Mash Direct grow with Sage 200
Mash Direct grows with Sage 200
Customer Profile
Mash Direct Ltd, based in Comber, County Down, is a unique award-winning farming and food production enterprise. Originally supplying mash to local butchers and markets, today the company supplies over thirty products to major supermarkets, food manufacturing businesses, and food service and catering outlets, including one of the UK’s largest restaurant chains, across the UK and Ireland and further afield to New York and Dubai.
Sector: Services
Business Need: Business Management
Location: Comber, Northern Ireland
Employees: 140 Employees
Expansion triggers search
Finance Director Gary Armstrong recalls what prompted Mash Direct to consider replacing its Sage 50 Accounts system with a more powerful solution, “Over the years, we have expanded locally and also within new overseas markets, such as the USA. Before I joined the company five years ago, there were four staff in finance; now we have eight. The number of users was becoming too great for Sage 50 Accounts to handle. It was struggling to cope with the sheer volume of transactions on a daily basis.”
Pinnacle's consultative approach
During 2012 Mash Direct reviewed the leading Sage Business Partners and took soundings from other businesses to assess which had the best reputation and the resources to look after the business. Gary invited Pinnacle to present and was impressed by the consultative approach: “Sage Business Partner Pinnacle came to see us,and together with Sage, took time to understand the business, how we operate and what we wanted to achieve with the new system.” Pinnacle recommended Sage 200 as fitting well with the company’s requirements. It offered a more robust, fully integrated solution to meet present and future needs. The solution had the added advantage of presenting users with a similar look and feel to Sage 50 Accounts. “It was the logical progression for our business and would minimise disruption for our users,” comments Gary.
"With Pinnacle’s continued support, we are confident of having a reliable, steady infrastructure in place that can cope with the transactional demands we place on it and will handle our growth in the years to come. Pinnacle is proactive in their communications and we meet regularly. They’re always available if we need them. We always feel any issues are fully resolved and we find their advice and support very helpful."
Gary Armstrong, Finance Director
Mash Direct
In-depth management insight
Sage 200 is now firmly embedded within the business. Outlining the improvements in extracting management information, Gary says, “Reporting is very good and the business intelligence within Sage 200 provides valuable insight. With data flowing in from all parts of the business, including our vans, no part of the business sits in an information silo.”
Solid groundwork for the future
To date, Sage 200 predominantly supports the finance team, but in the future Mash Direct plans to activate the functionality available within the solution to manage ever-increasing requirements on stock control. The business is also looking forward to implementing the customer relationship management (CRM) functionality within Sage 200 in order to build even closer, mutually beneficial relationships with its customers.
Gary says, “With Pinnacle’s continued support, we are confident of having a reliable, steady infrastructure in place that can cope with the transactional demands we place on it and will handle our growth in the years to come. Pinnacle is proactive in their communications and we meet regularly. They’re always available if we need them. We always feel any issues are fully resolved and we find their advice and support very helpful.”
Download the full Success Story
Download Story
