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Site: www.taylorfamilyvineyards.com Company: Taylor Family Vineyards Location: Napa, California Industry: Manufacturing Results Achieved with AccountEdge:
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Taylor Family Vineyards
"We make our wines, like we live our lives...in balance." This deliberate harmony and proportion are evident in Taylor Family Vineyard's award winning full-bodied Hillside Chardonnays and luscious Reserve Cabernets.
As the name reveals, Taylor Family Vineyards is a family owned operation, headed by Jerry and Pat Taylor who have been married for over fifty years. Jerry is the Director of Vineyard Operations, taking care of the land from dawn until dusk, and sometimes beyond. Pat, Secretary and Vice President, still works as a respected real estate agent in Napa Valley, helping other families achieve their dreams of owning their own vineyards. They have three children, all of whom are still active in the family’s vineyard and winemaking operations, as are some grandchildren.
Their daughter, Sandy Taylor Carlson, President and CEO, and her husband, Phil Carlson, CFO and a Naval Academy graduate and commercial airline pilot, are both actively dedicated to Taylor Family Vineyards. They handle everything that needs to be managed besides the vineyard in order to make and sell the high quality wines for which the family is fast becoming known.
Born and raised in Napa Valley and with an academic background in finance, Sandy learned about the business of wine by working for a number of prestigious Napa wineries. She became an MYOB Certified Consultant in 2007 and supports two wineries with MYOB software; Goosecross Cellars in Yountville, CA and Ceja Vineyards in Napa, CA. Sandy advises new users to seek help early on if they don’t understand something. “A certified consultant can take away the pain of setting up a small business so that it runs smoothly in the future, ” she says.
The Taylor family bought 23 acres in Stags Leap District in 1976 and have been growing award winning fruit for over 20 years. They began bottling under their own label in 2002. The Stags Leap District, located directly above Napa Valley, is comprised of soil from volcanic eruptions millions of years ago and old river sediments from where the Napa River once ran. The fruit that grows from this soil result in the “rock soft” wines of the Stags Leap District. The grapes can attribute their excellent balance of acid and sugar to quickly rising temperatures during the day that yield to cool, fresh ocean air in the evening, brought in from the San Pablo Bay.
“We believe that great wines begin in the vineyard. Our primary goal is to develop our wines with a gentle hand in the cellar to enhance the properties of our fruit and the Stags Leap District,” says Sandy.
Results Achieved with MYOB
MYOB AccountEdge has been Taylor Family Vineyard's accounting package since 1995. “AccountEdge is a great accounting software package. If used correctly and kept up to date, it helps me run my business,” says Sandy. “I always know how much money we have in the bank and if we are on target for our sales goals.”
She can also easily keep track of their Wine Club Members and is able to tell which customers have bought from them or if a particular marketing campaign has worked with AccountEdge’s customer tracking reports. “Most importantly, I can determine my Cost of Goods and make smart business decisions about pricing,” she says.
Sandy set up AccountEdge herself, having used the program before when she worked as a controller for another small winery. “Setting it up was simple,” she says. Family owned and operated, they have no paid employees, but make daily use of the Accounts, Sales, Purchases, Inventory and Card File command centers.
AccountEdge’s robust reporting features are used to analyze the state of the business with Customer Sales reports, Jobs Transactions, and Balance Sheets and P&L the reports most important to understanding the financial picture of the company. Sandy also makes use of MYOB’s Merchant Account Service to accept credit cards from customers, and counts on the bank reconciliation features for weekly banking.
“Taylor Family Vineyards is truly a small family owned and operated vineyard and winery. We make great wines and as a result are successful. Because we have a handle on our accounting, it makes it easier for us to make tough decisions.”