Agricultural businesses are under pressure to manage increasingly complex operations that span multiple locations, business units, and supply chains. For companies relying on disconnected software and manual processes, obtaining a consolidated view of performance can become a challenge as operations expand.
That challenge led both Karsten Group and American Meadows to deploy cloud-based enterprise resource planning technology from Acumatica, a company that develops cloud ERP software for mid-sized organizations. The two implementations illustrate how agricultural businesses are using ERP platforms to consolidate data and streamline operational workflows.
Karsten Group, a South African fruit producer and distributor based in Durbanville with more than 1,000 employees, replaced a legacy system with Acumatica Cloud ERP to bring together operations across multiple farms. The project consolidated six separate systems into a single platform and enabled paperless processes that removed the need for approximately 2,500 printed invoices each month.
“Data is paramount in farming operations,” said Jeandre Van Der Linde, financial manager at Karsten Group. “Acumatica helps us make decisions quicker, helps us spot trends, and helps us discuss crop returns and profitability with our operational team.”
For American Meadows, a company that sells seeds and gardening products, the ERP deployment focused on connecting systems that previously operated independently. The company used Acumatica Cloud ERP to integrate accounting and operational functions that had been spread across three disconnected platforms.
According to the company, the new system eliminated duplicate data entry and reduced errors while helping the business manage a 75% increase in sales during the pandemic. American Meadows also used the platform to simplify onboarding for seasonal employees and identify fulfillment issues, including 12 orders that had not been shipped.
“Discovering Acumatica has been a pivotal moment in our digital transformation journey,” said Kim Walker, director of operations at American Meadows. “The ease with which it allows us to streamline business processes is truly remarkable. With its intelligent workflows tailored for industry-specific needs, managing risks and seizing opportunities has never been so straightforward. It’s not just a product; it’s a community fostering growth and innovation.”
Acumatica says agricultural organizations are increasingly turning to cloud ERP systems to centralize operational data that is often spread across legacy applications and spreadsheets. Jon Pollock, chief product officer at Acumatica, said the technology is helping businesses gain broader visibility into financial and operational performance.
“Agriculture has always required precision — soil conditions, yield forecasts, input costs — but spreadsheets and legacy systems have trapped data in silos and slowed down decision-making,” said Jon Pollock, chief product officer at Acumatica. “The results our customers are now achieving with modern AI-enabled ERP make clear there’s a better path with a unified, cloud-based infrastructure. This is what agriculture operations and business growth look like when the technology catches up to the complexity of the business.”
The deployments at Karsten Group and American Meadows reflect a broader shift among agricultural businesses toward unified management platforms that can consolidate data from multiple systems while supporting operational growth.
