Award-Winning Distributor Leads to Resource-Optimized Growth and Savings with Automated AP Workflows
$135 billion. That’s how much beer and malt-based beverages were sold to U.S. consumers through retail beer establishments in 2023.
In Arizona and Louisiana, chances are high that their favorite cold one arrived via Crescent Crown Distributing. One of the ten largest beverage distributors in the U.S., Crescent Crown sells and delivers more than 40 million cases of international beer brands and local brews annually throughout its territories. Those cases are accompanied by tens of thousands of invoices and related documents, which used to be manually entered into their previous system—a method that created delays and introduced order entry errors.
The Crescent Crown team lives by “The Perfect Six-Pack,” a set of values that guides the company’s approach and attitudes. Two of the six in the pack are “tools and technology” and “efficiency in all we do.” This led management to find a better way to manage accounts payable.
Neil Baier, Chief Financial Officer at Crescent Crown, highlighted, “For any company of a certain size, an automated AP system is critical. It’s grossly inefficient to do it any other way.”
With seven locations across two states, Crescent Crown had an unnecessarily complicated accounts payable process. “We knew there had to be a smarter way through technology,” Baier recollected. The company evaluated several solutions and selected DocStar, an Epicor solution for ease of use and the company’s customer-first attitude.
When we went live with DocStar, an Epicor solution, we had over $1,000 in late fees, which DocStar AP Automation has eradicated. We have saved tens of thousands of dollars annually by paying our invoices on time.
“With many software companies, after you start a project, it becomes more complicated, and the process takes longer than expected,” Baier stated. “That wasn’t the case with DocStar.”
Easy-to-use DocStar AP Automation transformed the Crescent Crown AP department. Gone are the days of colored folders and manual delivery of invoices, missing documents, and delinquent payments. One of the earliest wins was the virtual elimination of late fees. Baier recalled, “When we went live with DocStar, we had over $1,000 in late fees, which DocStar AP Automation has eradicated. We have saved tens of thousands of dollars annually by paying our invoices on time.”
Additionally, workflow automation considerably improved productivity. Previously, Crescent Crown required a VP at each location to approve the roughly 15,000 to 20,000 invoices the company processes each year, and there are hundreds of miles between Crescent Crown facilities. As a result, tracking down signatures on paper invoices expended a lot of time and energy. DocStar, streamlined the approval process while reducing clerical errors. Ted Buuck, Director of Shared Services at Crescent Crown disclosed, “DocStar helped us to enabled us to shrink the time from invoice receipt to payment from seven to ten days to an average of two days.” He added, “It also empowered our executives to approve invoices from anywhere. Remote access frees you to be wherever you need to be.”
There were other productivity boosts. The company logged savings of four to five hours per week of work, including manual invoice entry. “That’s approximately 250 hours of labor a year we can use on something more productive,” Buuck noted.
Those unshackled resources have been channeled into expansion. Crescent Crown grew by 20% from 2019 to 2024. Baier revealed, “We’ve maintained the payables process with the same number of resources despite a 20% increase in volume.” In fact, in the intervening years, the AP team lost one of its two-person teams, a role that didn’t need to be refilled given the performance of DocStar. Baier continued, “We’ve been able to invest those funds in building our sales team instead.”
DocStar helped to provide to management with easy access to every invoice and check for more accurate, real-time information to analyze vendor spending and enhance decision-making. Buuck shared, “Now, coding is all done in DocStar, rather than on post-it notes, which has significantly reduced coding errors. As a result, invoice history is accurate, and quick and easy to locate, saving even more time. Plus, we’ve slashed our paper usage by 40%.”
There have been unexpected benefits, too. “DocStar process improvements have restored our Dun & Bradstreet rating, an important criterion for securing credit and signing new suppliers.” Baier elaborated, “In the past, our D&B rating dropped partly due to overdue payments. Now, our rating is strong, and it’s easy to keep it that way.”
DocStar helped to provide to management with easy access to every invoice and check for more accurate, real-time information to analyze vendor spending and enhance decision-making. Buuck shared, “Now, coding is all done in DocStar, rather than on post-it notes, which has significantly reduced coding errors. As a result, invoice history is accurate, and quick and easy to locate, saving even more time. Plus, we’ve slashed our paper usage by 40%.”
DocStar, enabled us to shrink the time from invoice receipt to payment from seven to ten days to an average of two days.
There have been unexpected benefits, too. “DocStar process improvements have restored our Dun & Bradstreet rating, an important criterion for securing credit and signing new suppliers.” Baier elaborated, “In the past, our D&B rating dropped partly due to overdue payments. Now, our rating is strong, and it’s easy to keep it that way.”
Crescent Crown was impressed with DocStar, ROI in less than a year, and its responsive customer service. Baier summarized, “DocStar worked the way it should from the beginning. It helps by offering the features we need and is relatively inexpensive for many benefits.”
“We had an incredibly positive experience. DocStar helps deliver everything they promised and more in a land of software vendors over-promising and under-delivering.”