“Our growth rate is quite rapid and we need a business system to fit those needs. With Greentree, we feel that we‘re future-proofing ourselves.”Gareth Thompson is the Operations Director of Xamax Clothing Company Ltd. Based in Wakefield, Xamax supplies sporting, business and promotional clothing to organisations and companies throughout the UK. It specialises in custom printing of garments, as well as embroidery and manufacturing from scratch.“We also handle retail and distribution and we were looking for a system that filled all of those needs,” Gareth says. “Some software covers various different aspects of our job, but Greentree covered everything, and in great detail.”Xamax was becoming increasingly frustrated by its Sage financial system and Act! CRM system, neither of which could communicate effectively with the other. The Sage system was unable to handle Xamax‘s high volume of transactions; if one user tried to generate a substantial report, the system would freeze and nobody else could do anything until it had finished that single job.The lack of integration between Sage and Act! meant that everyone was doing double data entry in order to process orders and invoices and update customer records.“We got to the point where we virtually had to stop using CRM because the workload had become too big,” says Gareth.The lack of visibility meant that if a customer called with a query about an order, somebody would have to down tools and go looking around the building for the answer.“Basically we were blinded by our software,” Gareth says. “Once an order left the sales desk and entered the processing, there was no indication of status because Sage doesn’t support things like that. We need to see what‘s happening throughout every stage of production.”Sage‘s poor reporting capabilities made for another double workload, coupled with the inability to drill down for customer data.“One of the things we like most about Greentree is its fantastic integration with Excel,” says Gareth. “I can easily find all the data that we need, and Greentree updates all the figures.”Access and Lakeview were both considered as alternatives, but failed to impress. The Greentree Partner sealed the deal with an outstanding demonstration.“They were fantastic,” Gareth recalls. “They were confident in the software and that confidence made us think, ‘Yes, it‘s definitely going to be good.‘”Greentree‘s 3D Live desktops impressed Xamax immediately. “It looked simple to use and we love the visibility that 3D Live delivers,” Gareth says.“We‘re averaging around 25% growth per annum and when we looked at the flexibility of Greentree, the way it can adapt to our business and all the functions that are available, we just knew that we were onto a winner.“There are areas of the business that I haven‘t thought about yet, but I know when I come to that point, Greentree will have something that will aid me along the way.”