Vandersterreis a wholesaler, brand supplier, exporter, service provider, and packager of Dutch cheese specialties—including branded cheeses such as international brands like Prima Donna and Landana, as well as Gouda (from young to aged) in various weights and shapes, low-fat cheeses, regional cheeses, goat cheeses, sheep cheeses, and authentic farmhouse cheese.
Vandersterre employs approximately 275 full-time equivalents (FTEs) across various locations, including Bodegraven, Grootebroek, and Meerkerk. Vandersterre’s success is due to creativity and its innovative and distinctive approach to producing, refining (aging and maturing), packaging, and marketing high-quality cheese. “As a company, we’re always looking for ways to innovate and optimize our processes. For example, by introducing new packaging formats, brands, and recipes, and by implementing process improvements to prevent duplication of effort,” says Richard van der Lingen, Finance Manager at Vandersterre.
“All our requests were implemented to our satisfaction, and they actively contributed ideas. It’s good to see that the organization itself is also continuing to develop and that there are more opportunities, such as for contracts.”
Vandersterre was looking for a solution that offered flexibility in implementing our requirements, had an existing integration with the Unit4 Agresso Wholesale accounting software, and could also integrate with Reflex. By using Easy Systems’ solutions, we gain greater insight into incoming invoices and invoice amounts, and approvers can review invoices more easily.
Everything was carried out exactly according to plan, and we were able to go live on the pre-agreed date without any significant issues.
Richard van der Lingen, Finance Manager at Vandersterre
“The project went very smoothly,” said Richard. “However, a few fine-tuning issues did come to light after going live. These were resolved quickly and professionally.” Ultimately, the success of the implementation hinges on thorough testing before going live. By resolving as many issues as possible in advance, you spare the end users from encountering bottlenecks, ensuring they have no complaints about the system.
From the very beginning, I’ve found the collaboration with Easy Systems to be pleasant and professional. Our requirements were implemented to our satisfaction, and they actively contributed ideas. It’s good to see that the organization itself is also continuing to evolve, and that more solutions are becoming available—such as those for contracts—which might also be of interest to us.
Now that the automated invoice processing solutions are live, we can work much more efficiently. Invoices no longer need to be copied and passed around the organization in mail trays. In addition, we now have much greater visibility into where an invoice is located and whether, for example, the due date is at risk of being missed.
Furthermore, there is now greater visibility into costs, even when the invoice has not yet been definitively posted to the accounting software. Richard: “Because everything is logged, we can always check whether a note has been added to an invoice and whether, for example, an invoice is consistently sitting in a department for too long before it’s processed. Approvers can review the invoices they’ve approved in the past in their own archive, so they no longer need to burden the accounting department with this task. I’m hearing nothing but positive feedback from across the organization, both from colleagues in finance and from approvers in other departments.”