K8 software has been chosen by one of the UK’s fastest growing decorators’ merchants, as it expands into new premises and develops its online presence.
James Taylor went to work in his parents’ wallpaper shop when he was 18 and immediately became hooked on buying and selling – particularly paint! He began targeting decorators with sales of trade paint that allowed the business to grow exponentially and move into much larger premises, which remains the company’s head office in South London. James is now the owner of the business that began trading as London Decorators Merchants in 2010. Since then, turnover has more than trebled and the company successfully operates five branches.
The LDM team had been using an accounting system for seven years, but after the provider stopped supporting its EPOS system there were difficulties integrating with any other third party solution.
“We were very happy with our old system from an accounts perspective,” said James, “but it was severely lacking in any other functionality. The main reason for us moving to K8 is so we can use one integrated system – that includes features such as CRM and credit control.”
K8 software manages sales order processing, purchasing, stock control, E-Commerce and business intelligence, and its integrated financial suite means that LDM won’t need to use any other accounting software. James added: “K8 will also let us manage our stock using hand held devices and it will make processing inter-branch transfers much easier.”
As a wholesale paint supplier, LDM also needs a ‘paint direct’ function to allow it to supply paint directly to customers but invoice the manufacturer. “We had a paint direct module on our old system,” explained James, “but the Kerridge version looks much easier to use and also manages call offs which our old system couldn’t handle.”
James also believes he’ll be able to reduce his stock holding through K8’s efficient purchase ordering and that he’ll save resources and mistakes by only having one system for staff to learn.
K8 can be delivered through a variety of options including low cost Saas (Software as a Service), where the customer rents the software (rather than purchasing a one-off perpetual licence) and accesses it over the internet. Alternatively companies can deploy the software, as LDM will be doing, on their own server.
