Bowling chain knocked over by man-hours saved by Access Transaction Broker

ASYST International SA, the sole South African distributor for Access Accounting Ltd today announced that Bowlplex, a chain of UK family entertainment centres, has scored a strike with Access Transaction Broker technology saving them many man hours.

This was achieved by integrating their point of sales system with their back office accounts system, Access Accounts Horizons, using a standard integration module called Transaction Broker.

Ten Pin Bowling is an increasingly popular national pastime and as a result Bowlplex is thriving. The type of entertainment activity that each centre offers is dependent on the dominant customer profile in each area. The sales data that Head Office receives each day varies greatly from centre to centre, and translating this into the management accounts, and producing a customer profile is an onerous task. As Bowlplex has grown, the increasing sales transactions have been magnifying the accounts administration problems.

The Challenge

Before Access provided the solution, Bowlplex had in place a very time consuming manual process of data collection and processing. At the close of business, each centre ran off a report of the days` sales transactions from the point of sale till. This was keyed into a spreadsheet, which was e-mailed to Head-office.

It then took a further 4 man-hours each day at Head-office to collate and re-key the data from each centre as Nominal VAT Journals. As with any manual processing method, it was susceptible to human error, and with so much time spent re-entering data, there was little time left to analyse the information to determine how it could be used effectively.

When Bowlplex explained their difficulties to their local Access dealer they were shown Transaction Broker, a middleware solution that radically simplifies the whole job.

The Solution

Daily sales transactions, run at the close of each day, are automatically logged directly into a file which is e-mailed to Head Office. Transaction Broker scans the inbox looking for these sales transactions, and brokers the information directly into the Access Accounts Sales Ledger. Seamless integration is achieved and the process of data transfer is completed in minutes, with no user input at head office.

The Results

• Manual data entry eliminated from head office, with no data input errors

• Sales transactions updated in the sales ledger in seconds rather than days

• No need for expert staff or complicated technical support

• The system has the capacity for infinite expansion without further capital outlay

• Low cost of implementation and low cost of ongoing ownership

Bowlplex IT Manager Michael Hodge said, "At head office we spent half a day every day re-keying sales data from each of our six branches. Transaction Broker has automated the system, so that all branch data is entered directly into the head office accounts - now we have time to analyse our data and increase our profits."