Case Study: Dynamics 365 Business Central Implementation
Company Information
Business Type: Sales and Distribution
Industry: Food & Beverage (Matcha Manufacturing)
Location: Torrance, California
Number of Users: 32
Company Description
Aiya America Inc. is the North American subsidiary of Aiya Co., Ltd., a family-owned Japanese company with more 130+ years of history and global recognition as a leading producer of premium matcha green tea. Founded in 1888 in Nishio, Japan, Aiya is renowned for its traditional cultivation, advanced technology, and strict quality standards.
Headquartered in Torrance, California, Aiya America delivers certified organic and conventional matcha to food and beverage manufacturers, cafés, and specialty retailers, as well as offering branded products directly to consumers. Aiya America serves a broad spectrum of industries, such as food, beverage, wellness, and health-focused sectors, maintaining its commitment to delivering premium matcha products across North America.
Executive Summary
This case study highlights a Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation that replaced QuickBooks for a food and beverage distributor.
As Aiya America Inc. continued to expand its food distribution operations, the company recognized the need to replace its existing accounting-centric system based on QuickBooks with a more integrated ERP platform. While QuickBooks supported basic financial management, growing inventory volumes, warehouse activity, and manual, paper-based processes made it increasingly difficult to maintain operational visibility and scale efficiently.
By migrating from QuickBooks to Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud, Aiya America implemented a modern ERP for food and beverage distribution that unified finance, inventory, and warehouse operations within a single, integrated platform. This transition provided real-time visibility, improved operational control, and reduced reliance on manual workflows that previously limited efficiency.
Through this implementation, Aiya America moved beyond basic accounting software and established a flexible, cloud-based ERP environment aligned with the needs of a growing, modern organization.
CHALLENGE
As Aiya America Inc. expanded its food and beverage distribution operations, its reliance on QuickBooks as a primary accounting system began to create operational constraints. While QuickBooks supported basic financial management, it lacked the inventory, warehouse, and operational controls required to support a growing distribution business, particularly after the company established an in-house cold warehouse.
Manual and paper-based processes were heavily used across inventory handling, lot number assignment, and order fulfillment, limiting real-time visibility and increasing the risk of errors. Teams lacked a centralized system to manage inventory levels, warehouse activities, and financial data in a unified way, making it difficult to gain accurate insight into operational performance across departments.
Recognizing that QuickBooks was no longer sufficient as a long-term system, Aiya America sought to move beyond accounting software to a scalable cloud ERP platform. The goal was not only to replace QuickBooks, but to implement an ERP solution capable of supporting food and beverage distribution requirements, improving inventory visibility, streamlining warehouse operations, and providing real-time reporting to support informed decision-making and future growth. At the same time, leadership needed to clearly define system requirements and evaluate the return on investment for an ERP implementation that could scale with the business.
Client Testimonial
“Switching away from a constricting system like QuickBooks and adopting Dynamics 365 has greatly impacted our day-to-day operations. The cloud-based system allows us quick and easy access to all sales and inventory systems which were not available before, and this has helped alleviate delays to order fulfillment across all departments. Additionally, our continued work with Calsoft on customizations of the system to fit our needs has not only increased productivity for our team in a variety of situations, but also helped to streamline our internal processes by eliminating excessive tasks that were byproducts of our previously inadequate ERP systems. This has allowed us to continue to scale up operations quickly and more cost-effectively.”
Brandon Duer, Operations Manager
Solution
Dynamics 365 Business Central
To address the limitations of QuickBooks and support continued growth, Aiya America Inc. implemented Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud as its core ERP platform. Following a structured requirements assessment and Fit & Gap analysis conducted by Calsoft Systems, Business Central was selected as a scalable cloud ERP for food & beverage operations, supporting inventory management, and financial reporting within a single, integrated system.
Standard Business Central functionality covered the majority of Aiya America’s operational requirements, including finance, inventory, sales order processing, and warehouse visibility. This approach reduced customization complexity while providing a flexible foundation that could scale as the business expanded.
To further enhance operational efficiency, Aiya America adopted targeted add-on solutions aligned with specific business needs. eShip was implemented to streamline shipping and fulfillment workflows, reducing manual data entry and improving accuracy across outbound logistics. A credit card payment processing application was integrated to improve payment efficiency and control, supporting faster order-to-cash cycles. In addition, Power BI was deployed to deliver real-time analytics and management reporting, enabling greater visibility into financial and operational performance across the organization.
Together, this Dynamics 365 Business Central implementation replaced QuickBooks with a modern cloud ERP environment that unified finance, inventory, warehouse, and reporting processes, supporting improved operational control and long-term scalability.
Solution Components:
- Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud – Unified finance, inventory, sales, and warehouse management
- eShip – Automated shipping workflows and improved fulfillment accuracy
- Payment processing app – Faster and more controlled order-to-cash processes
- Power BI – Real-time reporting and operational insights
Learn more about Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Results Achieved
The implementation of Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud delivered measurable operational and strategic improvements for Aiya America Inc. By migrating from QuickBooks to a cloud-based ERP platform, the company established a unified system to manage finance, inventory, sales, and warehouse operations, while reducing reliance on paper-based and manual processes that had limited efficiency and visibility.
With Business Central as the core ERP, Aiya America gained improved control over inventory and warehouse processes, enabling more accurate tracking, faster order processing, and greater operational consistency across departments. The cloud-based environment also reduced system maintenance overhead while ensuring access to current features, performance enhancements, and security updates.
Operational efficiency was further improved through the implementation of eShip, which streamlined shipping and fulfillment workflows and reduced manual data entry. The integrated credit card payment application improved payment processing efficiency and control, supporting smoother order-to-cash operations. In addition, the adoption of Power BI provided real-time reporting and analytics, giving management immediate visibility into financial and operational performance to support informed decision-making and continuous improvement.
Together, these results established Business Central as a reliable ERP for food & beverage distribution, supporting Aiya America’s continued growth.
Key Results at a Glance:
- Unified ERP environment replacing QuickBooks
- Reduced manual and paper-based inventory and fulfillment processes .
- Improved inventory and warehouse visibility across departments
- Faster and more accurate shipping with eShip automation
- Real-time financial and operational reporting with Power BI
- Scalable cloud ERP platform to support future growth
Why They Chose Calsoft
Aiya America selected Calsoft Systems as its implementation partner based on the team’s deep expertise in Dynamics 365 Business Central implementations, structured delivery approach, and strong focus on collaboration and knowledge transfer. Beyond technical capability, Aiya America valued Calsoft’s ability to guide the ERP project from requirements assessment through deployment and user adoption.
Throughout the implementation, Calsoft provided dedicated project management, hands-on engineering support, and comprehensive training to ensure the system aligned with Aiya America’s operational workflows. This collaborative approach helped reduce implementation risk, accelerate user adoption, and ensure the organization could fully leverage Business Central’s capabilities from day one.
Client Feedback
“Calsoft’s team were incredibly communicative and helpful through the entire project. From the project managers to the engineers, we always felt like we were in a collaborative process to find solutions to the problems we had, even when an immediate answer wasn’t available. Their knowledge and expertise was also incredibly valuable in training our team to better understand Dynamics 365 and its more complex customized functionalities.”
WANT TO ACHIEVE SIMILAR RESULTS?
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