Banbury Heating Supplies, Oxfordshire, took the strategic step to invest in CounterAct software from Border Merchant Systems to improve business efficiencies in 2016.
Banbury is an independent plumbing and heating merchant established in 1993. The business supplies a range of materials from stock. It has built a strong reputation by serving the local plumbing trade, builders, factories, schools and retail sector.
As the business has flourished over the years, the company realised that its order processing system was causing them to spend ever increasing amounts of time on administration. Banbury had been hand writing tickets at the sales counter before entering them into an accounts system. The time saving in being able to quickly enter orders at the counter was a key driver in moving to CounterAct.
Banbury HS had its new CounterAct system installed with its data converted and pre-loaded making the switch to the new systems a smoother process. A comprehensive on-site training programme was also incorporated to make sure all the team were fully competent from day one.
Banbury is delighted with just how quickly the team took to CounterAct and how many tangible benefits it has seen since installation in February 2016.
Alan Rogers, MD, Banbury Heating Supplies outlines some of the achievements: “We have really grown into the system and, for us at Banbury, it has been a real revelation. The ability to generate professional looking quotes quickly and directly from the counter has been a real bonus for us and has certainly made us much more competitive in terms of successfully converting enquiries into business. The accounts department does not have to re-key data which has freed up their time to concentrate on other work. The ability to email invoices and statements direct to customers has also been another significant improvement.”
Over the last 12 months, as Banbury has become more familiar with the system, it has built up sales history which is used to extract more in-depth sales analysis information from the system’s built-in reports. “Keeping an eye on costs and margins has been particularly significant. We are now buying much more efficiently and this has had a direct result of increasing overall margins,” said Alan.
He added: “Outstanding service has always been our focus with a busy trade counter and an efficient delivery fleet. It was essential to us that the system would give rapid response times at the point of use, (the trade counter) and also be user friendly. We considered four other systems but found CounterAct software gave us total ‘peace of mind’ and it is incredibly easy to use. It provides us with an invaluable tool in terms of managing the business in a much more efficient manner. We cannot fault the friendly service and accommodating approach Border has given us throughout the installation process and over the last twelve months.”
Phil Davies, Commercial Manager at Border commented: “We are delighted that CounterAct is delivering real benefits for Banbury Heating Supplies. The fact that the system has saved huge amounts of time, increased efficiencies and provided valuable information on the performance of the business shows that the move was the right option. We will continue to help Banbury to get the maximum return on investment.”
For more information, visit: www.bordermerchantsystems.co.uk
