The Challenge
Compete Online With Accurate, Fast Data
In a fast‑moving online market, customers need current pricing and stock availability. Jeffrey Stein Sales needed to keep retailer feeds and its own site up to date, and reduce manual work in finance and order processing.
Sage recommended they evaluate Flowgear. According to systems manager, Clint du Plessis, their challenges were:
- providing inventory data to their online retailer customers in real time, and to regular retail customers via their website
- capturing supplier invoices, which can have many line items
- processing customer purchase orders
Competing online with real‑time data
Accurate pricing, inventory, and invoice processing were vital for online retail success.
“We needed live feeds for customers and online retailers,” said Clint du Plessis, Systems Manager.
Automated feeds and workflows
Flowgear connects Sage Evolution to retail partners and automates high‑volume tasks like supplier invoice capture and customer order creation.
The Solution
Automated Feeds and Back‑Office Workflows
Using Flowgear, Jeffrey Stein Sales set up automated integrations from Sage Evolution to their online retail partners. Inventory data is sent daily, and it is presented in each retailer’s requested format.
The team also automated high‑volume financial tasks. The platform processes invoices from international suppliers and automatically generates corresponding sales orders in Sage Evolution.
“Some of the invoices can have as many as 500 line items, so automating that integration has been great,” said Du Plessis. They then extended the automation to create invoices from customer purchase orders.
The Results
Time Saved, Fewer Errors, Better Customer Focus
“As well as saving time, there is greater accuracy, and staff can now focus their time and efforts on customer service rather than data capturing, and deal with customer queries regarding availability and prices.” remarks Du Plessis.
Impact highlights:
- Retail partners receive up‑to‑date inventory and pricing, which supports faster online merchandising
- High‑volume supplier invoices and sales orders flow automatically into Sage Evolution
- Teams spend less time on data entry and more time serving customers
Systems Manager,
Clint du Plessis
“Automating our integrations with the Flowgear platform saves us hundreds of hours of work, as much as a few months a year in man hours,”
Scaling automation
With core workflows live, the team can scale product updates and order processing while maintaining accurate data across channels.
Looking Ahead
Automation powers scalable, accurate multi-channel operations.
With key online and back‑office workflows automated, Jeffrey Stein Sales can scale product updates and order processing without adding manual steps, while maintaining accurate data across retail channels and finance.
- providing inventory data to their online retailer customers in real time, and to regular retail customers via their website,
- capturing supplier invoices, which can have many line items,
- processing customer purchase orders.
