A food-ingredients trader replaces five tools with one ERP and sees true landed margin
Procurement, landed cost, multi-warehouse stock and multi-currency accounting on ERPNext for an importer supplying food manufacturers across the EU.
- systems to reconcile
- 5 → 1
- systems to reconcile
- gross margin after landed-cost pricing
- +3.1 pts
- gross margin after landed-cost pricing
- currencies in one ledger
- 4
- currencies in one ledger
- time spent on month-end
- −40%
- time spent on month-end
The client
Carrow & Finch imports ingredients from Asia and South America and sells them to food manufacturers across the EU. Purchases are in US dollars, sales in euros and pounds, and stock sits in bonded and third-party warehouses.
The challenge
- ✕Purchasing, stock, sales, expenses and accounts ran in five disconnected tools.
- ✕Freight, duty and insurance were added to costs weeks later, so quoted margins were often wrong.
- ✕Stock in transit and in third-party warehouses was tracked in a shared spreadsheet.
- ✕Currency revaluation and intercompany entries took the finance team days each month.
The solution
Procurement with approvals
Purchase requests, supplier quotes and purchase orders with value-based approval rules.
Landed cost
Freight, duty, insurance and handling apportioned to each container and item, feeding price lists automatically.
Multi-warehouse and in-transit stock
Bonded, third-party and in-transit warehouses with batch and expiry tracking.
Multi-currency accounting
Purchases and sales in USD, EUR and GBP with automated exchange revaluation and EU OSS VAT.
Management dashboards
Margin by customer, product and shipment, plus stock ageing and cash position.
How we delivered
- 01Requirement workshops mapped each process from purchase request to supplier payment.
- 02Configurable workflows were tested with real shipments before go-live.
- 03Iterative user feedback cycles every Friday.
- 04Post-go-live support through the first two month-end closes.
The results
- ✓Gross margin rose 3.1 points once prices were set on true landed cost.
- ✓Five systems became one, with no double entry between teams.
- ✓Month-end close takes 40% less time.
- ✓Management sees stock, margin and cash on one dashboard.
“We finally know what a container actually cost us before we sell the last pallet from it.”