How a Skincare Manufacturer Built Operational Control During 1,000% Growth

When sales increased by approximately 1,000% year over year, Australian skincare manufacturer Beeautify’s production management systems did not buckle. “You can only build reliable processes with robust systems, and MRPeasy is one of those systems,” says Figge Boksjo, Founder.

Case study at a glance

Company: Beeautify

Industry: Cosmetics

Product: Honey-based skincare products

Location: Western Australia

Previous system: Spreadsheets and a previous low-cost manufacturing system

Pain points: Reliance on spreadsheets and individual knowledge, poor usability, cumbersome workflows, limited scalability

Why MRPeasy: Ease of use, browser-based access, Shopify integration, Xero integration, manufacturing functionality

Implementation: 2–3 months

Key functions: Inventory management, BOMs, routings, production planning, CRM, order management, purchasing, Shopify integration, and Xero integration

Results: Supported approximately 1,000% year-over-year sales growth, faster identification of material constraints, centralized inventory and sales data, reduced manual order entry, better production and purchasing visibility, and more reliable customer fulfillment

Turning Western Australian honey into natural skincare

Beeautify is a natural skincare manufacturer based in Western Australia. The company produces small-batch skincare products formulated with honey and other locally sourced ingredients.

The original idea came from Figge’s wife and co-founder, Dani Boksjo. Having grown up in Brazil, Dani was accustomed to seeing honey used for a much wider range of purposes than simply as a food product.

After moving to Western Australia, she became involved in beekeeping and participated in a university-led program exploring ways to create more value from locally produced honey. With a background in food technology and science, Dani began developing natural skincare formulations containing Australian honey.

Figge brought a different set of skills to the project. He had spent much of his career in corporate IT, product management, and business process improvement.

“Dani was the formulator, and I was the process person,” he says.

The pair founded Beeautify around three core values: professionalism, ethics, and kindness. These principles continue to guide decisions involving employees, customers, suppliers, and products.

“We can ask ourselves: Is this genuinely professional? Is it ethical? Is it kind?” Figge says. “The values are one of the first things we explain to anyone joining the company.

Spreadsheets were only a temporary solution

Beeautify was initially financed by its founders and operated on a limited budget. During the earliest stage of the business, formulas, materials, and other operational information were managed in Excel.

Figge understood the risks of relying on spreadsheets, however, and was concerned about building a company that depended too heavily on individual knowledge and manually maintained files. 

“If you’re building a business that you may eventually sell, the master of an Excel spreadsheet is often one person,” he says. “That person may be the only one who understands how all the formulas work. If they leave or are unavailable, the company has a serious problem.”

Finding the right system after implementing the wrong one

Figge started looking into manufacturing and ERP platforms through Google, YouTube videos, product demonstrations, and free trials. The company’s budgetary constraints led them to choose the lowest-cost system.

Although the system provided basic functionality, its dated interface and cumbersome workflows made it difficult for employees to use.

“I liked having a system because I’m a systems person,” Figge says. “But the staff complained about it, and eventually I started looking at MRPeasy again.”

MRPeasy’s modern, browser-based interface was one of the first things that appealed to him. The software could be accessed from anywhere without requiring a local server or complicated installation.

Integrations were another important consideration. Beeautify needed its manufacturing system to connect its Shopify store with Xero while maintaining one central record of inventory and operational activity.

After completing the demonstration and evaluating the available functionality, Figge decided MRPeasy was the most sensible platform for the company’s next stage.

“You can only build reliable processes with robust systems, and MRPeasy is one of those systems,” Figge says.

Migration took two to three months

Despite Figge’s professional experience with ERP projects, migrating the small business to MRPeasy was still a substantial undertaking.

“I’ve managed migrations professionally and assumed migrating our small company would be easy,” he says. “It wasn’t.”

The migration took approximately two to three months. The company was already trading, so inventory, orders, and production information continued changing while Figge prepared the new system.

Rather than performing a direct one-to-one transfer, he used the opportunity to improve the company’s data and manufacturing setup. This included revising bills of materials, improving production routings, and establishing clearer item-numbering conventions.

Employee adoption presented another challenge. Figge understood why accurate transaction records were essential, but production employees were unsurprisingly more focused on making products.

The team had to learn that taking an ingredient or packaging item from stock also required recording the movement in the system.

“You have to trust the system, but the system is only as good as the information people put into it,” Figge says.

He explained that the procedures were necessary to build a sustainable business. Without accurate inventory, coherent BOMs, version control, and documented processes, the company would eventually encounter serious problems.

“We weren’t saying that the new system would immediately make every task easier,” he says. “We were saying that it was the only sustainable way forward.”

