“Implementing bisTrack is probably the best change we’ve ever made to our business — and we’ve done it at just the right time.” This is the view of Gerwyn Thomas, a partner at Carmarthenshire-based builders’ merchants, TL Thomas & Son, just two months after going live with bisTrack.

Before bisTrack was installed, TL Thomas ran a totally manual sales, invoicing and stock control system, with Sage managing the back office accounts. Stock-takes took several weeks and the business had no effective system of analysing or controlling stock movement.

Immediate benefits for the sales staff included the ability to find related documentation when customers return products. “No one ever brings any paperwork back with them in this part of the world”, explained Anwen, “but the related documents feature means it’s easy for us to see when a product was bought, how much the customer paid and the discount we gave. The system has enabled all the office and counter staff to work in a totally different way now and much more quickly. Everything used to be so time consuming.”

Discount structures for different categories of account customer are being set up. Gerwyn said, “We’d done this before of course but the information was all just in our heads! Now everyone will use the same structure.” Price lists are also being produced directly from bisTrack for individual categories, which are automatically updated when prices change in bisTrack.”

Overall Gerwyn says he feels he has a much better grasp on the business since bisTrack was installed. “bisTrack’s dashboard view is a big plus as it lets me keep a ‘minute by minute’ eye on the company’s performance. I also like the warnings you get if something is sold below margin, and how I can quickly see why it’s happened. The pop-up messages, alerting you when back-to-back orders have come in so you can let your customer know, are also excellent.

"I like to look at performance on a monthly basis, comparing it with last month and tracking sales throughout the year. It’s also a big plus being able to produce a stock valuation report instantly and now, for the first time, reports can highlight my ‘dead stock’ so I know what I need to put on offer to make room for things we can turn round.

"bisTrack was a big investment for us but it’s the best change we’ve ever made. We’ve grown so much over the last four or five years, we simply couldn’t have carried on much longer using a manual system.”