“Crestwood was a teammate – we did not view Mike as a consultant, but part of our team right there with us every step of the way.”
– Chris Lorentz, Supply Chain Manager, P&L Supply Chain Manager
“Crestwood was a teammate – we did not view Mike as a consultant, but part of our team right there with us every step of the way.”
– Chris Lorentz, Supply Chain Manager, P&L Supply Chain Manager
P&L Imports specializes in sourcing high quality food products from Italy. The company takes pride in staying ahead of emerging trends, while also focusing on traditional Italian cuisine. Since 1987, their mission has been to source, import, and distribute Italian products to markets all across the world. When the pandemic struck, global supply chains grinded to a halt. Concurrently, demand for two of the world’s most popular products – pasta and water – surged in demand, tripling P&L’s orders literally overnight.
Their manual input and management of complicated freight calculations, packing, delivery, invoicing and accounts were completely overwhelming the team with the sudden increase in business. Manual tracking of shipping containers from Italy alone was a mammoth task. Though the company did not miss a beat, delivering their quality goods on time, it was a massive effort. Customer service and order processing involved reams of papers, stapling, and all hands on deck to ensure orders moved through to their destination, a major retail outlet that boomed during lockdown. Company leaders describe daily work as painstaking.
Though they were a nimble company, always finding new efficiencies, P&L had to find a better way to manage internal processes.
The boom in business and the addition of a new CFO was the catalyst to adopt a superior system. Leadership interviewed a few VARs, and began an Acumatica implementation with one. Unfortunately, the project sputtered because that one simply lacked the insight and expertise needed. Stumped, they had to find an expert fast. Luckily, the team found Crestwood through a recommendation. P&L felt immediately that the Crestwood experts understood them, their business and the best ERP solution for their needs.
Supply Chain Manager Chris Lorentz says, “We needed someone who was very good both customer facing but also very good on the back end, which is an incredibly tough find in any industry. We met briefly with Mike Aichinger from Crestwood and he picked up on not only our business faster than I’ve seen anyone pick up on it, but he picked up exactly where we were in the Acumatica project.”
The understanding of complex freight codes and discounts and the mere challenge of cost calculations for different states were elements that both Crestwood and Acumatica ERP could confront and solve, providing the P&L team with immediate confidence and relief.
“Peace of mind,” says Operations Manager Chris Mohrweis, was one of the biggest outcomes of the Acumatica implementation. The manual nature of the old system always presented the stressful risk of deleting accounts or payables with the wrong keystroke. Now, the team feels totally secure in their input and worry about human error is gone.
The way that the business is now accounting for raw inventory and finished goods has greatly improved cash flow. Acumatica ERP has helped the team keep a much closer eye on inventory levels. Insight to overall transportation and ocean transit times run much more efficiently.
Having the information in front of the team “live” accelerates everyone’s efficiency. The easily customizable reporting allows for insight to growth and opportunity for the business. The team reports that working with Crestwood to adopt Acumatica was one of the best business decisions they’ve ever made.