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George K. Gregory & Associates is now Tech85
NetSuite integration and custom PDF reader power global scale for beauty manufacturer-distributor
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With Tech85, the beauty products manufacturer revamped their order management, cutting processing time from 45 minutes to 2 minutes per order. After ten years of collaboration, Rare Beauty Brands saw 8,000 labor hours saved, $500,000 in reduced processing costs, and a vastly shorter order-to-cash cycle.
Headquartered in Boston, MA, Rare Beauty Brands creates premium beauty and skincare products for a global market. Their flagship brand Patchology reaches customers across North America, Europe, and Australia through partnerships with Ulta, Nordstrom Rack, and Sephora. After pivoting from medical devices to beauty products in 2013, the company expanded rapidly and now serves 2,500 independent retailers alongside major chains.
Beauty products
NetSuite, Shopify
2,500 customers
EDI, custom ERP integration, PDF reader
The Challenge
When Michael Jordan, Vice President of Operations at Rare Beauty Brands, first attempted EDI, he used TrueCommerce. "It was painful," Jordan recalled. "It never flowed as easily as it should." As one of thousands of TrueCommerce customers, support tickets sat for days while orders remained unshipped. International operations posed additional headaches — UK and European retailers sent purchase orders exclusively via PDF, requiring manual entry that consumed up to 45 minutes per order.
After transitioning from QuickBooks to NetSuite, Rare Beauty Brands faced a disjointed tech stack. Their warehouse management system (WMS), NetSuite instance, and Shopify stores operated in isolation. Month-end closing dragged on for 3-4 weeks as employees manually reconciled data across platforms. Jordan explained, "We were downloading reports from our 3PL provider, some reports from Shopify, and then importing them into NetSuite. Then somebody would have to manually fulfill all those orders."
As Rare Beauty Brands began working with Home Shopping Network (HSN), they encountered a new degree of EDI complexity. Unlike traditional retail fulfillment where products ship to distribution centers, HSN required real-time order processing and direct shipment to end customers. It wasn’t “just standard EDI,” Jordan explained. “We’re doing direct-to-consumer shipping.” This meant they needed integrations for the WMS to communicate with HSN's platform in real-time.
The Solution
Tech85 began with core EDI setup and systematically added custom integrations as Rare Beauty Brands expanded their retail network. Their initial EDI work provided immediate value: "I don't remember an EDI setup that Tech85’s team did that took longer than two weeks," Jordan stated. This efficiency became apparent in conversations with new retail partners: "We'd be on calls with Ulta, and they’d say EDI setup is six to eight weeks. I'd say no, we should have it done in six to eight days.”
For international orders, Tech85 developed an automated PDF reader system. When customer service receives a PDF purchase order from retailers like Sephora Europe, they place it in a monitored cloud folder. The system instantly detects new files and converts them to EDI format, eliminating manual data entry while maintaining document integrity.
The most significant project involved integrating Rare Beauty Brand’s NetSuite ERP to their 3PL provider’s WMS. Tech85 created automated data flows for orders, shipments, and fulfillment across all channels. "Now all that information is flowing automatically between them — NetSuite, the warehouse, and our retail partners," Jordan explained.
The Results
Tech85’s PDF reader system simplified order processing from a 45-minute manual task to a 2-3 minute automated workflow. This improvement impacts 75-100 orders monthly, primarily benefiting European operations where PDF orders dominate. Over their 10-year partnership with Tech85, this automation has saved Rare Beauty Brands 8,000 work hours.
By simplifying the order-to-cash cycle, Rare Beauty Brands eliminated an entire full-time position previously dedicated to manual processing. This optimization delivered $500,000 in cumulative savings since 2015. More importantly, it accelerated month-end closing from a 3-week process to just 10 days, giving the team faster insights into business performance.
With automated workflows in place, Rare Beauty Brands seamlessly expanded their retail network. Their unified EDI system now connects major retailers like Ulta and Sephora Europe with thousands of independent sellers. What started as a single EDI connection grew into a global distribution network processing millions in orders annually.
Jordan reflected on Tech85’s impact: “I view them as an extension of our team and not some third-party that we work with. They are effectively our EDI software team.” That’s because Tech5 solves root causes instead of symptoms and transforms each challenge into a systematic improvement.
This approach helped Rare Beauty Brands scale from basic EDI to a sophisticated global network, with a custom NetSuite integration, automated order processing, and efficient warehouse management. The result: flexible, custom-fit solutions delivered by a partner invested in long-term success.
Tech85's automation cut our order processing from 45 minutes to 2 minutes, saving us $500,000 in processing costs. Their solution didn't just save money — it transformed how we do business."
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