Boca Terry is a bathrobe, towel, slipper, and bed linen supplier with manufacturing, distribution, and retail operations.
Headquartered in Deerfield Beach, FL with distribution centers in Canada, China, and the UK
Acumatica Retail Edition
bocaterry.com
Boca Terry LLC, a supplier of towels, robes and linens to luxury hotels and others, survived on QuickBooks, ACT! and Microsoft Access for more than two decades. The company was supported by an external software developer. As the company grew, the owners realized they needed a more modern platform for growth.
With Acumatica Gold Partner i-Tech Support, Boca Terry deployed Acumatica Retail Edition, gaining deeper visibility into its operations, improved inventory control, and increased process automation that allowed the business to run more efficiently.
“i-Tech WAS FANTASTIC. THEY HAD PATIENCE LIKE YOU COULD NOT BELIEVE. THEY WERE RESPONSIVE AND GREAT PARTNERS.”
Edward & Bruce Cohen
Owners
Boca Terry
When 5-star hotels such as the Ritz Carlton and the Four Seasons and luxury brands such as Royal Caribbean Cruises need new bathrobes or towels, they contact Edward and Bruce Cohen of Boca Terry, located in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Founded in 1996, the two garment industry brothers have built an impressive organization based on offering quality products, competitive pricing, and outstanding customer service.
“I had been importing out of China and Europe for years,” says Bruce Cohen, Boca Terry President. “And Edward was doing manufacturing in the Dominican Republic, so we knew how to manufacture and sell.”
The company started with terry-cloth towels and bath robes and later expanded its product line to include other linens as well as lounge chair covers and luxury spa products, and, when the pandemic hit, face masks. The company contracts with manufacturers overseas, embroiders brand names on items in-house or subs them out, and ships products from distribution centers located in Deerfield Beach, Florida; California, Vancouver, Shanghai, and the United Kingdom.
Boca Terry’s business operations include manufacturing, wholesale distribution, and eCommerce. About 98 percent is B2B, and the rest, B2C. The company has its own ecommerce store on BigCommerce, and an outsource partner sells its products on Amazon.
Years ago, the company launched on QuickBooks for accounting, ACT! for CRM and a customized Microsoft Access program for sales order entry – none of which were connected. The order entry program was created by a friend of their father who also maintained and supported the software for more than 20 years.
“We were very fortunate,” says Edward Cohen, CEO and who runs the company’s finance operations. “Anytime Bruce or I needed a custom report, we would call (the software developer) and he would develop it.”
“But later, we started to realize if something happened to him, what would we do?”
The Cohens also realized that their reliance on antiquated and disconnected software programs hindered operations and growth. For example, the sales staff hand wrote orders, but then someone else typed them into the Access database. That person was also responsible for shipping. “She was never getting anything done,” says Edward. That duplicate process was also prone to errors.
The old on-premises computer system was slow, hard to search, and because information was stored in three applications, executives lacked visibility into what was happening in the business. Bruce, Boca Terry president, had to ask Edward to create simple finance reports like a P&L and email it to him. Not only did that interrupt Edward’s day but it also took time to pull information from three places and create the report.
Edward constantly fielded customer calls on the status of their orders. Locating the answers meant he had to search for information in several applications, a trying task.
The Cohen brothers sought to replace their Access developer with someone new, a move they eventually decided against due to the reliance on a single person and older software. To remain competitive long-term, they knew they needed a modern business solution.
Initially, Boca Terry chose Oracle NetSuite. “We needed a solution to join our three different applications into one, and didn’t know about Acumatica when we went with NetSuite,” says Edward.
But three months later, they reopened their search for a better ERP because NetSuite increased the complexity of some of their workflows rather than streamlined them.
“NetSuite was pretty difficult to use, and inventory IDs were limited to a certain number of digits. We were facing changing all of them because we used dashes,” Bruce says. Boca Terry also had a difficult time with NetSuite’s out-of-country support teams.
.
After a second ERP search, Boca Terry decided to implement Acumatica Retail Edition. “Acumatica’s integration and ease of use seemed better than NetSuite,” Edward says. “When we viewed the demos, it was so much more outstanding than anything else we looked at. It fit like a glove and the integration of what we do as a company seemed like it would be a smooth transition.”
