Sanford & Hawley Live on bisTrack

Sanford & Hawley

Sanford & Hawley Sanford & Hawley
Chris Cook, Bob Sanford

Author: T. Lavigne
Date: Feb 05 2010

Connecticut LBM Chain Implements bisTrack in anticipation of market turnaround.

Seeing the current housing slowdown as the ideal time to upgrade its IT system, Unionville, CT-based Sanford & Hawley has completed a company-wide installation of Progressive Solution’s bisTrack software in record time in anticipation of a market turnaround.

bisTrack is Progressive Solutions’ Windows®-based software developed specifically for building industry suppliers. The program helps building materials distributors and dealers manage complex sales, inventory control and other business transactions, with outstanding support for softwood and hardwood products.

Executives of the family-owned firm, which has 70 employees at four locations, saw a demonstration of bisTrack at a Progressive Solutions (PSI) User Conference in October of 2008.

After buying the software, it took Sanford & Hawley just two months to implement the bisTrack system company-wide and train all 60 users.

“We’re surprised how easy the transition from our old system has been,” says Chris Cook, Controller, Sanford & Hawley. “With business a little less hectic than normal it was an ideal time for us to do this. In just six weeks, we were able to bring everybody up to speed.”

According to Bob Sanford, President, Sanford & Hawley, bisTrack’s ability to integrate with other software is already paying big dividends.

“We very much like the integrated solution where PSI’s Scan Track and Journey Planner are embedded into the software. We used to need three separate applications for that. Now, we’re also doing direct loads from third party software such as 20/20 and others directly into bisTrack. When you’ve got a company of 60 users, pressing a button instead of retyping complete orders saves us hundreds of hours of productivity.” 

“And on the invoicing side, we now go in and review anything pretty easily before we pull the trigger and invoice something. To be able to say this margin isn’t quite right or maybe we should look at this one before we pull the trigger, that’s a big benefit. That approval process and everything else bisTrack offers will really help us grow our margin, and it couldn’t come at a better time.”

Testimonials

  • "We were looking for software we could grow with. lumberTrack and Great Plains are going to give us the ability to dig down and get the reporting data we need to make our decisions. They have streamlined our workflow and the general ledger."

    Sherry Sabbatini
    Deer Park Lumber

  • "We were up 5 points of margin within ten months using bisTrack™ pricing management and margin review. The payback happened in just months."

    Brian King
    President of Construction Supply

  • "Since our conversion to bisTrack we have seen big pluses with purchasing and costing accuracy which have definitely contributed to the bottom line."

    Brad White
    President of White's Lumber

  • "We know these are the kind of people we want to partner with long-term, with the vision and values that are critical to a mutually successful relationship."

    David Jones
    President of Brookside Lumber

  • "We’ve fixed problems, eliminated data re-entry and repurposed valuable employees. bisTrack helped us be more productive with fewer people."

    Candy Loweke
    Process Analyst, Raymond Building Supply

  • "With bisTrack we have cut our costs while increasing the speed and quality of service to our customers."

    John Steinman
    VP of Purchasing and IT Services, Forge Lumber

  • "We used to go blind on what our costs were. Now we can audit every single job in millwork, see what our waste is and know what things are really costing us."

    Lan McIlvain
    Alan McIlvain Company

  • "I think highly of the people at Progressive Solutions. They have a professional approach, they understand the lumber business, and they meet their commitments."

    Joe Kusar
    Vice President & General Manager of Tolleson Lumber Co

  • "lumberTrack’s™ business logic is rock solid. It’s a very configurable system and Progressive Solutions, as a business partner has been awesome."

    Mike Beye
    Chief Value Officer of Vaagen Bros. Lumber Co