Sage solution supports Candlelight's bright business future

By late 2000, it became apparent that the company’s old IBM-based system was struggling to cope with the demands of a fastgrowing business. Furthermore, Candlelight was finding that customers increasingly wanted the convenience and speed of electronic data interchange (EDI), which the system could not support.

While EDI could be set up on a customer by customer basis, it drained a massive £7,000 to £8,000 from the IT budget.

Receiving full commitment and support from Candlelight management and staff, Pinnacle Computing implemented a Sage Line 500 solution for the business in just three months from start to finish. The system has a full suite of modules to cover the company’s finance and distribution operations and supports 24 concurrent users.

The new system became fully operational in September 2001. Candlelight experienced real business benefits almost immediately, in both its front and back office operations.

Richard Vale reports that the most significant change overall has been in the quality of information managers receive on both customers and products. Reporting is faster and more reliable, with nominated staff pulling off Excel Pivot-Table reports such as stock control and sales history directly from the live data within the Sage Line 500 system, as and when needed.