About Classic Desserts

Classic Desserts is a premier dessert manufacturer based in the UK, supplying retail outlets and distributors with the finest frozen pastries, cakes, toffee puddings, and other tasty delights made with
 the highest quality ingredients. 

The company started using VicinityFood with its QuickBooks Online system. When it became clear that QuickBooks was limiting their growth, they made a smooth transition to Microsoft Dynamics 365
 Business Central and realized even more value from the VicinityFood batch manufacturing system.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• EASY TRANSITION FROM QUICKBOOKS TO DYNAMICS 365 BUSINESS CENTRAL
 • LOT TRACING REDUCED FROM 4 HOURS TO 4 MINUTES
 • ACCURATE INVENTORY CONTROL REDUCED COSTS BY 40%

The Challenge
 When Classic Desserts was getting started, QuickBooks Online was the logical fit for their accounting needs. It lacked manufacturing-specific functionality, so they relied on painful manual processes to handle scheduling, lot traces, inventory management, and more. 

As a British Retail Consortium (BRC) certified food manufacturer, Classic Desserts is subject to surprise traceability audits which require them to produce lot trace reports in just 4 hours. If they failed to comply in time, they could lose their certification and most of their client base with it. 

Keeping track of raw materials inventory was another problem. Accurately measuring ingredient usage was impossible, and ordering more supplies was accomplished with a “best guess” of their upcoming needs at the end of each month, often tying up valuable working capital in excess inventory to prevent stockouts.

Benefits of QuickBooks with VicinityFood
 Despite the challenges, Classic Desserts grew quickly. It became clear that a batch manufacturing software solution was necessary to more easily meet regulatory demands and gain greater control over inventory, warehousing, and production processes.

© Classic Desserts

Lot Queries and Traceability

Ben Shamash, Director of Classic Desserts, says, “Lot queries and traceability reports in VicinityFood are simply fantastic. What used to take us 4 hours we can now do in just a few minutes. That benefit is just like night and day for us.”

Inventory Accuracy
 In the past, the company was not tracking material or ingredient consumption day to day, instead doing month-end adjustments when the stock would go out.

According to Ben, “That’s just not an efficient way to run a warehouse because you operate with higher working capital. VicinityFood makes us look at what will be manufactured over the next 8 to 12 weeks, allowing us to decide when we buy things to hold less inventory. We’re also looking at the purchase dates of all the ingredients in our warehouse, reducing the number of expired goods we write off.”

From QuickBooks to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
 In time, it became very obvious that QuickBooks was limiting them from moving their operations to the next level. The company decided to migrate from QuickBooks Online to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

With the help of a local Microsoft Dynamics VAR, they were soon live with the new Business Central system.

Classic Desserts appreciates that Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a more open system, allowing deep access to company data that can be leveraged for advanced reporting and visualizations using Power BI. However, by itself, Business Central only handles discrete manufacturing, lacking the necessary functionality for batch manufacturers to produce an accurate yield analysis, manage quality assurance processes, and other critical functions. VicinityFood was still a key component. The team at Vicinity smoothly integrated VicinityFood with Business Central to complete the new, end-to-end accounting, inventory, warehousing, and production control system.

Benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with VicinityFood
 VicinityFood, now integrated with a full-fledged ERP solution, is able to work for Classic Desserts in new ways. Ben mentions: “I knew that there was some functionality within VicinityFood that didn’t work on QuickBooks, such as tracking expiration dates. This is critical for us because we have so many different work-in-progress products with a short shelf life. Now we can track this in Business Central. 

Batch Planning
 In the past, Ben spent a considerable amount of time manually building batch tickets. Using the manufacturing resource planning (MRP) tools within VicinityFood, he can load the finished product, letting the system itemize all of the components and build the batch tickets. Now, planning batches for the following day takes minutes instead of hours.

Barcodes and Performance Monitoring
 Classic Desserts has also been able to implement their plan to use barcode scanners across their warehouse and production locations. This new system allows them to register the location where the received goods are stored, the Julian lot number (a form of lot dating) to ensure freshness, and to track the ingredients through the production process thereafter.

Ben says, “The monitoring and reporting in VicinityFood have really helped our company culture. In the past, when our production staff completed the day’s work, we could not give them any feedback on their performance. Now they know when they had a good day and how it positively impacts the company. The guys in the warehouse feel good about their work, and they are excited to try and beat their numbers to make it a bit better tomorrow. We are having better conversations in the factory about performance thanks to VicinityFood.”

Excellent Support Enables Future Goals
 Since adding the VicinityFood system, Classic Desserts has grown by approximately 80%, and they still have ambitious future plans. As part of this plan, Classic Desserts intends to leverage more of Vicinity’s features, including production scheduling and quality assurance.

When speaking about his relationship with the Vicinity Software team, Ben says, “The team at Vicinity has been very helpful and their response time has always been excellent, even with the time zone difference. We give our feedback, and they continue to come out with new features. Right now, I’m the happiest guy in the world, honestly. The only thing I feel bad about is that I’m not using VicinityFood enough. There is more I need to unlock, and it’s exciting for me to know it is there.”