The need for an integrated and evolving business system was the catalyst for change at Stahmann Farms. The nature of their business cycle allows only four months a year for major information system changes, in-between processing their produce and compliance and reporting deadlines.
Stahmann Farms is a privately held company and is the largest pecan nut grower and processor in the Southern hemisphere with a turnover of over $10 million. From their 70,000 tree-lined orchards in NSW and QLD they grow, process and distribute pecan nuts to Australian supermarkets and major wholesalers as well as exporting to USA, Europe, Asia and New Zealand. Also a major toll processor of Macadamia Nuts, operating since 1982, the ‘state-of-the-art’ processing plant in Toowoomba employs over 100 people and can process in excess of 5,000 tonnes of Pecan and Macadamia Nuts annually. |
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“An outstanding positive about Greentree is that, despite the complexity of our business, it presented little need for customisations.”
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Finance & Administration Manager, John Howard, took this opportunity to pin-point three key aims of moving the business from three DOS systems, spanning financials, call centre and manufacturing software, towards one integrated Windowsbased system. Greentree has delivered on the first aim and offers the opportunity for the last two to be realised.
Going live in September 2002, the Greentree system was embedded properly for the financial year-end reporting in December 2002. Upgrading from CBA to Greentree encompassed a wide range of module suites including Financial Management, Distribution, Fixed Assets and Foreign Currency.
 John describes the integration project, “This was a major strategic change for Stahmann Farms. It was a natural progression to move to Greentree. We knew that the three DOS systems were not going to be enhanced in any great way, so it was time to move. Moving away from DOS to a Windows-based system is key for our business. The first major change was to migrate our existing core financial system from CBA to Greentree.” Before changing from CBA, Stahmann Farms took the opportunity to redress their business systems.
“We did a lot of internal process redesign to accommodate moving our business to a new system. Over six months, the existing core financial modules were completely overhauled. It was important for us not to just move the data directly across but it was also an opportunity to re-jig and radically change things before moving to Greentree.” John continues, “We worked hard before and during the implementation. It was a significant change and investment, but due to our previous groundwork and the backing of the support team the move went very well.”
Very, very integrated
Greentree has enabled Stahmann Farms to modernise their processes and now have one seamless system for financial management. All financial reporting is now managed using Excel allowing for new flexibility in reporting. Transactional processing, including accounts payable invoices, month-end general ledger journals, and inventory building, is performed using Greentree’s Excel functionality where this is more efficient than traditional data entry.
They have successfully used Greentree’s transaction trees to assist reporting and this compliments its activity based accounting structure with 1,500 General Ledger accounts now used compared to the fixed 3,000 originally used in CBA. John describes the change, “By setting up transaction trees we now have half as many accounts and can have hundreds of thousands of different combinations.” In addition Stahmann Farms has also invested in an Access based ODBC interface in order to enhance its sales history reporting, enabling information to be leveraged off the tree based analysis of inventory and customers.
 The second project, currently undergoing specification, is the replacement of the existing DOS-based Call Centre software system with customised Greentree Call Centre software and access to online customer shopping using WebStore. This software is an extension to the existing CRM and WebStore capabilities standard in the Greentree suite. Stahmann Farms is working closely with Greentree to implement a full CRM suite and WebStore solution to manage their call centre operation, which currently sells gourmet food products to over 20,000 customers.
John explains, “Greentree will be set up to enable business to consumer transactions on-line and through our call centre. It will be an excellent tool for us at Stahmann Farms.” They envisage the third project to replace their manufacturing DOS-based system will take another year to prepare for and complete. The possibilities with Greentree’s Manufacturing module are being explored, including the level of customisation necessary to meet their specific industry requirements.
For Stahmann Farms, getting used to a new system is a gradual process of change and evolution. John describes, “We have not yet fully exploited all the functions available to us in Greentree. Basically we implemented Greentree, it’s doing the job, but we have not yet exhausted the possibilities of CRM, WebStore, Advanced Sales Pricing, eReporting and the Excel interface that we will increasingly use. Such is the scale of the change to our business it took us 12 months to turn the wheels smoothly. We are just digesting the change and then we will move to the next step. Greentree gives us lots of opportunities to evolve our business.”
An outstanding positive about Greentree is that, despite the complexity of their business, it presented little need for customisations. John explains, “We were able to implement Greentree for our core business without having to customise it at all. The Call Centre and WebStore project will include an element of customisation but we are trying to keep the change as ‘Vanilla’ as possible. For our size of organisation it was a substantial investment, however, if you put it into context alongside larger ERP products, Greentree is very, very competitive in terms of price, product depth and service.”
Stahmann Farms have been able to call on the services of the Greentree team, “It’s good that Greentree can react to our requests and work with us to find solutions. Any large system change for such a complex organisation as ours means some pain but Greentree was ready with all the answers. I’d advise anyone else going through such a change to get the preparation done properly and well laid out. It made our life much easier.” John concludes, “On the whole the Greentree is a strong product and is streamlining our business and we look forward to working with it into the future.”
About Stahmann Farms
 Stahmann Farms is a privately held company, and is the largest pecan nut grower and processor in the Southern hemisphere with a turnover of over $10 million. From NSW and QLD, they grow, process, and distribute pecan nuts to Australian supermarkets, major wholesalers and export to USA, Europe, Asia and New Zealand. Stahmann Farms is also a major toll processor of Macadamia Nuts. Operating since 1982, the processing plant employs over 100 people and can process in excess of 5,000 tonnes of Pecan and Macadamia Nut annually.
For more information visit: www.stahmannfarms.com.au
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