Fruit & Veg City received a boost to its business efficiency by upgrading to the latest version of Sage 300 ERP (previously Accpac) and consolidating its business systems on a centralised server environment. Cape Town-based Sage business partner AWCape was the implementation and consulting partner for the project and is responsible for ongoing support.

Michelle Rauch, Fruit & Veg City Group IT manager said "By centralising our distributed server environments and business entities and upgrading our ERP system to the latest Sage 300 ERP 2014 (6.2), we were able to introduce new functionality such as automated EFT transactions and document distribution management systems that boosted our business efficiency beyond expectations".

Fruit & Veg City was founded in 1993 by brothers Brian and Mike Coppin. It has since developed into a major retail group with more than a hundred Fruit & Veg City (FVC's) stores in southern Africa, and as far afield as Australia. Its Fresh Stop convenience stores at Caltex garages can be found in most South African towns and cities.

Fruit & Veg City contracted AWCape to streamline and modernise the infrastructure. AWCape worked with FVC's IT division to relocate the retail group's servers to its Cape Town head-office. This centralisation, made possible by the availability of better internet bandwidth in South Africa, has enabled Fruit & Veg City to improve control over its infrastructure and enhance business efficiency. AWCape also implemented Sage companion product Orchid for EFT processing at Fruit & Veg City. This solution allows for approval of vendor bank details and electronic submission of payment batches into CashFocus.

Fruit & Veg City has implemented Sage companion product Spindle Document Distribution to improve management and distribution of documents. This includes the automated submission of debtor age analysis, which is dispatched to customers each week together with debtor transaction reports. Creditor remittance advices resulting from EFT processing are distributed automatically as are debtor invoices. "All documents are archived to PDF and mass-distributed to suppliers and customers. The savings in manual labour and accuracy of document delivery has boosted business efficiency tremendously", said AWCape's ERP director Cornel Smit.

AWCape's chief executive Henri Hattingh commented "The business benefits of a well-planned and deployed ERP system such as Sage 300 ERP (previously Accpac) in today's challenging economic environment should not be underestimated. This, together with a well-trained team of ERP users, can put on an organisation on the road to success".

Jeremy Waterman, MD of Sage ERP Africa, adds: "Sage is committed to deliver value to our loyal customers and it is great to see customers benefiting from the upgrade to our latest versions. Leading retail groups such as Fruit & Veg City understand that more flexible and more efficient management systems help them to be lean, competitive, and agile in today's retail environment."