Lumber dealers Arnold Lumber Company, Sears Trostel Lumber and Millwork, and Dodson Wholesale Lumber report gains in dispatch, inventory, margin, and growth from Epicor BisTrack, industry-specific ERP software Epicor built for building suppliers. Epicor hosts its Insights for Building Supply and Retail event November 9–11, 2026, in Grapevine, Texas.
Epicor says BisTrack centralizes operations on one platform, with a browser-based interface, mobile warehouse applications, and manufacturing and configuration tools. It also integrates with Epicor Warehouse Management System (WMS), which guides warehouse staff through daily tasks using bar coding and wireless devices.
Arnold Lumber Replaces Paper With Live Dispatch and Inventory Data
Arnold Lumber Company, a West Kingston, Rhode Island, dealer founded in 1911, once built delivery routes from staff experience and printed reports. Data Systems Manager Adam Bartlett described credits that went unpicked until a customer called. Wall monitors now show vehicle positions from Geotab, integrated with BisTrack Journey Planner, while BisTrack dashboards give sales staff live order views.
Epicor WMS added perpetual cycle counting, replacing twice-yearly physical inventories at all four locations that closed two sites on a Saturday. Arnold reports inventory write-offs down, while Bartlett cited overtime down and sales up year over year.
Sears Trostel Uses Dashboards to Protect Margin
Delivery visibility also anchors the results at Sears Trostel Lumber and Millwork, a Fort Collins, Colorado, company in business since 1929 that manufactures at its Airpark location and sells from its Riverside location. Co-owner and General Manager Curt Viehmeyer notes that anyone can see which truck carries an order and where it goes next.
Margin exceptions show on Viehmeyer’s dashboard, and BisTrack lets the company set margin item by item, which ties pricing to the same live data.
Special orders reach an assistant manager’s dashboard as purchase orders that can be combined to meet minimum quantities and earn better freight rates. BisTrack cubes helped set inventory minimums and maximums, and purchase order preparation dropped. Viehmeyer, who says he is not a SQL specialist, creates Smart Views himself.
Dodson Pairs Hosted ERP With Warehouse Scanning
Keeping dashboard data current falls to IT, and at Dodson Wholesale Lumber, a fourth-generation distributor in Roswell, New Mexico, IT is one person. After returning to the family business in 2008, CIO Steve Dodson evaluated several ERP options and chose BisTrack.
He recalled valuing Epicor’s hosting team for handling issues and upgrades, and BisTrack’s SQL access for building the reports that run the business. Dispatch dashboards show trucks by region and driver load, and the data led the company to add a truck.
Dodson reports growth each year since implementation over a decade ago. Epicor WMS, deployed later, meets the company’s inventory accuracy goal and retired a year-end stock count that closed the business on a Saturday. Scanners serve each worker the next task, which Dodson credits with a productivity jump.
The company is testing mobile delivery through a GPS Insight integration and plans to add the customer stratification module.
What This Means for ERP Insiders
Industry-specific ERP proves itself in daily workflows. The reported results trace to tasks particular to building supply, including journey planning, special-order consolidation, and cycle counting. Systems built around those tasks give dealers a direct line from software capability to operating outcome.
Warehouse accuracy sits upstream of finance and delivery. At Arnold and Dodson, perpetual counts replaced stock counts that closed sites on a Saturday, and the same inventory record now informs write-offs, order promises, and yard space. Dealers that run perpetual counts connect warehouse data to the financial and customer-facing sides of the business.
Self-service data keeps decisions close to the floor. At Sears Trostel, a general manager creates Smart Views himself, and Dodson’s sales staff enter orders from anywhere. ERP data that operators handle directly lightens the load on technical teams as small as Dodson’s single IT employee.
