As a restaurant chain, Tap & Barrel has to accurately track and manage the sales, operations, and purchases of multiple different locations. For quite some time, they had been using QuickBooks, Sage, and Excel in conjunction with other software to manage their finances and accounting. This complicated combination of multiple systems and software made it impossible to efficiently manage their financial data and purchasing processes. On top of that, daily cash summaries had to be manually collected and input into their various finance and accounting systems. All this contributed to disorganized financial management and made daily accounting tasks and reporting tedious and time-consuming. It was clear that Tap & Barrel needed a solution that would help them efficiently manage all their locations’ financial data in an easily accessible place and simplify their purchasing processes.

Tap & Barrel initially approached us wanting to implement a new Business Central solution. After conducting thorough review and analysis sessions to gain a deeper understanding of their workflows and requirements it was determined that a Business Central solution with a Binary Stream Multi-Entity Management (MEM) integration would be highly beneficial. This combined solution would address the distinct challenges faced by a restaurant chain like Tap & Barrel by consolidating their locations and bringing all their financial data in one easy-to-access spot.

Our consultants worked alongside the Tap & Barrel team to deploy a custom solution that not only offers many key benefits to their financial and operational processes, but also allows them to quickly adapt their business workflows as the need arises.

Dimensions are a Dynamics 365 Business Central feature that allows organizations to label and categorize data for enhanced tracking and analysis. By using this feature in conjunction with the Binary Stream MEM integration, our team was able to consolidate Tap & Barrel’s 16 various entities into a single company within Business Central. Each location is still considered a separate business, but the entire company’s master data is now centralized in one location, making it faster and easier for them to access. Instead of manually switching between multiple companies to search for data, their team can effortlessly sift through various locations to extract whatever they need for analysis or reports.

Having a combined Business Central and MEM solution also simplified Tap & Barrel’s purchasing processes. Rather than relying on a separate vendor lists for each location, everything is centralized with one vendor list for all their entities. Now, when making or recording a purchase, they can simply select the location they’re making the purchase for and which vendor they’re buying from without having to switch between multiple different lists and companies.

Another major benefit is the ability to facilitate easy intercompany transactions. Previously, the Tap & Barrel team would have to post multiple journal entries to resolve each transaction between locations. Now, transactions are reconciled though automations without the need to manually duplicate entries, saving their accounting team valuable time while reducing manual data entry errors.

Tap & Barrel still uses third-party restaurant management software to capture financial data such as daily transactions, payroll information, and accounts payable from each of their locations. Now, to bring the data together, custom exports have been built that work directly with Business Central. Using those custom exports ensures data from each location can be quickly imported directly into Business Central, allowing easy access in one location for tracking and analysis.

Business Central offers Tap & Barrel the ability to easily add new locations to their portfolio in the future. Adding a new location is straightforward and doesn’t involve a complicated set up. And, since all their master data is consolidated, they can start purchasing from the centralized vendor list, creating invoices, and more as soon as the new location is added.

With their new cloud solution, Tap & Barrel doesn’t have to worry about managing on-premises servers. Using a WIFI connection, they can easily connect to their solution from any location and not have to worry about the potential risks associated with having a physical software solution, for example, reducing the impact of a power outage and downtime on daily operations.

We’ve continued to work with Tap & Barrel since deployment to ensure their solution stays optimized and ready for future growth. By taking advantage of our Hypercare Support Services, they have access to dedicated helpdesk support from our expert consultants as well as ongoing user and solution management and monitoring. Additionally, with Microsoft releasing new features and updates twice annually, Tap & Barrel can also rely on our team to help them implement the latest capabilities that would further enhance their solution and keep it running at maximum efficiency. As their business needs continue to evolve, our team is there to keep their solution up to date and running smoothly as we guide them through solution updates, optimization projects, and more.

If your restaurant or hospitality business is interested in learning more about the benefits of a Dynamics 365 solution, get in touch with us today. Our team is here to help build you a solution that fits your needs and grows alongside your business.