes health food, bakery, fresh produce, household goods, cosmetics, vitamins and supplements, coffee and much more.

From the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Gold Coast and now down to Sydney, Flannerys has been committed to individual communities and farmers for over 30 years - consistently sourcing local products and supporting small businesses and community groups.

The Challenge

Before implementing the LS Retail software, the company did not have a central database. Their legacy system included MYOB to manage finance and payroll, and Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) to manage the retail side of the business - plus 12 separate databases, one per store. The company's information was based purely on reports from the store managers. Due to the individual databases, maintenance was a distressing job. In addition, there were item duplication issues between stores. Barcode scanning often caused errors: when scanned, the barcode of an item at one store showed up as another item at another store.

The data distribution across the stores was not made in real-time. Therefore, when a customer bought a product from one store and made a refund at another store, there was no way to retrieve the transaction for a correct refund. As a result, the finance team and management couldn't capture and reflect accurate information. It became evident to the company that to keep growing the business, they needed to invest in a complete, centrally managed system that could preserve the accuracy of information.

The Solution

Their decision to change systems was accelerated by Microsoft's announcement that RMS has come to the end of its life cycle. Flannerys evaluated different alternatives to RMS and shortlisted LS Retail software and Retail Smart. After a workshop with Canary Technology Solutions, the management at Flannerys decided that the LS Retail software solution was the right system to satisfy the business's requirements and support its future growth.

The project was divided into two phases: finance implementation and retail implementation. Phase 1, the finance implementation, occurred very smoothly as the amount of data migration and training needed was limited. Phase 2, the retail implementation, was very challenging due to the complicated legacy system the company was using. To begin with, it was challenging for the project team to export data out of RMS. The data export process required the help of a third-party vendor. Compiling the twelve different databases was long and complex, as duplicate records needed to be removed. However, the Flannerys and Canary Technology Solutions team successfully migrated all the relevant data.

Canary Technology Solutions implemented an integration to PC-EFTPOS, an EFTPOS handling software that is widely used in Australia. Other customisations were added. These include an integration with the produce scale software, ensuring that information, including pricing and nutritional information, can be maintained in LS Retail software and pushed to the produce scale. Canary Technology Solutions also customised many standard reports to capture more meaningful information for the business.

Business Outcomes

Since implementing the LS Retail software solution, Flannerys has noticed improvements in different parts of its business:

• Timely access to figures

  With the fragmented and outdated retail and financial management system Flannerys used to have, every week, store managers had to report sales figures to the finance team. Then, the physical invoices and receipts had to be sent to the finance team by mail. The finance team then had to process the data before reporting to the management. This manual process was very time-consuming and labor-intensive. It took tens of hours every week to store managers to complete the paperwork, and many days passed until the final figures reached management. With the LS Retail software solution, store managers can process financial documents directly in the system. As soon as the document is processed, the finance and management teams instantly receive the latest, accurate figures.

• Mobile inventory improving speed and effectiveness

  Thanks to the mobile inventory solution, each store manager can scan product barcodes with their phone every time there is a delivery. These products will then be directly received against the purchase orders to ensure the highest accuracy and efficiency. Management can, at any time, review up-to-date information wherever they are, on their laptops, mobile phones and tablets, and take timely and informed business decisions.

• Improved customer service

  Flannerys runs a membership program called "Friends of Flannerys". Members are entitled to special discounts. Since implementing the LS Retail software solution, Flannerys can now register members directly at the POS. Member data at all stores is replicated to the head office every 15 minutes. This saves the marketing team a lot of time which used to be wasted extracting, cleansing and processing the member data from each store. As member data is managed centrally, every time a customers uses the membership card in a transaction in any Flannerys store, their whole purchase history is visible. With the LS Retail software solution, customers that are "Friends of Flannerys" automatically receive discounts and advantages.