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International Flower Essence Repertoire
FileMaker is Backbone of Flower Essences Business
The company is International Flower Essence Repertoire, located in
a peaceful rural setting just south of London, England. Here, a
small but dedicated staff of specialists imports essences from
around the world, takes the orders, and ships out the product -- to
more than 6700 customers. And all that work -- from beginning to
end -- is kept flowing with FileMaker Pro databases. Company
managing director Don Dennis puts it simply. 'FileMaker Pro is the
backbone of our business,' he says. And no matter where you look at
International Flower Essence Repertoire, FileMaker Pro is
there.
Consider inventory, for example. The company carries a broad range
of flower essence products, imported from as far away as Australia,
India and Brazil. It's essential that Don and his staff have the
ability to carefully track just how well each product is selling --
and to accurately predict future demand to ensure that a sufficient
supply is always on hand. 'Using FileMaker Pro, it's easy to
generate a sales track record for each item in the inventory,'
explains Don and the inventory database is a valuable research tool
for company clients.
Since advocates of flower-essence therapy believe that the
properties of a given essence can be predicted from the appearance
of the original flower, the International Flower Essence Repertoire
inventory database includes a color photo of each flower as part of
the product record -- and FileMaker Pro's graphics capabilities
handle these images with no trouble at all.
Dispatching the little bottles of flower essence to their final
destination is also handled by FileMaker Pro. Don created a system
with which his staff can instantly find the date and means of
dispatch of any of the more than 7,500 packages sent out in the
past year. It also tracks who in the shipping department actually
handled the dispatch, the method of payment, and if that payment is
outstanding. 'I created this file from scratch,' says Don, 'and it
has proven itself invaluable to our company in ensuring we give the
best possible service to our customers.'
That's not all - FileMaker Pro shines on the accounting side of the
office as well. Using FileMaker, invoices can be generated on the
spot, direct from the original customer database -- in whatever
format is most suitable for the individual order. The invoicing
application is extremely flexible, notes Don. 'We handle a range of
books as well as our flower essence products,' he explains, 'and
books are taxed differently. An order that includes both books and
essences can be complicated to invoice because of different tax
requirements -- but FileMaker Pro enables us to handle these orders
quickly and efficiently, every time.'
Don believes his database has saved him time - and money. 'I have
always reckoned that we would need to employ at least 2 more people
to do the work we now do, if we didn't have the efficiency that
FileMaker gives us,' he says. ' That's 2 more than the 5.5 people
we currently employ. I guess that's about a 1/3 increase in
efficiency compared with an imagined 'life without FileMaker'
scenario.'
Best of all, Don and his staff don't need to be computer wizards to
make it all happen. 'I've done all the development on the databases
myself,' he points out, 'and I have no specific technical training
in using FileMaker -- it's that easy to use! Other databases are
complicated to configure and complicated to work with -- but with
FileMaker Pro, any new members of our staff who are computer
literate can learn to use our system within twenty minutes to half
an hour!'
Does flower essence therapy really work? Its advocates certainly
believe that it does. And for FileMaker Pro, there's no question at
all.
Contact information
Contact Info for Customer:Don Dennis
Managing Director
International Flower Essence Repertoire
44 01 428 741 5752
flower@atlas.co.uk
Filemaker Contact:
Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com
- Advocates of alternative remedies believe in the healing powers of the essence of certain flowers. London's International Flower Essence Repertoire, importer of such medicinal flower essences, believes in the power of FileMaker Pro. While FileMaker Pro is powerful enough to run International Flower Essence's business from beginning to end, it's also easy enough to use that new employees can learn the system in minutes.
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