Florida Natural Flavors Modernizes Operations with BatchMaster ERP

INTRODUCTION

Florida Natural Flavors is a beverage manufacturer specializing in hospitality industry products, including resorts, theme parks, hotels, and restaurants. Established in 1983, the company began with proprietary formulations managed through contract packers and transitioned into manufacturing in 1989. They now produce various beverage products, support private labeling, and offer contract packing services.

Based in Florida, the company is known for long-standing distributor relationships and a commitment to high-quality, specialized production.

SELECTION

After two decades of using Bev Pro, built on the Progress database, Florida Natural Flavors needed to modernize. Their software—initially designed for citrus processing—was outdated, lacked support, and couldn’t keep up with evolving business needs. “My server was still running Windows 2008,” said Mark Wilkinson, who oversees IT and infrastructure. “We knew if it crashed, it would be a nightmare. It was time to upgrade.”

The company had begun using QuickBooks for accounting but continued relying on the old production and inventory management system. The lack of integration created inefficiencies. As the system was not ERP in the modern sense and wasn’t correctly implemented, many tasks had to be handled manually, including tracking of ingredients, costing, and lot traceability.

Florida Natural Flavors looked at various systems, including Oracle and Odoo. “I would spend hours online just going through every system out there,” stated Wilkinson. “And everything kept going back to Batchmaster.”

Ultimately, they chose BatchMaster ERP integrated with QuickBooks for its ability to manage recipes, inventory, production, and costs while allowing them to retain the financial software they already knew and trusted. They had considered BatchMaster years earlier and were happy to find it remained a strong, reliable ERP with features tailored to their needs.

IMPLEMENTATION GOALS AND BENEFITS

One of the company’s top goals is to reduce manual processes. Batching sheets and cost calculations are done by hand, and lot number tracking is a time-consuming, error-prone manual task.

“With the pricing of the ingredients, our understanding is that Batchmaster will segregate those prices and into our batch so we can price this out properly without any loss,” stated Garry Erdman, Vice President. “If we yield 1000 gallons, it’s going to be a true price, which will give us a true price on the actual yields.”

With BatchMaster ERP, they anticipate significant improvements in accuracy and efficiency, particularly in:

Inventory and materials management
Recipe and nutritional tracking
Lot number assignment and traceability
Production costing and yield-based pricing
Seamless integration with QuickBooks

“We want to do things right the first time,” Wilkinson shared. “BatchMaster will let us track things like lot numbers, actual yields, and true costs in real-time. It’s going to free up a lot of man hours.”

Another significant benefit is establishing better controls and SOPs around purchasing, receiving, and inventory. By formalizing and automating processes through BatchMaster ERP, Florida Natural Flavors hopes to improve compliance, audit readiness, and inventory accuracy. They’re also excited about the opportunity to eventually use the system for faster reporting and on-demand data access.

“I believe there will be a lot less double-entry (once BatchMaster is implemented). Staff has to create different reports and input them manually,” explained Erdman. “So, being integrated, it should do it automatically, and I think that’s just going to free up a lot of man-hours.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Though the team acknowledges a learning curve, they see long-term value in modernizing their systems. “The current program is hard to navigate. New hires struggle with it. We’re hoping BatchMaster’s modern interface will be easier to use and reduce training time,” said Wilkinson.

Erdman added, “New hires should be able to learn rapidly. Versus day-in and day-out training on navigating all the windows to get from point A to Z. We’re hoping BatchMaster will eliminate all those processes. So people can do their work more efficiently and accurately.”

They are currently in the early stages of implementation, with training already completed and the project moving forward smoothly. “We’re loyal,” Wilkinson added. “We were with our last system for 20 years. If BatchMaster does what it’s supposed to do, we plan to be with it for the next 20.”