They lined up an implementation partner, but when Covid hit, they paused the project. When Boca Terry restarted the ERP project, the brothers learned the potential partner no longer worked with Acumatica. Edward interviewed six technology partners and chose i-Tech Support, Inc., a Gold Certified Acumatica Partner based in Florida.
“i-Tech’s CEO, Mike Augello, came down and he sat with me and really just sold me on i-Tech,” Edward says. “I didn’t get that feeling when I spoke to the other companies. They weren’t really personally involved like the upper management of i-Tech was.”
“Boca Terry had an older but highly-customized system built exclusively for them,” says Mike. “They were used to having it set up just the way they wanted it. So even though Acumatica had more robust functionality and support, a challenge we faced in their implementation was bringing it to a level of personalization and configuration that appeased everyone.”
Mike knew Acumatica would be a great fit due to its flexibility and its open API, which allowed third-party applications to easily connect to the Acumatica platform. As for getting it to meet Boca Terry’s expectations, i-Tech’s experienced business and accounting professionals took a balanced approach; building unique in-house customizations, and in cases where it made sense, encouraging them to adapt some processes to the industry best practices built into Acumatica.
With Acumatica, Boca Terry executives have full visibility into critical business information that they use to make real-time, data-driven decisions. They understand where inventory is located, what they have in stock, and can deliver the right products to the right places at the right times. Financial information is available instantly through various dashboards. Boca Terry now operates much more efficiently, the Cohens say.
“We don’t have to take an hour or so to figure out what’s going on,” says Edward. Nor does he have to pause his day to compile spreadsheets and email updates to Bruce, who operates out of California, and didn’t have access to necessary data previously.
Boca Terry decreased the number of days it takes to ship an order because Acumatica provides full visibility into what they have in inventory, which is information they didn’t have available previously. The shipping manager concentrates on the task on hand, and no longer wastes time typing in lengthy sales orders.
When supply chains were disrupted by the pandemic, Boca Terry’s inventory orders stretched from just a few months to more than six months. With Acumatica, Boca Terry gained visibility into what was on the water and when it was expected to arrive so they could give customers more accurate estimates. That was visibility they didn’t have previously.
Now, anyone logged into Acumatica sees when robes or towels are scheduled to arrive and can provide this information to customers. Visibility and notifications around stock and container tracking allowed Boca Terry to improve its customer service.
The company has also improved its order-to-cash cycle. They now accept more credit cards, and processing payments is much easier with Acumatica’s integrated credit card processing.
With Acumatica, many of Boca Terry’s administrative tasks are now automated, which has led to untold time and monetary savings.
The Boca Terry team is more efficient. The sales team enters orders directly into Acumatica, which has eliminated the need for a full-time order entry person to translate hand-written sales orders and type them into the system. That person now focuses on shipping and getting orders out faster.
To track order status, the sales team logs into Acumatica and instantly view an order and its status.
Previously, they had to call Edward, who spent time looking and searching for the required information. With real-time information always available in Acumatica, Edward eliminated at least eight calls a day and has recouped hours he now uses to concentrate on running the business.
“Acumatica made my life so much easier. It’s unbelievable,” Edward says.
For example, “If I didn’t update customers and salespeople every week, they wouldn’t know what estimated due dates were, and for me to update them every week, it would take me a week to do it,” he says.
“Acumatica and i-Tech were able to develop a system for us that when a container leaves the Far East or wherever it’s coming from, we upload the whole container with everything on that purchase order. We put in an estimated ship date when it’s due because once it goes on the water, we know within three days when it’s due in the country.”
Because every item on a purchase order is automatically available, the Boca Terry team does not spend an hour manually receiving every single style against a purchase order when a container arrives. “When a container comes, all we have to do is hit ‘received’ and you’re done,” Edward says. Once items are received, anyone can see that information and share it with customers.
In addition, Boca Terry has insight into the profitability of every item it sells, information executives didn’t have before. “Previously, what would happen every quarter or month is that we’d go into QuickBooks. And then look up our FOB (freight on board) and then we’d have a total freight and total duty figures,” says Bruce. “We could get an overall gross margin. But now we can get a gross margin on every individual style instantly.”
