Trago Mills

Trago Mills is a well-known chain of independent department stores in the South West of England, with locations in Liskeard and Falmouth in Cornwall, and Newton Abbot in Devon.

As the region’s original discount retailer, Trago has built a loyal customer base by staying true to its founding principle: delivering value. From a modest shed in 1965 to a 319,000 square foot flagship store, Trago has grown steadily while adapting to the changing retail landscape.

Trago’s finance team was still relying on paper-based systems despite handling over 3 million transactions a year and generating more than £80 million in annual turnover. After upgrading their tills to a new electronic point of sale (EPoS) system, they saw the potential for wider transformation. They wanted better visibility of sales across all stores and a way to automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks in the finance department.

Gary Lord, Financial Director at Trago, explains:
"Trago department stores conduct more than 3 million transactions a year and we have an annual turnover in excess of £80million, yet we were still using largely paper-based systems. The new EPoS system fuelled our desire to assess our wider financial and back-office systems to see if there was a better way we could be working."

We tailored Microsoft Dynamics NAV to meet Trago’s two key requirements: integrating EPoS data for consolidated sales reporting and automating the accounts payable process.

EPoS Integration
Trago sells 180,000 product lines. We made it possible to analyse and report on transaction data across all stores. Gary shares:
"We now have a functioning solution that everyone understands and finds easy to use. It integrates fully into the EPoS system, with very few problems and little management burden."

Accounts Payable Automation
Trago pays around 3,000 suppliers monthly. Previously, this involved printing cheques, preparing remittance slips, and manually posting them. We automated the entire process, including BACS payments and remittance emails.
"This one feature alone has not only saved us the equivalent of one full time head within the finance department but has also delivered significant cost savings in postage each year."

Reporting with Dimensions and Jet Reports
We simplified the setup of Dimensions in Dynamics NAV, enabling Trago to analyse expenses by vehicle, person, branch, and department. We also deployed Jet Reports for fast, automated reporting.
"I can now produce the management accounts for five companies in one day, that’s how quick it is."
"Now the various reports are set up to run automatically overnight on a weekly basis and are emailed to the management team."