Halstead International & SPS Commerce: A Success Story

Enough was Enough with the Old EDI System

Halstead had been using an EDI system that required manual import and export of the data using Excel. “With our growth, we needed a more streamlined, automated solution, and we set out on a mission to find it,” recalled James Gilstrap, Systems Implementation Manager at Halstead International. “The system we were using was too labor and time-intensive. Customer service was pathetic. Due to problems with their processes, invoices got behind. Enough was enough.”

SPS Commerce Fulfillment is a Perfect Fit

While attending a conference, Gilstrap was introduced to several alternative EDI solution providers. After seeing SPS Commerce Fulfillment for Sage 100 ERP and meeting the support team behind it, the decision was made.

“SPS Commerce Fulfillment was the best fit for our needs and solved all of the issues we were having,” proclaimed Gilstrap. “After an on-site meeting with the Fulfillment team, we decided to upgrade our Sage 100 system and implement SPS Fulfillment and several other third-party solutions to streamline our order processing and shipping systems even further.”

Implementation Done Right

Gilstrap found ongoing invalid order information, and it was pointed out to Halstead that the test data provided by their largest retailer’s EDI processor had not been a real-world example. “Things couldn’t have gone better as far as the SPS EDI implementation is concerned,” stated James. “The level of knowledge that the SPS team had was impressive. The team knew what they were doing, was easy to get a hold of, and answered questions and then some. I had no knowledge of EDI, but they did. They nursed me along until I learned it.”

He continued, “However, after the fact, we put SPS Fulfillment through the wringer helping us correct issues due to bad mapping directions. The responsiveness of the SPS team was totally unexpected. They did mapping changes on the fly and never batted an eye. They kept us on track despite a difficult vendor partner.”

Gilstrap continued, “After implementation, we saw a faster increase in efficiency than we expected and had a few nice surprises, too. One example was an improvement on return handling. It’s also been nice to see the working relationship that SPS Commerce and the other third-party providers have. We wanted a vendor partner, not just an EDI suite, and we’ve hit that mark with SPS Commerce since day one.”

SPS Commerce is Turning Lofty Goals into Reality

Gilstrap concluded, “We’ve had growth almost every quarter for the three years I’ve been at Halsted. There is no way we could have continued doing business the way we were. Our goal is to quadruple efficiency without changing the operational budget. The proof is in the pudding, and we are now in the process of moving all of the entities onto SPS solution. I have every confidence we will achieve our goal with SPS Fulfillment in place.”