Sector: Retail and wholesale · Platform: Elite POS integrated with Sage
The challenge
Key Flooring’s existing system was based on Sage and required a lot of manual input when staff dealt with sales orders directly on the platform. The system was slow and inflexible, causing delays that affected customers and producing errors and mistypes on paperwork.
Management wanted to improve procedures and scale up the operation — at the time the trade counter had only one computer and till.
They needed a solution that:
- Removed as many opportunities for human error as possible
- Was easy for staff to use
- Automated and improved the team’s processes
The solution
Impress Solutions introduced an integrated Elite POS system communicating directly with Sage.
“We were initially serving sales orders directly through Sage, having to type out the code of each product into the system. If it was a carpet we’d be having to manually adjust the sizing and cut, whereas now we just select the product off the menu. The platform is very visual and what was once a manual process has now been made so much easier.”
— Rhys Lewis, Key Flooring
The results
Errors minimised. Key Flooring take card payments, which previously required manual input — and pressing a wrong number on the old system could mean charging a customer the wrong amount.
Faster counter service, with quick product searches, straightforward multi-buy promotions, and delivery and marketing address capture at the point of sale.
Visibility of trading.
“Having the dashboard as part of the back-office program means we can see how the days are shaping up in comparison to each other, and I can assess where we are financially at the end of a week, which is really helpful.”
— Rhys Lewis, Key Flooring
Easier for new staff to learn.
“I would say a powerful feature of this EPOS system compared to a program like Sage are the visual elements of the platform. The interface is so user-friendly and it doesn’t look like an accounting program. For new staff, the system is a lot easier to learn as there are fewer processes to teach.”
— Rhys Lewis, Key Flooring
The faster workflow and expansion from one till to two meant Key Flooring could serve twice as many customers as before.
The experience
“The software has been highly configurable in order to meet our individual requirements as a company. For example, we sell our carpets by the square metre and Impress adapted our solution to allow decimal points for products that were in fact bought based on size, not quantity. We’ll request a change to the system and in a couple of days, Impress come back with a flexible solution to suit our business and improve processes in the long run. The implementation period as we transitioned from one outdated till to two new ones went well with only slight disruption to normal service on the day.”
— Rhys Lewis, Key Flooring