“We can also drill into purchase orders to look at notes whereas it would take me three or four steps previously.”
When a sales order is entered into the system, an automatic order confirmation is sent to the customer; no one has to remember to send out an email. Customer statements are no longer printed and mailed, which has saved roughly $500 a month, Edward says.
When a custom order is booked, Bruce and Edward – who approve and create purchase orders for overseas factories – are automatically notified; sales doesn’t have to remember to email them. Previously “If someone didn’t tell you about it, we wouldn’t even know,” Edward says.
If a certain style of robe or towel is ordered that needs to come from a certain supplier, an automated report notifies the Cohens if a purchase order hasn’t been written for those items. “We don’t miss anything now,” Edward says. “Before it was a nightmare.”
“Anytime someone decides to write up a sales order, it comes up with the correct price,” says Bruce. “That didn’t happen before. You’d have to look up the base price and then go to a mill’s spreadsheet just to make sure the information was correct.”
Acumatica’s native connector for BigCommerce automatically transfers online orders, says Edward. “In the old Access system, we couldn’t bring in sales, and we were probably losing $500,000 a year because we weren’t really connecting it. We would just make journal entries of cash coming in and not associating it every day. Now, every single sales order that comes in from the e-commerce site is automatically uploaded and in Acumatica so we’re able to see that sale.”
Shipping e-commerce orders is easier and takes less steps, he adds. Rather than going into BigCommerce, downloading all the information, printing purchase orders, and then sending information back to customers, “it’s all done automatically.”
Acumatica’s mobile application allows executives to access information from anywhere, which has freed them to work from anywhere and enjoy vacations more. “I just got back from Antarctica,” says Edward. “I was onboard a boat that had very limited Wi-Fi, but it was great because I could sit in my stateroom and pull up (company files) and look at what was going on.” On previous trips, he says, it was hard to remotely log into an on-premises server, and many times he couldn’t secure a connection.
The remote sales team can log in from anywhere and has instant access to information no matter where they are. They no longer phone Edward seeking information and can be more productive. Having instant remote access means Boca Terry isn’t limited by VPNs or number of users when the company hires additional sales people, Bruce says.
Acumatica offers an unlimited number of user licenses, which means executives don’t worry about escalating software costs when adding additional employees. Previously, the Cohens delayed adding additional sales people because of the increased per-user costs and remote access headaches.
With guidance from i-Tech, the Cohens continue to refine Boca Terry’s operations and are considering adding functionality via Acumatica’s vast library of third-party application providers, including one that would automate more shipping functions, says Bruce. “They know our business so well that they come up with ideas about being more efficient and offer better ways to do things. They are very, very helpful and been very invested.”
The brothers liked that the i-Tech team had accounting backgrounds, and helped refine processes that Edward hadn’t thought about.
“They are very smart,” Edward says. “Because they have so much more experience dealing with so many companies and we’re used to doing things our way, we’ll ask how can we do inventory better, for example. We’re not stuck in cement here to doing it our way because we think it’s the best way. We’re more than happy to listen, and if we could do something easier and better, let’s try it.”
The Cohens are also confident that Acumatica’s Road map and continuous improvement plan will help Boca Terry grow well into the future. “If someone is dealing with two to three or four different applications all day long, Acumatica is the way to go,” Edward says. “Acumatica is a no brainer.”
Hiring i-Tech was another “no-brainer,” the Cohens say. “I can tell you right now I love them,” Edward says. “They were fantastic. They had patience like you could not believe; we had a lot going on. They’re so nice and never get upset.”
“They’re also very responsive,” adds Bruce. “We’ll put a support ticket in and within 10 minutes, someone’s getting back to us. The whole implementation team was seamless, and they’ve been great partners.”
Edward Cohen
Chief Executive Officer
Boca Terry
“i-Tech’s CEO, Mike Augello, came down and he sat with me and really just sold me on i-Tech,” Edward says.
“I didn’t get that feeling when I spoke to the other companies. They weren’t really personally involved like the upper management of i-Tech was.”
2711 Rew Circle
Ocoee, FL 34761
Serving all of Central and South FL, including Tampa, Orlando and Miami
