Sales Collector – Automating Data Integration.

Industry

Retail & Food Service

Project Type

Sales and Inventory Data Automation Solution

Engagement

1 Year

Team

Challenge

Tastee Jamaica, a renowned fast-food chain, struggled with manual processes for collecting sales and inventory data from multiple store locations. Employees were required to manually pull data from the Lynx POS system and input it into the Sage ERP platform, leading to inefficiencies, errors, and delays in generating reports. The company needed a scalable, automated solution to streamline these tasks and improve data accuracy across their operations.

They needed an automated solution to streamline two key tasks:

SALES DATA AUTOMATION: Automatically pull sales data from their POS system, Lynx, and input it into their ERP system, Sage Accpac. The current manual process required employees to collect and enter data from each store location, making it difficult to ensure data consistency and accuracy across their stores.
INVENTORY DATA COLLECTION: Automate the process of collecting inventory data from each store, allowing for efficient tracking and comparison with warehouse usage data from Lynx. The manual method was error-prone and caused delays in real-time inventory analysis, making it difficult to manage stock efficiently.

Our Work and Results

Akuton developed an automated data integration system that seamlessly links Tastee Jamaica’s Lynx POS system with their Sage ERP platform. This solution effectively resolved both sales and inventory challenges, providing real-time data collection and reporting for all store locations. Utilizing a hybrid monolithic architecture, Akuton streamlined the automation of sales and inventory processes. The system integrates effortlessly with Lynx, Sage Accpac, and other internal platforms, ensuring smooth and efficient data collection, processing, and reporting.

Automated Sales Data Sync:

The solution automatically pulls sales data from the Lynx database (Postgres) for each store location and inputs it directly into Sage Accpac. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and ensures timely, accurate updates for accounting and reporting purposes.

Inventory Data Automation:

A mechanism was developed to collect inventory data from all store locations, enabling management to track inventory levels, warehouse usage, and data input from staff for real-time reporting and analysis. The system cross-checks inventory data with Lynx for accuracy and reconciliation of warehouse usage, ensuring that discrepancies are minimized.

User Tracking and Data Manipulation:

The system tracks which user inputs or adjusts data, providing an audit trail for transparency and accountability. It also allows users to manipulate data for reporting purposes, enabling better control and customization of reports for management needs.

Real-Time-Reporting:

The automated solution facilitates the generation of real-time reports for both sales and inventory, improving the company’s ability to make informed decisions and manage its operations more efficiently.

SchedulingwithCelery:

The use of Celery Beat allows for automated, scheduled tasks, ensuring that sales and inventory data is updated regularly without manual intervention.

Technology Stack

Lynx POS System: Data extracted from Lynx, utilizing Postgres as the database.
Sage Accpac ERP: Automated integration for financial and inventory reporting.
Custom Data Integration Layer: A middleware solution was developed for seamless communication between Lynx and Sage, ensuring secure and efficient data transfer.
Framework: The solution was developed using Django for collecting and processing sales data. Celery Beat was used for scheduling tasks and triggering automated actions at specified intervals.
Middleware: The middleware layer was built using Go with the Go Fibre framework, facilitating efficient communication between the frontend and backend.
Frontend: The user-facing interface was built using Vue.js with Pina for state management, providing an intuitive and responsive experience for managing sales and inventory data.
Postgres stores core data from the Lynx system.
Redis is used for caching frequently accessed data to enhance performance.
Neo4J (Graph Database) enables efficient data modeling and visualization of complex relationships between sales, inventory, and warehouse usage.
GraphQL API: The solution leverages GraphQL for communication between the middleware and the Django backend, ensuring efficient and flexible data queries.
Containerization: All components were containerized using Docker, simplifying deployment and scaling.
Sage Integration: A custom API service was developed to communicate with the Sage Accpac ERP platform, enabling seamless data synchronization between the sales collection system and the accounting platform.

Results

The implementation of the automated sales and inventory system resulted in significant improvements for Tastee Jamaica:

Efficiency Gains: Manual data entry tasks were eliminated, allowing staff to focus on higher-value activities. The automation reduced data entry errors, improving overall data integrity and accuracy.
Real-Time Insights: Management now has access to real-time sales and inventory data, enabling quicker decision-making and more effective inventory management.
Scalability: The solution is scalable, allowing Tastee Jamaica to easily integrate additional store locations as the business grows, without the burden of manual data entry.
Enhanced Reporting: The system’s ability to manipulate data for reporting has provided the business with better insights into sales trends, inventory levels, and warehouse usage, improving operational planning.
Seamless Sage Integration: The custom API for Sage Accpac ensures accurate and up-to-date data synchronization between the sales collection system and the accounting platform.