Key Takeaways

  • Automates a wide range of formerly manual tasks to reduce order processing times “from hours to minutes”
  • Scales cost-effectively to handle sustained business growth and increasing order volumes
  • Responsive customer support ensures rapid issue resolution to keep orders flowing

About the Customer

Carrington Farms has been a leading provider of organic, non-genetically modified natural food products since 1999. The company’s ongoing growth and success is based on a foundation of cutting-edge ideas and an entrepreneurial spirit. This is exemplified by their ability to leverage IT systems to improve operational efficiency and bottom-line performance. Having outgrown a QuickBooks accounting system, Carrington Farms moved to SAP Business One ERP in 2014. The food manufacturer saw an opportunity to streamline their order processing function at the same time. “We used to process each sales order individually, by hand,” says Bill McGuire, Business Systems Analyst at Carrington Farms. “Major customers like Walmart send orders in batches of 50 or more at a time, so this took a lot of effort.”

The Challenge

Improve efficiency and reduce operational overhead by eliminating the need to manually process thousands of sales orders, invoices and warehouse transactions per week.

The Solution

Implement integrated TrueCommerce EDI for SAP Business One to automate sales order, invoice and warehouse document processing.

Detailed Results & Business Impact

Integrated EDI Slashes Turnaround Time on Sales Orders, Invoices and Warehouse Documents “from Hours to Minutes”

Carrington Farms rolled out integrated TrueCommerce EDI for SAP Business One in parallel with the business system upgrade. The move resulted in major efficiency improvements and operational cost savings, along with solid support for ongoing business growth.

Carrington Farms’ major EDI trading partners now include Walmart, Target, Costco, Amazon and specialty food distributor UNFI. They currently receive approximately 500 to 700 sales orders via EDI in a week.

“Now we can import any number of EDI 850 sales orders and EDI 860 Purchase Order Change Requests directly into SAP—what used to take hours now takes less than two minutes,” notes Mr. McGuire. “We also turn sales orders around into EDI 810 invoices within SAP and send those back out automatically. Again, what took hours before now takes just a few minutes.”

The integration also helped the company streamline relations with its third-party logistics provider (3PL).

“When we send EDI 940 Warehouse Shipping Orders to our 3PL and receive EDI 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice and EDI 210 Motor Carrier Freight Details documents back, once again it takes minutes instead of hours,” emphasizes Mr. McGuire.
The faster order processing workflow also gives Carrington Farms more accurate real-time inventory and accounts receivable data in SAP Business One than would be possible if orders and invoices were processed one at a time by hand.

Leveraging Integrated EDI to Drive Further Efficiencies

Carrington Farms has plans to expand its use of TrueCommerce in two key areas: automating EDI 856 Advance Ship Notice (ASN) document creation, and increasing the level of automation in drop-ship orders going out to consumers.

The food manufacturer’s current challenge with automated ASN creation is capturing lot and expiration date information from their 3PL. “Right now we turn ASNs around manually using the EDI 945 documents from our 3PL,” Mr. McGuire explains. “TrueCommerce EDI gives us the capability to generate ASNs automatically and we will be doing that soon.”

To process drop-ship orders automatically and eliminate manual effort, Carrington Farms plans to update their eCommerce platform to make use of TrueCommerce Connect for Shopify. This will enable them to automate the exchange of online order data with SAP Business One without retyping order data, making it easier to grow their drop-shipping channel. With TrueCommerce Connect for Shopify you can push order and customer data directly to your ERP system and send shipment data, tracking details and order status back to Shopify. Setup for TrueCommerce EDI customers leverages
existing integrations so it takes just a few days.

Timely, Expert Help with Issues to Keep Orders Flowing

TrueCommerce has been with Carrington Farms all the way through the implementation and beyond.

“I can’t say good enough things about TrueCommerce Support,” Mr. McGuire shares. “Anytime I call, they usually resolve our issue right away. If not, they pass it up the chain and someone gets right back to me.”

The relationship with TrueCommerce has resulted in
substantial efficiencies for the company.

“All that streamlining ultimately reduces our operational overhead significantly. EDI saves us from having to hire at least two if not three additional staff. From an efficiency standpoint, EDI is a godsend—the time savings is huge,” adds Mr. McGuire. “I highly recommend TrueCommerce.”