03 March 2007
Premier Direct Group (PDG)
is the UK’s largest shopping at work group. It sells a wide
range of books, gifts and toys directly to customers in their
workplace, at prices well below those of the high street. The
organisation has recently purchased Exchequer from IRIS Enterprise
Software to handle all the financial aspects of its business
model.
Exchequer will work in conjunction with a Warehouse Management
System (WMS) from MACS Software of Lutterworth, providing a
two-tier solution that meets all the requirements of PDG.
Previously, PDG were using a bespoke WMS and Opera Enterprise,
supported by an assortment of Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel
applications.
Deryck Barton, Head of IT at PDG comments “Our previous workflow
was literally dying of old age! Our demands were increasing,
as was our need to retain a competitive edge, and we outgrew the
system. Our users not only began to lose faith in the
accuracy of management information and became increasingly
frustrated by the inability of the system to provide this, so we
knew it was time to change.”
Due to the complex nature of PDGs business model and WMS
requirements, the team had in fact sidelined Exchequer as an
option. However, IRIS approached Deryck again with a solution
to partner with MACS Software. “It seemed logical to combine
the best of breed of WMS and the best of breed for financials,”
continues Deryck. “Exchequer offers us accurate, reliable and
trustworthy figures that can be managed in an open and flexible
way. The solution is cost effective and we knew the
combination of IRIS and MACS Software would move us forward very
quickly and achieve our implementation goals.”
In addition to Exchequer’s Global Financials, PDG has purchased
a number of modules including Report Writer. This will
provide the team with an easy-to-use, fast and flexible tool for
creating analysis reports. Reports designed can be added to
user menus for future use and reports produced allow users to
drill-down to the underlying data. PDG will also utilise the
Paperless module, which allows them to send out documents and
reports in a secure read-only format by fax or email at the touch
of a button.
When PDG goes live in the second quarter of 2007, it will have
15 users on Exchequer. Deryck concludes, “Exchequer will give
us better credit control and improved productivity in terms of
reduction in ad hoc spreadsheets. This will enable us to
redeploy staff in other areas and have no downtime for month
ending. IRIS has been very professional and efficient.
The team were upfront about their strengths and weaknesses and were
not prepared to sell us a product that didn’t fit – a level of
integrity missing from many vendors.”
