IRIS Exchequer Case Studies:

Singleton Birch

Company Profile

Singleton Birch Ltd. is the UK's leading independent lime supplier, their product range includes quicklime, hydrated lime, natural hydraulic lime, graded chalk, aggregates and other specialist products and services.

Singleton Birch has been quarrying Lincolnshire chalk for nearly 200 years and produce up to 400,000 tonnes on lime and over one million tonnes of chalk annually. Their products are then supplied to steel, building, chemical and environmental industries and are used in the production of steel, chemical processes, waste and water treatment, purification of flue glass and production of lightweight building materials.

Waste management is a growing area of Singleton Birch. Their non-hazardous landfill is engineered to the highest standards to prevent any possible contamination of the local environment. Singleton Birch has recently developed proposals to build a state of the art energy waste plant, which they hope will be the solution to the non-recyclable waste in the North Lincolnshire area.

The Reason for Change

Singleton Birch decided to look for a new system to integrate their business processes as they previously used a number of different systems to manage their business. This management technique was becoming increasingly difficult and time consuming to use as their business expanded.

Previously, Singleton Birch used Sage 500 to manage their accounting processes and Sage Sales Logix for their customer relationship management. In addition to this, a number of separate systems were used to manage the weighbridge, deliveries, plant maintenance and engineering. To compare data in these separate systems, the Account Department had to write a journal on one system then transfer it to another; a process which was time consuming and prone to error.

Singleton Birch also wanted to update their system as their current weighbridge software was not working as they required. Although this software was bespoke, it created many problems for the business and needed to be corrected.

One of the key features Singleton Birch required was a standardised integrated system which linked these business processes together. Recently, they bought another business which operates on their site, therefore it was important that the systems they chose was easily expandable and could grow in line with the business.

The Solution

Following a period of consultation, HBP Systems implemented 15 user IRIS Exchequer and 15 user Prospectsoft CRM at Singleton Birch's North Linolnshire quarry. IRIS Exchequer was implemented to manage the company's accounting processes, while Prospectsoft CRM was implemented for their customer relationship management activities. As the had originally required, both of these software packages were integrated to their weighbridge software, which reads the weights of lorries coming in and out of the quarry.

HBP Systems also carried out bespoke work to create a delivery planner which allows Singleton Birch to take orders from their customers, put them into a schedule planner, assign them to hauliers and schedule delivery out on the lorries.

Subsequently, Singleton Birch purchased Watchguard, and Internet security device to deliver network protection from threats such as hackers, spyware and viruses. As well as improving their network with Watchguard, Singleton Birch also purchased Message Defence, a system developed by HBP Systems to prevent and block unsolicited SPAM emails before they enter the email server. Both of these solutions helped to improve security on the existing network and help to prevent any system downtime.

The Benefits

Singleton Birch are now running their business from one integrated system benefitting from Sales, Customer Services, Operations, Finance and Projects departments.

IRIS Exchequer has strong management reporting capabilities, allowing Singleton Birch to generate tailored reports which allows for relevant information to be retrieved, improving the decision making process. IRIS Exchequer also allows for the company to drill down into key areas of the software to find out additional related information and all data can be imported directly into Microsoft Excel. The software is easy to use and saves a vast amount of time.

Prospectsoft CRM enables Singleton Birch to manage their customer database. This modular package allows the company to customise their own solution to deal with the way the business operates. Singleton Birch uses this to analyse what their customers are buying and who their customers are buying from. The software also allows them to analyse the market in order to establish how much market share they have. Prospectsoft CRM fully integrates with IRIS Exchequer to allow employees to use one system giving them access to key account information and reducing the paperwork and staff time required when selling products.

Both modular solutions are easily expandable; this has been beneficial recently as the new business purchased by Singleton Birch has implemented the Bill Of Materials module for IRIS Exchequer to deal with manufacturing on the system, allowing them to combine multiple parts from their system to create completed stock items.

Singleton Birch now benefit from a long term support contract, with HBP Systems and are confident that if they should encounter any problems, HBP's fully trained and credited technical support will be of assistance.

The Future

Due to the ongoing relationship between Singleton Birch and HBP Systems plus the nature of this growing business, Singleton Birch plan to continue expanding their system and the company grows in the future, which will be aided by the modular nature of the software implemented and HBP's ongoing support.

(what happens next?)

Thanks for your question. We will endeavour to answer it as soon as we can and contact you in due course.