{"id":23210,"date":"2025-05-23T17:54:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T16:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stg-khh4l5.elementor.cloud\/?post_type=customer-stories&p=23210"},"modified":"2025-12-17T11:02:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T11:02:20","slug":"st-johns-hall-storage-cuts-invoicing-time-by-90","status":"publish","type":"customer-stories","link":"https:\/\/stg-khh4l5.elementor.cloud\/nz\/customer-stories\/st-johns-hall-storage-cuts-invoicing-time-by-90\/","title":{"rendered":"St John’s Hall Storage Cuts Invoicing Time by 90%"},"content":{"rendered":"

St John\u2019s Hall Storage<\/a> is a third-party warehousing provider<\/a> in the UK, serving a mix of local and overseas customers with long-term storage, pallet handling and increasingly complex pick and pack operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over more than 30 years, the business has grown from a single warehouse to a multi-site operation. Growth has come mainly through word of mouth from customers who value St John\u2019s \u201cfirst class\u201d service and the way the team acts as an extension of their operation rather than just another supplier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As customer expectations have evolved, so has the operational challenge. Many of St John\u2019s customers now operate with shorter lead times and broader product ranges. Goods often arrive one day and need to be picked and despatched within 24\u201348 hours, with very little room for error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internally, the leadership team has always been clear that growth should not come at the expense of culture. St John\u2019s is known for long staff tenure and a close-knit team, with warehouse operatives and office staff who have been with the business for many years. Any technology change needed to support that culture by making work easier and more effective, not by dictating processes without regard for experience on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For around 25 of those years, the company relied on a legacy, on-premise WMS. It had once been a significant step forward, but by the time St John\u2019s was running multiple warehouses and high-touch 3PL services, the system was ageing and difficult to evolve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Overcoming WMS Challenges Holding St John\u2019s Back<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The legacy WMS had become a limiting factor across technical, operational and commercial dimensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technically, the system was server-based and fragile. Downtime and disruption were real concerns, and upgrades were neither simple nor seamless. As the wider software world shifted decisively towards cloud delivery, St John\u2019s found itself tied to an infrastructure model that could not offer the resilience or flexibility they needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Operationally, the pain was most acute around visibility and invoicing. The old system struggled to provide real-time tracking of pallets and stock. Booking in, picking and despatching were slowed by the need to complete entire loads before starting onward movements. With customer lead times shrinking, that sequential model created bottlenecks and constrained the service St John\u2019s wanted to provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Invoicing was a particular flashpoint. Under the previous system, data from the WMS had to be re-keyed manually into the accounts software. That process was time-consuming and error-prone, often leading to typos and queries. Managing Director Tim Basey-Fisher<\/a> personally spent around four days at the end of each month checking invoices to make sure they were correct before sending them to customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This manual approach also created a \u201cmonth end crunch\u201d. Invoices went out monthly, concentrating work into a single, stressful period and delaying visibility of costs for customers. If queries arose, they were often addressed weeks after the underlying activity, when it was harder for either party to recall the details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of true cloud capability in the incumbent system became increasingly hard to ignore. As the market moved on, the vendor attempted to position what Jenny Green, HR & Operations Manager<\/a>, describes as a \u201ccloud-based\u201d solution that was essentially the same old system with a cloud dashboard layered on top. When compared with modern, cloud-native WMS products, it was simply not competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worse, the vendor presented St John\u2019s with a stark choice: pay a substantial amount to move to this limited \u201ccloud\u201d version with a high ongoing subscription, or migrate to a different acquired product that was not fit for their third-party warehousing model. The business was effectively backed into a corner at a time when it was extremely busy and managing important new customer contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside these system issues, the team could see the broader implications. Inefficient walkthroughs across multiple warehouses meant time was lost in picking and put-away. Without system-guided routes, staff relied heavily on local knowledge to work efficiently, which made the operation harder to scale and standardise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The picture was clear: St John\u2019s had grown through service and reputation, but its WMS was holding it back from the next stage. St John\u2019s was facing rising tension, with the status quo becoming increasingly untenable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guiding St John\u2019s Toward WMS Transformation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Recognising the strategic importance of the decision, St John\u2019s undertook a thorough two-year review of the WMS market. The team drew on 25 years of experience with warehouse software and approached the search with a clear view of what did and did not work for their model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were looking for a solution that was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n