McCabe’s Coffee, Synergy Network and Sage 50 – the perfect blend
Handmade in County Wicklow
McCabe’s Coffee are proudly one of the original coffee roasters in Ireland, passing the craft from one generation to the next. Stephen McCabe apprenticed under his father Clive and has developed the skill and subtle intricacies of coffee roasting to deliver unique, delicious blends. Stephen, his wife Portia and a talented team, have built the company substantially since its humble beginnings in 1997.
Direct Debit Solution
Portia looks after the administration and accounting and replaced the initial Tas system with Sage 50 back in 2016. They implemented the Professional version of Sage50 as this provided the facility to handle somewhat complex pricing structures for their customer base. Portia approached Synergy Network in 2017 to implement their Direct Debit solution which is fully integrated with Sage 50. The system allows the user to enter bank details against customers and, using the existing transactions, calculates the value of the Direct Debit. Specific customer accounts or individual transactions on customer accounts can then be excluded if required. The generated file is then sent to the bank for processing. In addition, the cash is posted to Sage 50 accounts and matched against the selected invoices. The Direct Debit facility is marvellous for collecting outstanding monies in a timely fashion and updates Sage 50 with a click of a button. All new trade customers are set up on a Direct Debit basis and approx. 90% of trade customers are now on Direct Debit which is a huge advantage for cash flow.
The move to Synergy Network
After the successful implementation of the Direct Debit solution, Portia then turned to Synergy Network for their support service which Portia rates as first class and in her own words
Anne and Michelle always handle everything with speed, efficiency and a lovely manner.
As Sage rolled out its subscription service, McCabe’s Coffee signed up to the Sage50 Cloud service which allows Portia to work remotely which was hugely valuable during the Covid pandemic. During the pandemic, the wholesale business dropped off as many of the hospitality customers were closed for business but their consumer business took off significantly. Synergy Network were able to introduce them to App developers for WooCommerce link for online sales and 50ecom for B2B sales. Whilst there was a number of adjustments required to get these working, a considerable amount of time is now being saved with customer orders being populated in Sage50 automatically.
Synergy Network were also able to design a Commission report which provides the detail for staff commission payments.
The Future
McCabes are looking forward to continued use of Sage50Cloud to account for their business transactions and management reports with the support of the team at Synergy Network.