Chester’s started evaluating ERP Vendors in 2020 with a goal of replacing their aging ERP system with a modern Cloud Based solution that could address their store and eCommerce ambitions. After an extensive selection process the project was awarded to Auckland based First Software to implement their n2 ERP.

The scope covered Point of Sale, eCommerce, Purchasing, Warehousing, Integration and Financials for Head Office and all nineteen branches.

The rollout was destined to become complicated with the arrival of Covid and the rolling shutdowns that that entailed. A great detail of flexibility had to be demonstrated by both Chesters and First Software with perhaps the biggest change being moving from a “Big Bang” approach to a staged rollout by branch growing to rolling out by region till all nineteen branches were live.

At the same time Chester’s embarked on a separate Project to enable AP Automation to eliminate the manual processing of 7,500 invoices per month. This solution integrates to n2 ERP.

A key reason that First Software was chosen was the adaptability of the n2ERP solution demonstrated during the selection process when business processes could be quickly changed to match Chester’s requirements.