How Valcke Group modernised their logistics with Business Central, Sendcloud & Tasklet

Valcke Group, active in both bowling installations and professional fitness environments, supplies materials and equipment daily to customers in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Eastern Europe. In addition to large installation projects, a significant part of their activities consists of delivering “small goods,” such as bowling balls, pins, shoes, maintenance products, and fitness components.

As order volumes increased and warehouse operations became more complex, Valcke Group realised that their existing logistics processes — based on paper, manual registration, and separate carrier portals — had reached their limits.

They migrated from Dynamics NAV to Business Central and chose NVision’s integrated Sendcloud + Tasklet Mobile WMS solution.

For many years, Valcke Group worked with Dynamics NAV and fully manual processes:

• Printing orders
• Printing pick lists
• Manually writing down serial numbers
• Walking to a fixed workstation
• Opening the UPS portal and re-entering shipment data
• Downloading shipping labels as PDFs
• Manually printing labels and documents
• A back-office employee re-entering all data into NAV

Although this approach worked, it was not scalable, involved many duplicate manual steps, and carried a clear risk of errors — particularly within the fitness division — where serial numbers are required.

With the transition to Business Central, the organisation set the following objectives:

• Integration with UPS
  Without manual steps for warehouse employees.
• Automatic calculation of transport costs on sales documents
  Eliminating the need for back-office corrections.
• A solution that could be implemented quickly
  To ensure a smooth go-live within the planned Business Central migration timeline.
• A solution that works with handheld scanners
  Allowing warehouse employees to register serial numbers directly at the source.

Intercompany dropshipping

One of the key outcomes of the implementation is the fully automated intercompany dropshipping setup at Valcke Group. For this scenario, their Business Central partner Cegeka implemented the complete IT integration required to ensure a seamless intercompany flow between Valcke Group France, Valcke Group Germany, and Valcke Group Belgium - HQ. Thanks to this setup, the organisation can manage complex cross-company logistics without additional operational or administrative burdens.

When a French or German end customer places an order via the online store, a sales order is automatically created in the respective country. This order then generates an intercompany order to the headquarters and central distribution center in Wevelgem, from where the goods are shipped directly to the end customer. Tracking information and delivery status are immediately returned to the local entity.

Through the use of Tasklet Pack & Ship and the integration with Sendcloud, carrier selection, label printing, and carrier notification are fully automated. The end customer immediately receives a personalised email with tracking information via the Sendcloud platform. 

The administrative processing is also fully automated. Shipping costs are automatically recorded in the ERP and added to the intercompany sales order. Once the shipment has been dispatched, the intercompany transaction is automatically posted in France or Germany, and the end customer is subsequently invoiced from the local entity without manual intervention.

With this integrated setup, Valcke Group processes large online store volumes for customers across Europe from one central warehouse. According to Cegeka, this represents a significant advantage for international organizations with centralised logistics and decentralised sales operations.

Partner perspective: fast activation during a major restructuring

During the restructuring of Valcke Group — transitioning from three to seven companies and fully separating the bowling and fitness divisions into distinct legal entities — Cegeka expected that activating the Sendcloud/Tasklet component would require significant effort.

In practice, it proved far simpler than anticipated. What had initially been estimated at half a day to a full day of work ultimately took approximately fifteen minutes in total. According to Cegeka, the solution worked immediately and remained stable. This confirms that the setup is not only straightforward but also technically robust. Even within a complex multi-company landscape operating under a tight deadline.

Handheld scanners in the warehouse

The warehouse now operates with seven handheld scanners: four for bowling, two for fitness, and one test unit. Warehouse employees pick, scan, and ship directly via Tasklet, enabling a continuous pick–pack–ship workflow without having to return to a fixed workstation.

Automatic label creation and cloud printing

Shipping labels are automatically generated in Business Central and sent directly to the correct packing station through advanced cloud printing using PrintNode.

• No more opening PDF files
• No manual printing steps
• No need to access carrier portals

Scaling without adding back-office staff

One of the most impactful improvements turned out to be administrative efficiency. Warehouse and shipping registrations are now recorded directly at the source, eliminating manual back-office work.

“Our back-office employee is still working alone, even though our revenue has doubled over the past two years. In the old situation, we would have needed an additional administrative hire.”

Thanks to the integrated setup within Business Central, Valcke Group was able to scale operations without increasing its administrative headcount.

Impact in the warehouse

With the new setup, operational responsibility has moved closer to execution: warehouse activities are now registered during the process itself rather than afterwards by the back office. This aligns better with day-to-day operations and results in a more accurate and reliable warehouse workflow.

Fitness: major gains through serial number scanning
Within the fitness division, scanning serial numbers delivers immediate and substantial benefits. Manual transcription has been eliminated, reducing the risk of errors and significantly lowering the need for administrative follow-up.

Bowling: a strong foundation with room for further optimization
Within the bowling division, a solid technical foundation is now in place to unlock additional efficiency gains. Thibaut Verbanck indicates that further improvements will primarily come from refining internal processes rather than making changes to the tooling itself.

“The potential is there. By further refining our internal processes, we expect to extract even more value from the current setup.”