Oz fishermen weigh-in new ERP

When two of Australia's larger fishing companies decided to work more closely together they went fishing for an ERP system. Greentree (who were recently recognised as one of 25 global rising stars by MIS magazine) facilitated their integration and flexibility needs without blowing the quota...

Newfishing is one of Australia's largest integrated fishing companies, producing sea caught shrimp for the world markets. Austral Fisheries is one of Australia's leading deep sea fishing companies, specialising in Patagonian Toothfish. Both companies wanted better stock management and financial reporting.

For some time Newfishing had used a number of unconnected business systems that never really did what the company wanted. Their aim was to implement an integrated system that gave them flexibility and full integration with Microsoft Excel for reporting.

Greg Johnston, Newfishing's accountant, had clear aims. "We didn't want to trade off integration for flexibility. We needed one system to be totally integrated, whilst maintaining the flexibility to grow with the business. Greentree gave us this."

Initially when Newfishing looked at their different systems and business plans they could not see how one system could fit their entire business without resorting to having something specifically written. Their concerns were dispelled, however, after a demonstration of Greentree.

"When compared to a couple of other 'higher profile' software packages," says Johnston, "the management team felt Greentree gave us a 90% business fit. I could not believe how closely Greentree matched our criteria and addressed our operational problems.

"Having seen what Greentree could do, it was ahead of the others in terms of product depth and technology, was reasonably priced and we were reassured by the on-going development of the product."

Stock control
Newfishing manages high volumes of stock, with over 600 tonnes of fish being sold every two weeks. The company needs to move the stock as quickly as possible, so it's critical for their marketing team to know the quantities and types being caught - and the system must assist them manage this data.

To do this, all vessels report their stock from sea via satellite, so the marketing team has an accurate position of stock for pre-sales before the stock is actually landed. "We have enjoyed the most benefits from the stock management system," says Johnston. "Previously this wasn't integrated with the financial system. Now the marketing and finance teams have accurate and live data to work with."

Greg continues, "With Greentree, we can be creative and smarter with the knowledge we have about our stock. We have now reduced stock levels and are clearing stock faster. The management reporting has been improved as we can  now see old stock levels, clearance rates, and can manage speed of sales and forecasts better."

Specifically fitting their business, the Greentree purchase order module is used as part of their stock management process. They treat each vessel as a supplier, raising a purchase order for each trip. When the stock is unloaded the order is placed.

"This is a great way to manage our stock," says Johnston, "as we were thinking this would have to be custom created. The Greentree Business Partner created an innovative solution as standard in the mainstream system. This is exactly the flexibility we set out to achieve." 

Commenting on the professional services Greg says, " A major concern about taking on new software is the skill and reliability of the support. We had a good connection with the team; they responded quickly and addressed any problems.  You need that 'people connection' to drive the whole project. Its early days still, with a few things to concentrate on and set up, but on balance, the implementation has been really smooth."

Accounting made easy
Newfishing buys and sells in different currencies such as NZ$, Yen, Rupee, US$ and Euro. Using the Foreign Currency module each supplier's accounts are tracked in a foreign currency. Invoices and other transactions are entered, processed, and reported based on this currency, with a range of reports which show the unrealised exchange rate gain or loss to a General Ledger account.  "Greentree seems to handle this fine. It manages currency in both sides of the ledger well and makes it easier for us."

Newfishing's Engineering depot in Darwin use Job Cost to track costs and manage the refit of its prawn trawlers. Using the 'thin client' connection over the internet the remote users in Darwin have complete on-line access to Greentree. 

"They can process supplier invoices, payroll details, and update the general ledger just once and we will have all the information live on one system. No more double entry and it is far easier to manage project costs."

Johnston says one integrated system gives senior executives access to live and timely results, so the business performance is constantly maintained and areas for improvement are highlighted.

Since going live the test for Greentree was the first financial month reporting and month-end processing. It was important that the management reports for the first board meeting since implementing Greentree went smoothly.

"From my experience, many reporting systems are clunky and training intensive," says Johnston. "With Greentree, we could use our existing report forms linked to Excel, giving us an easy and streamlined process.

"I was pleased with the time savings and accuracy. To achieve this from a new system while staff are learning is good going and we will get quicker as we get to know Greentree more."

The time saved can now be spent on business planning and analysis - rather than data inputting. "We used to tie up the system for half a day per company, per month to close the period, reconcile, and print reports, which stopped the team from working. It is now a five minute job."

Transparency for all
Using the Workflow desktop Newfishing have created a bespoke financial overview to assist management. "When I fire up in the morning I get an instant snap shot of our business status, with accounts receivable and account payable balances on one screen.

"At a glance the managers and I can see the debtors' position, ageing balance and what commitments are coming up. And soon we hope to have stock information here too."

Looking forward, Newfishing feel Greentree has already created significant time savings and will continue to do so. "We can now predominantly do everything we want in one system. We have eliminated the duplication of data, reduced errors, and extra workloads of processing information on different systems. We have complete integration working for us without having to trade off the flexibility." 

Johnston concludes, "We are free to be more creative and sales driven, give our customers more attention and speed up the clearance of our fish stocks. Overall, we have improved the bottom line. We have business goals like all companies and we believe we can achieve them better with Greentree in place."

For more information

www.greentree.com/customers/profiles/newfishing.cfm

Graham Hill
(09) 366 3897
graham.hill@greentree.com
www.greentree.com

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