JIWA delivers efficiency improvements for Chevalier

An overhaul of its financial management software has helped business bloom for fresh fruit and vegetable distributor Chevalier Wholesale Produce...

Established more than 40 years ago, Chevalier Wholesale Produce is an Auckland-based wholesale distributor of premium fresh fruit and vegetables. Through its business divisions the company supplies fresh produce to airline caterers, shipping lines, hospitals, and a predominantly Auckland-based clientele of restaurants and commercial catering companies. In addition, Chevalier exports to supermarkets in a number of Pacific islands including Fiji and New Caledonia.

The company operates in a market that is highly susceptible to seasonal fluctuations, particularly among its cruise line and catering customers. While Chevalier employs 60 permanent staff, an additional 10-15 people are required during the peak of Summer. The business hours are long. Open seven days a week, the fi rst shift of the day begins at 4am, with the final shift ending at 10.30pm.

The business issue
At first glance, fruit and vegetable wholesale distribution may appear to be a relatively simple business operation, but as Graham Janssen, General Manager of Chevalier Wholesale Produce explained, the nature of the produce creates some interesting complexities. “Chevalier deals with a large number of different products, where the produce available and prices change every day,” Janssen said.

Moreover, to fulfill Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry requirements for export activities, Chevalier must be able to correlate purchases to sales and actual customer names. However, when the company began looking for new financial management software in 2001, it discovered that few packages were able to help it achieve this.

According to Janssen, “We spent three months investigating accounting software. Many of the companies we spoke to simply didn’t comprehend our business needs, or they didn’t believe their packages could do what was required. The reason we went with JIWA and the local JIWA reseller, Superb Software, was that they showed they understood our business. We were confident that they could deliver.”

The solution
JIWA is now used by up to 30 staff members daily and it is an integral tool for Chevalier’s export and telephone salespeople, business analysts and management. Janssen estimates that it takes just under a week for new staff to become fully competent in the software.

In the five years since JIWA was installed, Chevalier has tailored the system by tightly linking Crystal Reports, Microsoft Excel and JIWA to create a range of additional divisional reports. Scripts provide hourly reports linking purchase order information directly to sales orders, giving an immediate snapshot of the overall business, as well as providing the all-important reports for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

The result
Janssen believes JIWA is responsible for a number of efficiency improvements. Prior to the introduction of JIWA, it took approximately two days per week for an employee to manually update the price database of over 5,000 products. Since JIWA has been installed the process has become automatic with the entire process taking a maximum of three hours.

Automatic rather than manual reports for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry have further reduced Chevalier’s office workload by one full time staff role. Janssen concluded, “JIWA’s integration with Microsoft Excel has also opened the way for simple developments such as enabling Chevalier management to link directly into the general ledger and profit and loss information to obtain a better feel for divisional and overall company profitability. JIWA has delivered on its promise.”

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