Pedals & Pints Brewing Saves 12 Hours a Week and $200 a Month Switching to Ollie

Photography courtesy of Pedals & Pints

“The Ollie onboarding process was super easy, and the staff was super supportive,” Potter says. The head brewer notes that the onboarding process was long, “But it was long for a reason.”

Potter says the onboarding has a lot to cover, and there are a lot of moving parts to get through.

“They want to make sure that you’re completely set up,” Potter says. “And I felt that all of that support made us ready when we were completely out of onboarding, and everything was working correctly.”

The Ollie onboarding process for Pedals & Pints ran about six weeks at a one-a-week cadence. Each meeting ended with Ollie staff tasking Pedals & Pints with homework to work on lessons and tools covered in the meeting.

“It helped in making sure we were ready to move to the next step [of the process],” Potter says.

According to Potter, Ollie’s onboarding process proved smoother than the previous software Pedals & Pints used.

“We tried Beer30 first and, though the onboarding with them was really short, I didn’t feel like I was ready to use the product to its full potential,” Potter says. “Ollie was a different story. It was a lot easier to use. I felt way more supported. And I could use Ollie to the full capacity of its design.”

Potter adds that Ollie also helped the brewery integrate their QuickBooks account—something not offered with Beer30.

“Our owner Brad got a lot of support on that,” Potter notes. “And it really helped us clean up our QuickBooks as well.”

For the first couple of years, Potter says the company just used spreadsheets to track inventory, the gravity readings and pH readings throughout brewing and fermentation process, dates, and Diacetyl pass. Potter says all recipes were kept on a Google drive and printed on the day of the brew day, then filed and kept in a bin under her desk. But as the brewery grew in the Thousand Oaks community, they knew they needed more intuitive software to keep up. That’s why they chose to link up with Beer30.

But it didn’t last long.

Ollie was a different story. It was a lot easier to use. I felt way more supported. And I could use Ollie to the full capacity of its design.

Monica Potter - Pedals & Pints

“[Beer30 had] a lot of counterintuitive stuff that wasn’t really helping me in the brewery,” Potter says. “It was a lot of transferring and clicking buttons for the brewery software.”

Potter adds, “We tried Beer30 for about six to eight months, and it just wasn’t helping us as much as we thought. We wanted something with brewery software capability but also a sales piece.”

They didn’t get the sales option with Beer30 because it would have tacked on another $150 a month to their bill. They opted for another software – Potter says neither she nor Cristea can remember what it was called – but that was “awful” according to Potter. “It was really hard to pull up customer information, the search function didn’t work well at all. And it also didn’t have a place to take notes on what we had done on visits.”

After that months-long trial, Pedals & Pints decided to stop using Beer30.

At the next beer conference they attended, they found Ollie and tried it. Instead of two softwares that didn’t help the flow of business, Ollie gave Pedals & Pints all they needed in one service.

“We loved that Ollie was an all inclusive package with the brewery and sales software,” Potter says.

“Everyone I’ve talked to has been super helpful,” Potter says. “I use Ollie every day. Our sales team uses it every day and loves it. We will continue to use it this way into the future. But if there are any extra add-ons, we’ll definitely grow with Ollie.”

Photography courtesy of Pedals & Pints

Before Ollie, Potter says she had two different grease boards to keep track of scheduling and what was in the fermenters and brite tanks.

“I also had a notebook full of notes for what I should be doing every day,” Potter says. “And then we had recipe sheets [on which] we hand wrote all the information.”

The organic process took a lot of time. And the change to Beer30 didn’t help either.

“Beer30 wasn’t one hundred percent; it didn’t have a super helpful scheduling capability,” says Potter. “It seemed like with Beer30, I still used all of my paper stuff even though we had the software.”

Potter adds, “With Ollie, I don’t use paper recipes anymore. It’s all in one place, and I can easily pick it up and use it.”

She says the software helps with many tasks, such as cost breakdown. And it’s accurate.

“If I use something for a brew, I know that [the ingredient] is gone from my inventory,” Potter says. “And I can trust the inventory.”

For sales, because Beer30 couldn’t provide adequate functionality, Potter says Pedals & Pints used a separate software. But she found that platform challenging to use, too.

“It was not easy to access customers’ information, and it didn’t keep very good track of what was going on,” Potter says. “There was a note section that showed what product was at certain locations, but it was hard to access and wasn’t easy to use.”

Photography courtesy of Pedals & Pints

With Ollie, Potter says the software is a breeze for the two-member sales team.

“All of our information is on it, and everybody puts their notes down,” Potter says. “That’s a testament to how easy it is to use. If it’s easy to use, people will use it.”

Potter says tracking kegs’ locations is also streamlined. Before, it was relatively easy, but it took multiple steps to get the information. With Ollie, “It’s nice to have it all in one place,” Potter says.

With all of Ollie’s tools in both the front of house and back of house, Potter is seeing immense time savings.

That’s a testament to how easy it is to use. If it’s easy to use, people will use it.

Monica Potter - Pedals & Pints

“I’m not sitting down and scheduling for four hours a week,” she says. “[With Ollie], I’m probably saving four to six hours a week just on paperwork.”

Potter says the ease of use has not only helped increase sales—a number she couldn’t precisely quantify—but also has saved additional administrative work.

“It’s easier to run my numbers for taxes too,” says Potter. “and that saves me time as well.”

Photography courtesy of Pedals & Pints

Simply put, “Ollie is less expensive than our last brewery software and does more,” Potter says.

Potter says she doesn’t know the exact cost they were spending with Beer30, but she does know that Ollie is “around $200 per month cheaper and includes the sales software, which didn’t come with the version of Beer30 we had.”

Potter’s main benefit with Ollie is the overall streamlining of their business process—from tracking inventory in real time to keeping customer profiles up to date and paying bills on time.

Ollie has a load of features all in one place, something they didn’t have with previous brewery management platforms.

I’m super happy with it.

Monica Potter - Pedals & Pints

“Every Monday, I take in inventory and then sell whatever we used for the week to the taproom, so we have an accurate depiction of what inventory we’ve gone through and what it cost,” Potter says. “When we keg off of those serving tanks, I tell everyone how many kegs are out there, which also integrates with our sales. … Live inventory is awesome.”

The breakdown of cost helps Pedals & Pints reduce their costs, which is an additional savings beyond the cost of the software itself.

“I’m always looking to make our efficiencies better and our yields better and bring down cost per barrel,” Potter says. “[Ollie] helps us accurately price our distro kegs, [and] during canning runs, it helps accurately price all of our cases.”

Potter adds, “I’m super happy with it.”