Background

The Mascot, in Glennville, Georgia, had a humble beginning in 1955 as a roadside tourist stop and gas station, catering to those traveling to and from Florida on the once busy Highway 301. Mills started shelling pecans by hand and putting them in bags for tourists. Customers were soon calling back and asking for more. As the business grew, Mills added an automated cracking system and formed Mascot Pecan Company specializing in fresh-shelled Georgia pecans. From its humble beginnings sixty years ago, Mascot has evolved into an integrated shelled pecan and candy processor for the specialty food enthusiast.

Today, the Mascot Pecan Shelling Company, Inc. stands in the same location where the original Mascot stood as a third-generation family business.

Mascot previously used Microsoft Dynamics SL on premises and decided to upgrade its solution to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with another system integrator. “We chose Business Central because we wanted to stay in the Microsoft family,” says Jake Tarver, Chief Operating Officer for Mascot, Inc., and third generation owner/ operator. “Microsoft is a large company – it’s not going anywhere – and we knew we wanted a quality, cloud-based solution,” continues Tarver.

Mascot was unhappy with its initial implementation of Business Central. “Our previous integrator sold us their solutions for commissioning and credit card processing, which never worked properly and made the system clunky and inefficient,” says Tarver. Mascot was introduced to Velosio through a contact in Atlanta they had worked with on previous integrations. The Velosio team then visited Mascot’s warehouse for an onsite assessment to gain a complete understanding of the daily business and challenges faced by employees. Velosio then developed a plan for Mascot to reimplement the system with best-of -breed third-party solutions for commissions, point-of-sale, and shipping and receiving.

Implementation and Training

Velosio reimplemented Business Central for Mascot within a tight timeframe to beat the renewal date with the previous systems integrator.

“The Velosio team is great to work with and highly knowledgeable,” says Tarver. “Our implementation team was quick to respond and able to answer any questions we had. The implementation went smoothly, especially given our aggressive timeline of just a couple of months,” – Jake Tarver, Chief Operating Officer for Mascot, Inc.

The Mascot team was familiar with Business Central from working with its previous systems provider, but Velosio trained the team on additional functionality and features in the streamlined system. “We had calls with Velosio every week on different topics, and they set up a testing environment where we could poke around and ask questions,” says Tarver. “We took a train-the-trainer approach from there where we trained power users who could handle training for everyone else on site,” continues Tarver. Power users included one person for finance, one for commissions, invoicing, and order entry, a person for production, and another for shipping.

System Benefits

Mascot is pleased with its reimplemented solution. Commissions to brokers who handle key accounts with large retailers are now streamlined. Mascot is pleased that the new system has safeguards to prevent mistakes in data entry, cutting down on shipping errors and saving time. “The system keeps things in check, so that if the shipping department scans the wrong item, it’ll tell them it’s the wrong item,” reports Tarver. “Previously, we were manually entering item numbers, often picking the wrong items, and there was no safeguard in place to prevent it,” continues Tarver. There are less clicks and steps overall with the new system, and the point of sale is now streamlined, where before invoices were manually entered and left hanging open and unresolved. Credit card processing is now working with the third party, iPayment. With native Business Central functionality, the iPayment App streamlines collections and removes hours of manual A/R tasks from Mascot’s workload. The team now has credit card and ACH processing so they can authorize, capture, and reverse transactions directly within Business Central sales orders, invoices and service documents.

Mascot is happy with its transition to the cloud and its reliable, updated system with predictable monthly subscription payments.

“It’s nice to not have costly upgrades or huge implementation costs looming in the future,” says Tarver.

Mascot was able to cut its Business Central licensing in half by eliminating custom integrations from its previous system integrator, as well as unused modules.

Future Plans

Mascot is still working on integrating Business Central and Shopify with its shipping carriers, increasing ecommerce efficiencies. For instance, they are manually entering UPS labels when a future optimization could be automatically printing labels in the shipping facility, saving time. “We are looking at adding Dynamic Ship to further automate our shipping process and labeling,” concludes Tarver.

Work with Velosio

Velosio offers a strategic partnership to help you navigate business challenges and prepare for the future. As a trusted partner, we provide technology, services, and guidance tailored to your needs. With deep expertise in Microsoft solutions, we bring fresh ideas and practical knowledge to support your success. Learn how you can work with us to optimize your business solution. Give Velosio a call.