Heating Distributors Limited

(Kerridge Commercial Systems now offer Print Manager in partnership with ADP)
Established in the early 70’s, from their original location in Richmond Road, Dublin, Heating Distributors Limited began life as a single branch business, with just 2 staff.

The company focused on supplying flue and chimney systems to builders in the surrounding areas. In May 2005, they relocated to larger premises in North Business Park, Finglas, where they felt they could better display their stylish and diverse product range. Their offering, including radiators, stoves and gas fires, from all over Europe, to suit all fuel types and tastes, is targeted at both the residential and the commercial marketplace.

Over the years, Heating Distributors has capitalised on the increased demand for convenience fuels like oil and gas, as well as related products, now boasting 15 staff, a comprehensive product portfolio, and an impressive and loyal customer base.

The management team at Heating Distributors continued to drive their ambitious growth plans for the future. However, they identified that their incumbent IT solution put them at a disadvantage due to several restrictions – the system relied on a lot of manual processing to manage the flow of products from suppliers to their customers; there was no localised product support; and there were no plans for the software vendor to further develop and enhance the solution.

Conceding their current systems’ limitations, Heating Distributors acknowledged that a new business management software platform would provide the tools to help enable the company to realise its growth objectives. Aisling Kiernan, Managing Director, Heating Distributors, explained, “We were a relatively small company with limited IT skills and knowledge. We needed an easy-to-use system to help remove a lot of the day-to-day hardships, from a partner who understood our business as well as our IT requirements. We also had to try and reduce as much of the ‘human error’ out of our operation as possible.”

Consequently, Heating Distributors decided to undertake a rigorous IT review process to see what products were available in the market place best suited to their business environment. After a year of research and, after extensive evaluation, *Kerridge Commercial Systems was selected as the partner of choice with its acclaimed K8 software solution.

*Kerridge Commercial Systems provides world-class software and services to help customers, in specialist Distribution, Wholesale, Merchant and Retail environments, to ‘Create Their Business Advantage’. Its flagship product, K8, is a highly configurable, comprehensive and powerful business management solution specifically designed for these markets, whether single- or multi-branch operations; ‘Point-of-Sale’ showrooms or warehouses. Its primary aim is to provide a means to enable businesses to: increase profit potential; improve efficiency; reduce cost; provide superior customer service; and gain visibility and control across their business.

Aisling commented, “We were really impressed with *Kerridge Commercial Systems. During the evaluation process, their consultants spent a lot of time and effort working closely with us to determine our precise requirements and to establish the most suitable configuration of the K8 product to suit our business. Additionally, they actively demonstrated their experience, knowledge and proven track record of delivery. And, as part of the *Kerridge Commercial Systems group, we no longer needed to be concerned with the longevity of the company.”

K8’s standard functionality consists of: Sales Order Processing; Purchase Order Control; Stock Management; Accounts; Contact Relationship Management (CRM); e-Commerce functionality; Management Reporting and Information; Advanced Analysis; System Administration; Delivery Management; Warehouse Management; Electronic Funds Transfer; Hand Held Terminals; barcoding; and much more. Aisling continued, “K8 provides us with a feature-rich, fully integrated, business management platform offering significant benefits. It really is a perfect fit for our organisation.”

Today, Heating Distributors is utilising many of the core tools available within the K8 solution. Aisling said, “The linkages between sales and stock control means that we can sell products knowing that the system will automatically handle the paperwork for us. This was a definite weakness in our old system, resulting in orders being taken and not followed up. With K8, we can control our physical stock, order specials, and we have a direct link from our Point-of-Sale to purchase control “ Aisling Kiernan comments.... *Kerridge Commercial Systems actively demonstrated their experience, knowledge and proven track record of delivery. ” for back-to-back ordering. This helps us improve cash flow, better manage our paperwork and administration, whilst also ensuring a high level of customer service.”

Heating Distributors also noticed a dramatic improvement in the way they handled their accounts. “As a small organisation, moving onto a fully integrated set of ledgers was a daunting task, but we found that working with one of *Kerridge Commercial Systems’ accounting consultants made the transition fairly painless, and we are extremely happy with the results. I must say, automatic bank reconciliation works extremely well for us,” commented Aisling.

Before engaging with *Kerridge Commercial Systems, Heating Distributors used to print all of their business administration e.g. purchase orders, invoices, advice notes, remittances etc. on pre-printed stationery – the associated costs of production and storage often uneconomical. By utilising ADP’s Print Manager solution, with K8, Heating Distributors now have the ability to customise and print their own forms and stationery via a laser printer. “With Print Manager we are now in a position to quickly build a professional looking quotation which we can easily print during a customer sale. In addition, Print Manager’s functionality makes it very simple to make amends to documents e.g. should a customer call up with small changes. All we have to do is make our amendments and then reprint. However, the Print Manager engine also allows us to directly email or fax these documents, making the whole process extremely efficient. Our customers are delighted,” explained Aisling.

Heating Distributors intend to gradually introduce more of K8’s functionality, over time, as the staff become increasingly conversant with the system. Aisling commented, “It was important to get the rudimentary parts of K8 up and running as soon as possible so that the business could continue as normal. We are now approaching the time where we are comfortable with the systems’ operation and can move things to the next stage. Our next intentions are to fax/email all of our customers’ statements of account (and perhaps other suitable documentation), saving us time and money; and then further develop our CRM and WorkPlace functionality, enabling us to speed up the pace of how we retrieve information for ourselves and our customers,” concluded Aisling.