Rapid growth put the new system to the test

The value of Beeautify’s operational foundation became especially apparent after the company was featured on 9News, one of Australia’s most viewed news programs. The media exposure generated significant attention, and Beeautify’s marketing team successfully converted the increased visibility into new sales.

From one quarter to the next, the company’s sales grew by approximately 500%. Year over year, growth reached roughly 1,000%. The surge in demand placed immediate pressure on production, inventory, and purchasing.

“Once the sales arrived, operations had to respond immediately,” Figge says.

Because MRPeasy was already in place, Beeautify did not have to introduce a new system during the period of rapid growth. The team could instead use its existing data to spot issues and understand which shortages were preventing products from being manufactured.

“We could immediately identify constraints,” Figge says. “We could see whether ingredients had expired, whether we lacked a critical ingredient, or whether a shortage would prevent us from manufacturing a product.”

Demand eventually became so high that Beeautify had to temporarily limit sales while production caught up. The experience reinforced the need to plan materials and capacity several months in advance, with the company now using its operational data to prepare for high-demand periods such as Black Friday.

“We need to review critical stock levels, understand what we can sustain, and plan one, two, or three months ahead,” Figge says.

One source of truth for wholesale and online sales

Beeautify sells through two main channels. Direct-to-consumer orders arrive through the company’s Shopify store, while wholesale orders are entered directly into MRPeasy. Financial information is then transferred to Xero. MRPeasy serves as the central operational system that connects these channels.

“When a customer places an order through Shopify, I know the information flows through MRPeasy, which is our master system for inventory, and then into Xero,” Figge says.

This flow reduces manual order entry and helps ensure that inventory information remains consistent across the business.

“If an item isn’t available in MRPeasy, it shouldn’t be on sale online,” he says. “The end-to-end process is my number-one benefit, and I love that it works.”

The setup also gives Beeautify a consolidated view of sales and material consumption. Shopify can show the company how many units were sold online, but it does not include products supplied to wholesale customers. Because both channels pass through MRPeasy, the team can analyze total product movements without manually combining reports in Excel.

“I want one source of truth,” he says. “I don’t want to return to Excel and combine the figures manually.”

MRPeasy’s CRM and order management functionality also gives the team a clearer overview of current demand and order status.

“It lets us check where orders are, which ones have been scheduled, and which are waiting because the necessary stock isn’t available,” Figge says.

For employees responsible for manufacturing and purchasing, bills of materials provide another layer of visibility.

“From a manufacturing supervisor’s perspective, it’s about understanding how the BOMs fit together and using them to determine which ingredients we need to purchase,” he says.

Professional processes improve the customer experience

The operational improvements are also visible to Beeautify’s customers. Figge uses MRPeasy to produce professional invoices, delivery notes, box labels, and waybills. These documents help a small manufacturer present itself with the consistency customers expect from a much larger company.

For a recent delivery to a beauty retailer opening at Perth Airport, Figge printed labels showing the supplier, recipient, and exact contents of each box.

“It was extremely simple, but it looked professional,” he says. “Even though we’re a small company, the delivery looked as though it had come from Amazon.”

The system also reduces the risk of taking orders that cannot be fulfilled, overlooking material shortages, or giving customers unreliable delivery information.

Figge believes the more important question is not simply whether MRPeasy improved the customer experience, but what the experience would have been without a proper system.

“Without MRPeasy, the customer experience probably would have been terrible,” he says.

Building a foundation for future compliance and growth

With production planning running like clockwork, Beeautify is also considering the Good Manufacturing Practice certification in the future. Figge expects accurate records, traceability, quality procedures, and documented manufacturing processes to become increasingly important as the company grows. He sees MRPeasy as part of the foundation required to support those future goals.

“We’ll either need to demonstrate that our own facility meets the requirements or work with laboratories and manufacturing facilities that already comply,” he says. “Quality assurance is very important to us.”

Manufacturers should implement software for a clear reason

Figge advises other small manufacturers to define their objectives before implementing an ERP system. For Beeautify, that goal was creating an organized, reliable company that could grow beyond its founders and potentially be sold one day.

Figge also cautions growing manufacturers against selecting a general-purpose or low-cost platform that is not designed to manage production.

“If you’re a small but growing business, don’t be overly frugal and select a cheap tool that isn’t really designed for the purpose simply because you think it’s good enough,” he says.

Before migrating, companies should clean their data, establish sensible SKU conventions, understand their bills of materials, and determine how inventory, production, and purchasing information will connect. They should also appoint someone who understands the system’s underlying logic rather than simply memorizing where to click.

“I wasn’t popular when I implemented the system,” Figge says. “People asked why we were doing it and complained that it involved too many steps. But it was worth it. Everybody now understands the value and is grateful that we have a robust, reliable system.”

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