Bathroom Bizarre streamlines their financial reporting

Bathroom Bizarre Holding comprises 5 property companies, 2 manufacturing companies and 28 cost centers—27 of which are Bathroom Bizarre branches within South Africa. All 27 of the Bathroom Bizarre retail branches use the Retail Management System for Sage 300 (RMS), while the head office has been using Sage 300 for 13 years. In January, 2015 their consultant, Willem Meyer from WLM Software, introduced them to Sage Intelligence Reporting to help streamline the often convoluted financial reporting process they had.

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Roslyn Edgecomb, Financial Manager of Bathroom Bizarre Holdings, needed to be able to report per branch, consolidate the main company’s information, and then refine the process further to report on each region. This was a very time-consuming process. Monthly reporting used to take at least a full day for Roslyn, but now with Intelligence Reporting, it takes only 30 minutes to run all the reports!

It initially took Bathroom Bizarre some time to get their systems up and running, and to fully customize the reports they needed. That said, some of the reports Roslyn runs are complex and intense, they consolidate information for the entire holding company. The department codes differ between the branches, but Willem has been able to use Intelligence Reporting to match the codes and streamline the reporting process a lot more efficiently.

A deeper level of insight

Roslyn has found that Intelligence Reporting offers value adding functionality; the ability to unlock vital business information, customize reports and zone in on any specific area. Previously she couldn’t access this level of information, but now it’s all right there!

Bathroom Bizarre have roughly 50 000 stock items on the Sage 300 Retail Management Software. Roslyn can now generate a report that will enable her to see the trends for a specific item. She can check the average stock on hand, see how fast or slow the stock is moving or if the branches are understocked. This detailed analysis has become a vital tool in the company’s buying cycle.

“Honestly, I don’t know how Bathroom Bizarre Holding managed without Intelligence Reporting.”– Roslyn Edgecomb, Financial Manager, Bathroom Bizarre Holdings

Of course, the biggest impact Intelligence Reporting has had is in Bathroom Bizarre’s financial reporting. It requires a fraction of the time to produce reports and Roslyn can now report on individual branches. Intelligence Reporting easily links branches to specific distribution centres; this used to take far too long and was a clumsy process. It would take an entire month to get branch reports out, but now it only takes 10 minutes. The accurate tracking makes it easy to monitor branches and adjust stock levels where necessary, depending on what products sell in which branches.

Roslyn is also able to keep the directors up to date by regularly emailing them reports. In meetings, she shows them additional information accessed through the system. With the time saved running reports, Roslyn is able to further analyse them and pick up any discrepancies ahead of time.

Roslyn still has a lot of additional report ideas that she is working on with Willem, who has been instrumental in setting up a solution to suit their unique reporting needs.