Flowgear, Africa’s cloud-based integration platform provider, has given Blind Designs the controls it needs to ensure finance data is updated correctly from other business applications into Sage Pastel.

Blind Designs, a leading manufacturer and distributor of window blinds for the southern African market, wanted to ensure that data was synchronised accurately between its Sage Pastel accounting system and the line-of-business (LOB) application it uses to handle quotes, invoices and production orders.

Through a recommendation from the Sage Pastel channel, Blind Designs selected Flowgear to solve its data synchronisation challenge. “We wanted to keep using Pastel but needed to avoid duplication problems with our customised in-house system,” said director Paul O’Brien.

Flowgear’s integration platform ensured that data pertaining to customers, invoices, and credit notes is automatically updated into Pastel, and customer balances and credit limits from Pastel are updated into the LOB system.

“Using Flowgear we have reduced data errors significantly, and have tighter financial management than we could when we did things manually,” said O’Brien, “and it means we didn’t have to hire more staff just to input and check data.”

“The staff at Flowgear inspire a lot of confidence through their ability to address our issues and provide support,” comments O’Brien. “Now we’ve got one part of the business working with Flowgear, we’re starting to look at other areas where we can see it will be a benefit.”