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The Pancake Parlour- Success Story

The Pancake Parlour tastes sweet success with EBS

An iconic family-owned business, The Pancake Parlour was established in 1965 within the theatre district in Adelaide. After successfully expanding toMelbourne with 12 restaurants, The Pancake Parlour
experienced generational change in 2003, when the son of one of the founders, Simon Meadmore, took over as CEO.

The Pancake Parlour were using an outdated legacy
business management system, restricting their
operating parameters, disrupting their operating processes and outlaying unnecessary costs for financial reporting. Identifying a powerful, flexible and fully integrated financial management system for the business was the next stage of The Pancake Parlour modernisation. The Pancake Parlour’s Financial Controller Darren Cotton shares why EBS was the right choice for a seamless upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

The challenge: An ageing system holding back growth

An ageing business management system was holding back growth plans for The Pancake Parlour’s Melbourne restaurant chain in 2012. Simple tasks were impossible to achieve such as; exporting data from the system into a spreadsheet, preventing them from undertaking deeper analysis of their everyday business data and outlaying thousands of dollars with every new restaurant The Pancake Parlour opened to commission new consolidated financial reports. The Pancake Parlour required a robust solution that was easy to use and provided accurate andreliable financial data to report through to all 12 restaurants.

I couldn’t be more satisfied with the decision we made to move to EBS, love working with the guys, the support’s excellent … EBS is agile, nimble and willing to please and it makes you feel like you’ve got that support behind you.
The Pancake Parlour,
Darren Cotton,
Financial Controller

The journey:  The search for the solution and the decision making process

After a competitive tender in 2012, The Pancake Parlour selected Melbourne based business management software specialist, EBS (Evolution Business Systems) to provide their expertise and services upgrading The Pancake Parlour to the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. A cultural fit and common business values were of importance for both EBS and The Pancake Parlour during the tender and decision process. The Pancake Parlour attributes their longevity to keeping the business in family hands with a strong sense of culture, values and dedicated managers and staff striving for food and service quality. “We thought they were a very good cultural fit for us, as a family-owned company, and the decision proved to be the right one.” Mr. Cotton emphasised the importance of the system upgrade for The Pancake Parlour and future business plans. “This upgrade was an integral part of The Pancake Parlours growth plans. After growing from two restaurants in the 1970s to 12 today, we’ve become more professional, so having an accounting package we can rely upon is essential.”

 

“The changeover from the old system to the new system was a very smooth and painless process and the ongoing support from EBS had lived up to that high standard.”

The outcome: The results and benefits after implementation

Mr Cotton couldn’t be happier when reflecting on the implementation process. “The implementation was one of the smoothest I’ve been through with regards to an accounting package – having done a few of them before. EBS was always available to the team. I even remember one of the EBS team members remaining behind until 9 o’clock on a Friday night to make sure we got the job done.” Mr Cotton highlights the benefits of the Microsoft Dynamics NAV upgrade resulting in The Pancake Parlour becoming more dynamic. “It has succeeded in giving us more flexibility. In the past we weren’t able to export our data into Excel, whereas now we can export any report we run into Excel, massage the data and produce reports that are meaningful and relevant to our restaurant managers and our line managers. It’s also given us the ability to customise our financial reports. For
example, if we add a new restaurant, we can rewrite our financial reports or our fP&L report to add that restaurant into our consolidated P&L.” Mr Cotton said the integration of Microsoft Dynamics NAV was critical to The Pancake Parlour. “We use the Accounts Payable module to process approximately 500 invoices a week across our 12 restaurants. 

We use our Accounts Receivable module for raising customer invoices, which includes selling our retail pancake mix to both Woolworths and Coles. We also use the Financial Reporting module to produce Profit and Loss (P&L) statements that we send to each of our restaurant managers and they use that as their scoreboard from month to month to judge their performance. Previously, we had to spend thousands of dollars for a consultant to rewrite those reports, so it’s given us that flexibility and saved us time and money too. It’s been a good move for us. My staff believe that it’s easier to use the system and easy to navigate their way around the system with more shortcuts. Having EBS there to support the package and be available gives us confidence for
the future.”

 

“Paul Woods and Jonathan Martin, the owners of the company, are always available. Not a month would go by where I don’t get an email or a phone call from EBS just checking up to make sure we’re happy with the system, which is a pleasant surprise. It makes you feel you’re with the right IT partner”

Client Profile:

The Pancake Parlour, a family-owned business that serves sweet and savoury pancakes and crepes, celebrates its 55th anniversary in 2020.

www.pancakeparlour.com.au 
03 9663 4511

Office Location

3/47 Burgundy St
Heidelberg VIC 3084

Postal Address

PO Box 1115
Camberwell VIC 3124

Phone

1300 303 973