R1 million SaleAbility POS solution for Midmar Liquor

Midmar Liquor, the third largest liquor wholesaler in South Africa and the leading liquor wholesaler in the Western Cape with an annual turnover of around R240 million, has automated its sales and financial reporting systems with a R1 million implementation of the SaleAbility integrated retail management system. SaleAbility is a division of JSE-listed Ixchange.

Midmar was running seven stores in the Western Cape manually. George Naidoo, MD of the company selected Saleability with financials to automate the company`s business processes after discounting other respondents to the company`s tender for point-of-sale (POS) solutions. Naidoo was insistent that one company would be responsible for the point-of-sale and financial systems to ensure good support.

Naidoo adds that Ixchange was selected for its ability to provide the relevant skills and support Midmar Liquor needed, as well as its willingness to customise the application to fit in with Midmar`s business.

SaleAbility caters for all the variants of Midmar`s sales, including single or packaged items, shrink-wrapped goods, or packages of any size customers require. "The Ability consultants were seen to understand the intricacies of Midmar`s business and were willing to adapt the software to the needs of the business," he says.

The company required electronic systems before expanding operations around the country in the form of franchise operations. The learning curve in changing from manual to electronic processes is steep and all the systems needed to be in place before the expansion drive began.

Having implemented SaleAbility at Midmar`s head office and two stores, the retail solution was implemented at the new N1 Midmar store in Cape Town, the store boasts the biggest walk-in refrigerator in the southern hemisphere. Naidoo notes that the new store had SaleAbility installed in just ten days. The remaining stores will all be up-and-running by the end of October, with all staff fully trained as they go live.

The reason the company chose to include the financial module of SaleAbility in its solution was to enable centralised control over stock ordering for the branches, as well as centralising the company`s accounting function as a whole.

Ixchange is involved in the education process as well as the technology. Training is a complex process as Midmar staff have never used computers before, but with SaleAbility`s well-designed, easy-to-use interface, the learning curve is reduced. The security built-into the application also renders mistakes difficult make, and if made, easy to rectify without corrupting the database.