Empowering Sales and Distribution – Discretion Brewing Company

Discretion Brewing Company is a 100 percent self-distributed and family-owned brewery based in Santa Cruz, California. They are the first Santa Cruz brewery to invest in solar power, harnessing the power of the sun to brew their beer.

Sales and Distribution

Last year, Dustin Vereker, Chief Beer Ambassador at Discretion Brewing Company, and point person for handling sales and distribution operations for the company went on a quest for the perfect brewery management solution for their brewery. They were already using QuickBooks Online but wanted a software application that could help with centralizing their data, tracking the cost of goods sold, tackle inventory management, automate TTB reporting, and more. After evaluating the leading brewery management software products on the market, Discretion Brewing Company selected VicinityBrew software and went live with the system in September 2016.

Our team followed up with Dustin to see how the implementation went and reviewed how VicinityBrew software has helped enhance their brewery’s sales and distribution operations since their go-live date. We wanted to get a point of reference on where Discretion Brewing was during their search for software and where they are today.

sales and distribution

Photo © Discretion Brewing Co.

Previously, everything was all pretty manual. We were looking for something that would be more centralized, basically where we could go and get a majority of the data we were looking for. On the production side, we were looking for something where we could streamline raw material ordering and inventory management. It was essential for us to see things in real time, for both raw materials and finished goods. We were also looking to make scheduling easier on the production end.

With all the different [software] options out there, obviously, some do some things better than others.

On the sales end, I was looking for a way to really get more access to sales data than just the reports that QuickBooks allowed me to make and then sort data manually. That process was tedious and didn’t give me all the information I wanted. I wanted something that I could look at from all different angles quickly and easily.

I like how easy and accessible the data is.

I have a complete sales dashboard now so I can do everything I want sales wise. The Vicinity View is great, all the custom queries you can do, and just how easy it is to get to the data, was impressive to me.

The browser interface is very nice. The ability to adjust and customize the fields and columns you can see works well. I think it’s a well thought out user interface, with slightly more flexibility to customize.

We were able to split our implementation into two different parts. I deal more with the front-end sales stuff and our Brewmaster deals with the production side of our operations. We worked very quickly to get everything I needed to be squared away on the sales side to get this picklist functionality put in, in dynamic reports before we went live. As a self-distributing brewery, our needs are a little bit different. The VicinityBrew team, specifically our project lead Robert Cosio, fully understood what I needed and made the transition very simple.

Overall, I’ve been impressed and happy with our decision, there’s no question there. I think it’s worthwhile and worth the money we pay. The team has always been very accessible for when I have data related questions. I really appreciate that level of response, and it has helped me out quite a few times.  Anytime I’ve had a technical issue, support is always super responsive. Even when you can tell their schedule is busy, you guys are quick to respond and have someone take a look at it.

Using VicinityBrew with Quickbooks Online, Discretion Brewing Company has been able to solve many of their operational challenges and connect data across departments with new features as they grow more in-depth into the system. There is also the peace of mind that VicinityBrew offers the ability to scale up more robust financial reporting such as Microsoft Dynamics in the future.

VicinityBrew can deliver a centralized system to reorganization operations for your brewery across all departments. Contact our team today if you would like to learn more about our brewery management software.

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