International Footwear Resourcing Limited (IFR) – Rossendale
International Footwear Resourcing Limited is an importer and wholesaler of fashion footwear with many well known ‘high street’ customers and now uses Sage 50 Accounts Professional for their business accounting.
IFR had to manage the usual complexities associated with fashion retail, such as sales volumes and stock-holdings in a seasonal market, the mixture of footwear sizes and styles, together with managing the import processes and international payments.
Background
During 2009 IFR decided to look into the available options for them to replace their existing business systems, which had become too expensive to maintain with high ongoing support costs and unacceptable response times from their existing systems provider.
Accware performed a full review of the current and future requirements for IFR, working with both operational and accounting staff. A detailed review of accounting, sales & purchase order processing, stock and shipping systems was undertaken.
Due to the nature of the business, Accware recommended a front end system; Footwear & Apparel Management (“FAM”) from RedRose Software, which provided comprehensive features supporting the business’ operational requirements, linked in to Sage 50 Accounts Professional. RedRose Software was also an approved Sage developer, so “FAM” fully integrated with Sage 50 Accounts Professional through the published Sage API.
Due to the seasonality of the business operations, IFR required a phased implementation of the two systems with Sage going live six months before “FAM” became operational. Accware installed Sage 50 Accounts in Client-Server mode, created the nominal ledger structure in line with the business requirements and provided full product training and assistance in entering the opening positions. During the period before “FAM” went live Accware also manipulated data files from the legacy system so these could be imported into Sage 50 Accounts each month.
The Result
“The whole project was managed by Accware and all necessary training was undertaken at key stages, which proved more effective. The two systems were installed problem free with deadlines met and costs kept within the original budget. Thanks to Accware, there was NO business interruption at all during the changeover process” – John Wilkinson – Financial Controller.