Honolulu Coffee Co. struggled with missing and damaged paperwork and needed a solution to streamline equipment service repair data collection.
Utilizing GoFormz and Google Workspace, Honolulu Coffee Co. streamlines their technician work order process and eliminates the risk of missing or damaged documentation.
Work Orders
Inventory Spreadsheets
Honolulu Coffee Co. is a seed-to-cup coffee company with ten coffee shops spread across four islands in Hawaii, three franchise locations in Guam, two in Canada, and ten more opening soon in Japan. They own a bakery and a coffee farm and provide equipment loans to wholesale customers, supported by their own service team to maintain the machines.
In addition to its coffee shops, Honolulu Coffee Co. manages an equipment servicing operation. “On the repair side of the business, we would service our machines using paper work orders to capture data. But the technicians would often lose paperwork or it would get torn up,” explained Christian Beall, Wholesale Operations for Honolulu Coffee Co. “We wanted to go paperless and try to find an easier way to get those work orders to our accounting team so that we could bill our customers or our cafe expenses.”
This challenge was further complicated by improperly completed paperwork. “The main problem was getting the work orders filled out properly,” explained Beall. “It wasn’t as much of a problem with getting the work orders from point A to point B, but the issue was not losing the work order or the messiness of the paperwork. We needed to find an easier way to get these documents to our accounting team.”
Recognizing the need for a digital solution, Honolulu Coffee Co. sought out a digital form solution. “We were doing all this paperwork, and we needed something different,” explained Beall. “I reached out to a GoFormz representative and he did a great job answering my questions. The form template was really easy to set up, and was ready in less than two hours.” GoFormz enables users to upload their existing documents, simplifying the digital transformation process. “The template is identical to our tech work orders. We just uploaded the PDF and then added in some form fields.”
“I reached out to a GoFormz representative and he did a great job answering my questions. The template was really easy to set up. I was able to set it up in less than two hours.”
– Christian Beall, Wholesale Operations, Honolulu Coffee Co.
Honolulu Coffee Co. primarily uses digital work orders. “We’re completing technician work order forms to work on coffee machines,” explained Beall. “We’re capturing everything from the customer name, manufacturer model serial number, the voltage of the machine, to the invoice number.” The invoice number ties back to any contractors they may hire to work on machines located on other Hawaiian islands. “We have a guy on the island who is contracted with us and will work on the machines. So when he invoices us, that invoice number on the work order ties back to the invoice and our accounting team can connect the dots in Quickbooks.” Honolulu Coffee Co. also uses checkboxes as a part of the invoicing system. “We use checkboxes to determine how we will invoice the customer,” explained Beall. “‘Is it a wholesale customer? Are we going to bill them for half price? Is it a tech-only job? Is it retail?’ And so that’s how our team can determine the type of work the work order captures.”
Additionally, Honolulu Coffee Co. utilizes automatic calculations. “We were able to get automatic calculations set up to track how long the travel was and how many hours the technician works.” Eliminating manual calculations streamlines form filling and reduces the risk of human error. Finally, to complete the form, they capture a digital signature.
Prior to GoFormz, Honolulu Coffee Co. used carbon copy forms for this process. “They would fill it out, we would give the customer a carbon copy, and they would then put it in their tech binder and bring it back to the warehouse, place it into a slip over on my desk, and then we would manually go through each part number and remove it from our physical account,” explained Beall. “Then we would hand that over to our accounting team who would send invoices to our customers and cafes.”
In addition to GoFormz, Honolulu Coffee Co. uses Google applications to run their business. “We use Google apps for everything. We use Google spreadsheets and Drive primarily,” explained Beall, who quickly discovered that the GoFormz and Google Workspace integration is an excellent way to automatically route completed forms to their desired destinations. “What’s huge about GoFormz is how we’re now able to be so direct with everything. We have our digital forms go directly into Google Drive and that has been huge for us.”
This automated, digital process has empowered Honolulu Coffee Co. to completely streamline its tech work order process. “When the tech work order is done, we hit complete. It sends one email to our group which we can then forward to our customer and then it sends another copy to Google Drive.” This automated workflow allows Honolulu Coffee Co. to now simultaneously route forms to customers and admins, and upload completed documentation to a designated Google Drive folder.
“...it’s really enhanced our business in a sense of getting information quicker, we can invoice our customers faster, and no information is being lost.”
– Christian Beall, Wholesale Operations, Honolulu Coffee Co.
“We have two folders in Google Drive right now. One is for inventory, so that when we are done with a work order it automatically is routed into our ‘Need to Inventory’ folder, so that when we do an overview of our work orders at the end of the week, we can remove the parts that we used from the work order from our physical inventory,” explained Beall. “Then we transfer it to another folder that needs to be invoiced. This helps us keep track of our inventory for our accounting team who will then invoice and pull that information into our Quickbooks.”
“What’s huge about GoFormz is how we’re able to be so direct now with everything.”
– Christian Beall, Wholesale Operations, Honolulu Coffee Co.
Honolulu Coffee Co. has experienced a wealth of savings. “GoFormz is only $30 a month – we feel like that’s a steal and we’re only using it at the surface level at the time being,” explained Beall. “For what it's worth, it’s really enhanced our business in a sense of getting information quicker, we can invoice our customers faster, and no information is being lost.” Beall also highlighted the time savings they are experiencing. “I would say we’ve saved a lot more time if anything. With all the paperwork alone, we make it back tenfold.”
Additionally, the accounting department can receive information faster and more accurately. “Our accounting team can track things better and we’re able to get information quicker to them,” explained Beall. “Since everything is done through digital typing, the big thing here is we’re able to read everything versus trying to figure out someone’s handwriting. They used to call us and say, ‘Can you provide us with some clarification or visual representation of the work orders?’” With digital data collection, teams can ensure information is legible, enhancing communication and collaboration.
“GoFormz is only $30 a month, we feel like that’s a steal…”
– Christian Beall, Wholesale Operations, Honolulu Coffee Co.
Honolulu Coffee Co.'s favorite aspects of GoFormz are its convenience and customer support. “Being able to communicate with somebody and having somebody communicate back made me feel like GoFormz really cared,” explained Beall. When Honolulu Coffee Co. first started using GoFormz, they had questions about how to navigate the platform. “We had some questions originally and after experiencing with the customer service team we felt pretty great about being able to work with them in the future based on their response times,” explained Beall. “Sometimes when you work with large companies you could wait a couple of days or months to get anything done but with GoFormz you never felt alone. We felt confident that we could invest and GoFormz made me feel a little more competent in using the platform.”
“Being able to communicate with somebody and having somebody communicate back made me feel like GoFormz really cared”
– Christian Beall, Wholesale Operations, Honolulu Coffee Co.
Honolulu Coffee Co. has plans to evolve their digital transformation process with Barcode Scanning. “We’re trying to work our way towards barcode scanning to evolve our physical inventory process,” explained Beall. “We have thousands of parts and it takes a long time currently.” This evolution would also include an enhancement to their current integration by setting up a two-way integration with Google Sheets. “I feel like as we evolve and grow, the needs will grow as well.”