Wine Racks America Uncorks Unlimited Success with Acumatica

From do-it-yourself (DIY) wine cellar kits to custom engineered wood and metal wine storage solutions to cooling systems, Wine Racks America provides individual wine enthusiasts and commercial clients with everything they need to store, preserve, and enjoy their wine collections. The made-in-the-USA business has been helping customers realize their wine cellar visions for more than 20 years. For most of their history, however, they were limited in their ability to grow and scale because of their, reliance on disconnected systems and manual processes.

It was not a sustainable way to run a successful business. So, the Wine Racks America team made the decision to implement Acumatica Manufacturing Edition , and by doing so, breathed new life into the business.

One-Stop-Shop Wine Racks America Taps All-In-One ERP Solution Acumatica

According to Christian Hancock, General Manager, “wine cellaring” took off in 2005 when Hollywood started making movies about wine. The increased interest boosted business, so Wine Racks America decided to stop ordering pre-made parts and start milling their own raw wood to build beautiful, handcrafted wine cellar solutions.

The company’s decision paid off, but its disconnected systems (including QuickBooks) and its disjointed processes were causing some real challenges. Controller Nathan Cash highlights a major one.

“Our sales staff was entering orders on the back end of WooCommerce,” he says. “Those orders would then flow in from ShipStation. There’s a lot of issues with that process because when we received an order, and if that order had multiple products, that would really break that connection.”

In addition to broken connections, manufacturing orders were printed on paper and handed out manually. But these challenges were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Wine Racks America’s struggles.

For example, the team only did an inventory count once a month, and the numbers never added up. Because everything was managed via spreadsheets, getting information—such as sales numbers for specific product lines—took, as Hancock puts it, “herculean effort.” And changing pricing on their website was a three-month, manual process.

“Everything was in different software,” says Jennifer Strieker, Manufacturing Production/Accounting Manager, “It was difficult to figure out which software you needed to be in to get certain data points.”

And speaking of data, Hancock says accessing data in QuickBooks wasn’t possible. Plus, QuickBooks required regular updates. “When that happened, it took weeks and weeks to get back on track. We just got frustrated with lack of data.”

Fortunately, the Wine Racks America team was able to turn their frustration into satisfaction with the help of WAC Solution Partners, a national provider of business management software that recommended the company implement Acumatica.

“Wine Racks America desperately needed a simple manufacturing process to get going,” says WAC Solution Partners’ Gary Jensen. “Acumatica allowed them to fix their initial problems but knew they wouldn’t have to change again when they needed to do more complex functionality.”

Racking Up Acumatica Benefits

With WAC Solution Partners expert assistance, Wine Racks America deployed Acumatica and the benefits began flowing, many related to their ability to integrate with Shopify.

“It’s been great having the direct connect from Acumatica to the website to sync inventory items and then sync orders from our website directly into Acumatica. There’s no intervention needed,” Cash says, while Hancock notes that the Acumatica-Shopify integration has allowed them to add products quickly and easily.

Acumatica’s manufacturing ERP has also helped Wine Racks America:

• Gain end-to-end visibility across the entire operation.
• Lower wood inventory carrying costs by 50%, freeing cash for other operations.
• Reduced number of accounting staff needed to oversee sales order process from three people to one person and eliminate the cost of an outside CPA to do taxes.
• Automate the monthly close-out process, reducing time, number of accountants, and effort.
• Shift production type to a pull-to-ship shop from a build-to-ship model, which saved time and effort.
• Decrease required staff needed for rack assembly team.

And remember how long it took the team to update the website? Hancock says that’s no longer the case. Now, it only takes one person (versus four people) to make any changes. “Our ability to quickly just do an upload with price increases from Acumatica to Shopify, we can do that in a matter of minutes where before it was weeks and weeks to update pricing.”

From Unlimited Users to Unlimited Growth Potential with Acumatica

Wine Racks America’s plan is to continue expanding, and as an Acumatica customer, it’s taking advantage of the ERP system’s seemingly unlimited capabilities. For Cash, this looks like growing the business without having to pay more for additional employees. “There’s no limit on users.”

And for Hancock, Wine Racks America’s ability to manage its data in Acumatica is clearing the pathway to continued success. “We have unlimited growth potential.”

Do you want unlimited growth potential but feeling hampered by your clunky tech stack? Learn how migrating from QuickBooks to Acumatica can reset your business’s trajectory and contact our team today with any questions and/or to schedule a demonstration.