Wine has been around for centuries. It is used in ceremonies, celebrations and as an accompaniment to a relaxing evening after a long day. It started from simple beginnings, but it is far from a simple process to mass-produce wine today.
While independent winemakers can enter the global market, all must keep tabs on tax regulation updates, and most have endured shortages and delays due to supply chain issues. Aged technology won’t do the trick for the industry anymore. Wineries need an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to solve modern problems.
Enavation Cloud: VinPoint Wine Management is a holistic, turnkey Cloud offering that streamlined operations so wine producers can focus on the mission-critical aspects of winemaking. VinPoint Wine Management made its debut in the market more than 20 years ago and has continued to evolve with changes in the wine industry.
Generally, small to midsize wine businesses are hesitant to invest in new technology.
“We hear from winemakers that they are worried technology will displace that tradition in the wine industry of having a handmade feel. This is especially true in smaller, family-owned wineries. These wineries invest their capital in other parts of their business instead of technology because they can ‘get by’ with the manual process. However, Cloud technology and the VinPoint Wine Management offering will make your processes more efficient and give you a greater, long-term return on your investments.” – Diane Fox, Beverage Industry Program Leader, Enavate
A Modern Accounting System Specifically for Wineries
Accounting may not be the most glamorous part of owning a winery, but it is critical to a successful business. When operating with a small staff, small to midsize wineries don’t usually have an expert CPA on their payroll. With the constantly changing requirements of taxation, wineries cannot afford to rely on basic software to keep track of inventory movements and costs.
VinPoint Wine Management tracks profit and loss statements in areas specific to the wine industry. With this offering, winemakers can pull up profit and loss statements by brands, varietals or vintages. Inventory reports can be run in units of measure accepted in the wine industry: bottles, cases, gallons, liters and 9 liter equivalents.
For example, if you want to run a profit and loss statement to determine if you should continue producing a specific varietal, you can run the report easily without any manual calculations.
“Many of our smaller wineries have seen a lot of growth. What is consistent in the wine industry is that they typically don’t have a large accounting staff. They may have one or two accountants and be running a $10 million business, but they can’t do that if they have to do all their tracking manually.” – Diane Fox
In addition to internal reports that provide insight into your business at the touch of a button, VinPoint Wine Management also eases the stress of getting your taxes done. This offering collects the data for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) reports of wine premise operation data for quarterly reporting. The offering also works with the direct-to-consumer (DTC) website providers and distributors, simplifying the entire taxation and revenue recognition process.
Mitigating Risks in the Wine Industry
VinPoint Wine Management gives wine producers a scalable tool that grows with you, as opposed to relying solely on Excel spreadsheets and QuickBooks to run their business. While it is possible to get by with spreadsheets and/or accounting software, there is always some risk of human error. Minor spreadsheet errors often snowball into more costly mistakes in the distribution process and countless hours spent tracking the original mistake.
Human error is only one risk that wine businesses face when working with manual processes or servers kept on-premises. Keeping your data safe is another risk wineries have encountered.
Smaller, independent wineries may find themselves vulnerable to data theft or a ransomware incident, as they may not necessarily have the technology infrastructure (or IT security team) in place to shield themselves. To keep your data safe, VinPoint Wine Management utilizes Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), which protects your winery’s information from problems becoming more prevalent in the industry, such as natural disasters and ransomware. With your information in the Cloud, you can rest assured that your information is safe no matter what the circumstances.
Tracking Wine-Specific Data
Having your winery’s data at your fingertips isn’t just suitable for record-keeping, but it is also good for forecasting.
- In today’s wine market, a significant concern is a glass shortage. Bottling systems don’t lend themselves to switch to canned wine to accommodate the supply chain efficiently. Winemakers ahead of this shortage were able to forecast 18 months out and source glass bottles from other suppliers.
- Another unique data tracking point that wineries use is product allocation. Wineries need to track how much of which vintage is being distributed to ensure proper allocation of those noteworthy vintages. VinPoint Wine Management keeps track of who has what and where these vintages tend to be more profitable for your winery so you can assess how to structure your allocations in the future.
VinPoint Wine Management integrates Power BI, building off the foundation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Power BI is a dashboard that allows businesses to access and visualize their data in one place, focusing on business intelligence to help wineries make informed decisions in real-time.
Wine producers can access up-to-date information from anywhere – in the vineyards, the production line or working on the latest blends – and make decisions accurately and efficiently. They also can monitor their data and provide base reporting for each brand and vintage.
The difference between integrating VinPoint Wine Management with Power BI instead of using a standalone Power BI solution, according to Fox, “is that VinPoint Wine Management tracks data points specific to the wine industry, such as brands, vintages, varietals and allocations.”
Access our on-demand webinar “Power BI Overview Discover Insights Hidden in Your Data” to learn how you can better track your data.
Scale-up Your Winery with Ease
Scaling up your winery is exciting and costly when you factor in upgrading production machinery to meet higher demand. When you migrate to the Cloud, you can scale up your business without adding headcount or technology infrastructure.
Cloud migration, when done correctly, should position your organization to scale. As your business deems necessary, you can add additional offerings, such as VinPoint Wine Management and other solutions. For instance, when your wine club gains popularity rapidly, you can effortlessly adjust from 500 transactions a quarter to well over 7,000 transactions without any changes to your infrastructure.
VinPoint Wine Management also allows for automation in your winery. This automation can be as simple as issuing an invoice once a shipment goes out for delivery or as complicated as running your entire warehouse.
“Our developers coded an update for a customer where when an order is placed, it sends a file to an automated robot that goes and actually picks the wine and brings it back all in the warehouse. They automate and run the whole business through Enavation Cloud: VinPoint Wine Management.” – Jessica Finch, Beverage Sales Executive, Enavate
So, whether your winery is a small, family-owned business or scaling up to a larger operation with dozens of investors, Enavation Cloud: VinPoint Wine Management can meet your current needs and grow with your future needs.
Cost and Benefits of a True Partner
When talking to small businesses in the beverage industry, cost is often the number one cause for hesitation, especially when the wineries need to choose between an upgraded bottling system and an ERP system.
At Enavate, we understand this is a tough decision for many businesses. We’ve structured the cost of this software to make it affordable for small to midsize businesses. Enavation Cloud: VinPoint Wine Management has a subscription-based fee you pay monthly. This frees up your capital so you can invest in both that upgraded bottling system and migrate to a Cloud ERP offering.
Cost isn’t everything. To ensure you are starting this journey to the Cloud with the right partner, make sure you ask the right questions to identify a trusted partner – not just a vendor who sells software.
Enavation Cloud: VinPoint Wine Management is a Cloud offering that will transform your winery. It makes tedious administration tasks effortless, allowing you to focus on your latest blends and vintages. To learn more about how Enavation Cloud: VinPoint Wine Management can enhance your winery, contact a beverage industry expert to learn more.
