Kurrajong Kitchen has grown from selling cellophane-wrapped Lavosh flatbreads from a family restaurant to supplying Australia’s largest supermarkets and Virgin Airlines. That growth can be attributed to Kurrajong Kitchen’s continuous-improvement mindset in manufacturing processes, but it wasn’t until they shifted to MYOB Advanced that they had the oversight to do the same for their business systems.
Two decades of business – and outgrowing systems
Karen Lebsanft and her husband Ben have been running Kurrajong Kitchen for over two decades, growing it from a side business to supplying some of Australia’s biggest retailers.
While their manufacturing processes were always being tweaked and improved, their business systems were lagging behind. MYOB AccountRight Premier had suited them well in the early days, but as they grew, they needed better inventory control, a better overview of the company and better traceability – critical for compliance with the HACCP.
“For admin and inventory control, we ran separate spreadsheets. That meant we were working in funnels – not holistically. We’d simply grown beyond it.”
Managing multiple entities
As production and distribution got more complex, Karen knew they needed something more sophisticated than their manual systems.
Kurrajong Kitchen also operates multiple companies – one manufactures, another manages the sales and distribution, and a third offers white-labelled baking. Manually connecting these entities took hours, and still left them without any overarching view of the business.
Stocktaking and CRM tracking, procurement handling and shipping orders were also more difficult than they needed to be.
"We needed something overarching that would let us improve in business, in technology, in management of stock and ultimately in cashflow."
- Karen Lebsanft, CEO and co-founder, Kurrajong Kitchen
Best fit and business continuity
After reviewing the market, Karen decided MYOB Advanced was the best fit for functionality and price, with the added benefit of delivering continuity for this ‘MYOB business’. Kurrajong Kitchen has been using various MYOB products for over 21 years, almost since it launched.
“We thought, let’s build on what we know,” explains Karen. MYOB Advanced would deliver seamless integration between the three entities, and the inventory management would bring Kurrajong Kitchen closer to ‘just in time’ manufacturing, with far tighter tracking of ingredients and better management of Food & Beverage industry issues such as waste factor variances.
With easy copying and upload of receipts, Karen could also “see hints of that mythical paperless accounts office!”
"Things are always moving and changing, so having continuity where you can is important. We thought, let’s build on what we know."
Traceability, accountability and cost savings
After implementation, Karen could see immediate improvements. Karen is already seeing the benefits of timely access to accurate information. Whereas reports once took hours each month to create, using MYOB seems to happen almost instantly.
“With inventory control, we can push a button and double-check anything. This gives us greater traceability on where things are.” she says. This access to information means accountability across the business.
“Now, we can see the overarching picture. It’s almost a sense of taking a breath – you can trust that the number is right, instead of having to check it.”
“There’s so much more it can do for us,” she adds.
Before MYOB Advanced Business | After MYOB Advanced Business |
|---|---|
Manual spreadsheets wasting time No integration between the company’s multiple entities Lack of inventory control and oversight costing the company money Little and difficult traceability | Automated reports save hours each month Integration between entities gives unprecedented accountability Tighter inventory control delivers immediate cost savings Touch-of-a-button traceability |
