How Newline turned 5+ fragmented systems into one Zoho One ecosystem

For over 40 years, Newline Auction Software has been the trusted choice of livestock auction firms across the UK, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand. After being acquired by a group managing 100+ software brands worldwide in 2021, Newline was immediately required to produce accurate, time-critical reporting, something its fragmented systems made nearly impossible.

• Data silos everywhere: bespoke Access databases, multiple third-party CRMs, separate accounting software and disconnected project management tools, each managed independently by department.
• Manual consolidation: critical business data was painfully brought together through manual spreadsheet compilation and manually-built PowerPoint decks.
• Reporting deadlines at risk: weekly, monthly and quarterly reports demanded consolidated data from all systems with no effective way to produce it.
• Scalability limitations: legacy Access databases offered no cloud collaboration and no meaningful automation.

Axithorn mapped Newline's existing processes to Zoho One's capabilities and designed a phased, department-by-department migration:

• Zoho CRM as the central hub for customer relationships and sales pipeline, replacing multiple legacy systems.
• Zoho Books for financial management, and Zoho Desk for unified support ticketing.
• Zoho Projects for project tracking, connected directly to sales orders and support.
• Custom modules built to handle Newline's complex maintenance invoicing, beyond what the standard Zoho Subscriptions module could support.
• Zoho Analytics with nightly data exports providing consolidated, automated reporting across every department.

The three-year rollout moved through sales and CRM, order processing and finance, support and projects, analytics and reporting, and finally continuous optimisation, giving each department time to adopt before the next phase began.

"Working with and having the support of James from Axithorn has enabled us to rollout solutions far more quickly than we would have done on our own. Newline was one of the first businesses within the group to fully implement and embrace the Zoho suite. We now act as a model and knowledge resource for other businesses within the group, holding regular meetings with 13+ other teams to share our ideas and solutions for meeting both process and reporting requirements."

1. Document before implementation. Carefully mapping existing workflows before migration surfaces requirements and improvement opportunities you'd otherwise miss.
2. Take a phased approach. Don't switch everything on at once; prove success in one department before expanding systematically.
3. Embrace process simplification. Modifying processes to fit standard Zoho functionality delivers more value than forcing old workflows onto new technology.
4. Empower department owners. Nominating module administrators with autonomy to extend functionality accelerates adoption across the business.