Every process under one digital roof: RoofTech hits 80% automation with Xentral
Building-materials wholesaler RoofTech tackled two classic mid-market challenges at once: the founder’s son-in-law stepped in to run the business, and Xentral laid the digital groundwork for future growth without adding headcount.
80%
of processes automated (95% in accounting)
5 min
for month-end close instead of 4 days
50%
of customers already order through the new web shop
A heavy workload on a small team, caused by years of manual processes layered on top of each other.
Clearly defined workflows for purchasing, orders and accounting.
80% automation across the business, less time spent on the month-end close, happier customers thanks to transparent delivery tracking, and fewer errors in order handling.
Everything at RoofTech GmbH has revolved around stability, precision, and reliability in buildings since 2010. The wholesaler sells specialty retailers, manufacturers, and installers high-quality components for safe metal roofs that help power the energy transition. As the exclusive European distributor for US brand S-5!®, RoofTech supplies standing-seam clamps (the connectors used to attach PV mounts), PV mounting systems, as well as BirdBlocker bird deterrents, snow guards and its own line of accessories.
A trusted business, new leadership, new processes
The product range has grown over the years and so have the processes behind it. So in 2023, two things were on the table at once: handing the business from founder Peter Strobel to his son-in-law Falk Magnus Strobel, and kicking off a digital transformation.
“We run our business in close partnership with our customers, always built on trust, long-term thinking, and shared success. You can only build lasting success on a foundation that’s grown over the years, but our focus is on acting today and innovating for tomorrow.” That’s the company motto. In that spirit, Falk set out to streamline the processes that had grown over time and set the business up for long-term growth.
ERP as the new digital roof over cleaned-up processes
Before Falk took over from his father-in-law, he worked as a management consultant and auditor. From running optimization projects for mostly US-based clients, he knew exactly how much a well-chosen software toolkit matters.
RoofTech did have central accounting software. But the four-person team had to handle a long list of steps manually, from order entry all the way to the monthly close. Instead of spreading that workload over more people, Falk decided to straighten things out with an ERP and scale the business without adding headcount or resources.
“I was looking for a solution where I could decide from day one which direction things go, and that would let me cut off some of the old habits,” Falk says. He found that in Xentral.
Inspired by the Koro success story, he decided to really put the system through its paces and set it up his way.
- Flexibility in how it’s configured
- Able to scale with limited resources
- Shallow click depth; everything reachable in three clicks or fewer
As intuitive as an iPhone: why the live rollout actually worked
RoofTech rolled out the ERP without pausing the business. Madlen Trenkner, who runs order processing and inside sales at RoofTech, took the lead. Even though moving off familiar legacy systems is a heavy lift, Madlen pulled it off. On the Xentral side, Stefan Schiele walked her through onboarding and was there whenever questions came up.
“Onboarding to Xentral was stress-free. A big part of that is that Xentral is as intuitive as an iPhone; anyone gets it,” Falk says. New colleagues get up to speed fast, like project and social media manager Yannik Strobel: “Two weeks after Yannik started, he had to cover for Madlen and me while we were on vacation. With Xentral it was no problem, because he figured out how everything worked right away.”
What’s changed at RoofTech with Xentral
Day-to-day manual work has dropped sharply with Xentral: “Compared to where we were before Xentral, we’ve automated a solid 80% of our processes. And we did it with simple moves connecting the shop, setting up an API to our fulfillment provider,” Falk says.
Before Xentral, his team spent all day processing orders, matching payments and handling service requests. Customers sometimes waited up to three days for an answer. Today they get transparent shipping updates and always know where their order is.
The phone almost never rings anymore, and when a question does come in, Falk’s team has a clear picture thanks to Xentral’s traffic-light status system. His first and last task of the day is to glance at the Xentral dashboard: “I see current fulfillment and inventory numbers at a glance, and the smart reorder suggestions let me steer purchasing efficiently,” Falk says. Error rates have come down too.
My day is just a lot calmer, because I’m not juggling five fires at once anymore. In the morning I only need a few minutes with Xentral to get my day set up.
Falk Magnus Strobel, Managing Director of RoofTech GmbH
From purchasing to month-end: Xentral ties every RoofTech process together
Falk and his team feel the lift from Xentral already at the purchasing stage. But customers have noticed too. The new web shop lets them order online whenever they want, and more than half of RoofTech’s 800 customers are already using it.
Fulfillment and picking run automatically at the shipping partner. The only step Falk’s team still handles by hand is picking the right shipping method, since experience and customer preferences play a real role there. Accounting, including invoicing and dunning, is automated too, and payment matching runs about 95% hands-free. Falk’s team only steps in when a customer accidentally enters something wrong.
Once Falk and his team got the accounting workflow and the tax advisor’s DATEV connection cleanly set up, the benefit shows up every single month: “I do the month-end close in five minutes now. It used to take me four days.”
- 80% of processes automated, 95% in accounting
- 50% of customers already using the new shop
- Month-end close in 5 minutes instead of 4 days
- 150 to 200 shipments a month, from small parcels to full pallets
What’s next: custom shipping and growth with Xentral
While some competitors saw revenue drop by up to 50% as the PV market swung, RoofTech held steady at pre-crisis levels thanks to its tightened-up processes. “We didn’t want to roll out the ERP in a flat-out boom year; we wanted to use the moment to be ready when the market turns back up,” Falk explains.
For anyone looking to free up capacity and cut organizational risk at the same time, Falk’s advice is simple: give Xentral a look. The people who get the most out of it are the ones who need an overview: “A lot of tools have you clicking through endless menus. Xentral has a clean interface. Two or three clicks and I see everything I need to know.”
Moving manual processes over one-to-one doesn’t actually give you automation. You have to be open to doing things a new way. Xentral has a lot of pre-built workflows that help with exactly that.
Falk Magnus Strobel, Managing Director of RoofTech GmbH
The visibility and time Falk and his team have won back with Xentral are freeing them up for new projects. One of them: building a dedicated warehouse. The plan is to offer custom shipping solutions, for example, letting customers ship raw material from US partner S-5!® out of RoofTech’s warehouse under their own parcel label. “That’s exactly the kind of project we needed a system for that grows with us. We found it in Xentral.”