The $1M Decision: Millborn Stays with SalesPad and Dynamics GP

To reach feature parity in BC

Years using SalesPad

Solution flexible enough for Millborn’s needs

The company:

A Seed of Complexity

Millborn is a rapidly scaling specialty seed company providing products—such as grains, forages, native grasses, wildflowers, and turf—to a largely B2B customer base. Unlike commodity seed markets, Millborn deals with complex lot tracking, varied units of measure, and seasonal peaks and troughs in sales and fulfillment.

To manage this operational complexity, Millborn has long relied on Microsoft Dynamics GP, which they implemented in 2009 and paired with SalesPad for sales order management since 2010.They also use WillowWare for their blending and packaging processes.

The Problem:

High Costs to Recreate Functionality in Business Central

As the company scaled rapidly over the last five years, leadership determined it was time to evaluate their core technology, including a formal assessment of a migration to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.

The core challenge was one of flexibility. While Millborn’s rapidly growing operations thrived on a foundation of highly customized, evolving workflows, they worried that implementing a less configurable system like Business Central would lead to a cycle of expensive, required redevelopment every time their internal business processes changed. This potential for ongoing, unpredictable costs quickly became a critical factor in their ERP journey.

After thoroughly scoping the Business Central project, Millborn was faced with a project estimated to cost a seven-figure price tag. The reason? The level of development required to recreate the deep, customized functionality that already worked for their business within Dynamics GP and SalesPad. Critically, this cost was merely for feature parity; Millborn would gain no new functionality.

Marcus Heemstra, CFO at Millborn, summarized the core problem:

“[With our growth], our processes are still changing. So are we going to be investing in additional development time to redevelop the things that we already paid to create in Dynamics GP? Business Central just wasn’t out of the box flexible enough to configure.”

Millborn ultimately chose to stay with their existing platform, recognizing that expanding on their current foundation would provide quicker, more confident ROI than migrating to another ERP.

“If I could compliment the Cavallo team on anything, you really built a flexible tool that people can configure to do a lot of different things in the way they want to.”

Marcus Heemstra

CFO, Millborn

The Solution:

SalesPad for GP Tailormade for Millborn’s Processes

Heemstra credits SalesPad’s inherent flexibility for enabling their team to manage highly complex and seasonal processes efficiently, making their current system far more powerful than a simple Dynamics GP installation.

The platform’s customized configuration delivered critical benefits across speed, complexity, and data management:

Speed and operational efficiency: SalesPad’s intuitive interface and powerful search functionality drastically accelerate daily tasks. Unlike the rigid indexing required in native Dynamics GP—where staff must know specific product numbers or exactly how a customer name starts—SalesPad allows users to search flexibly for customers or items using just a single word. As Heemstra notes:

“The whole order entry and searching functionality is what saves us the most time as a business.”

Managing complex, seasonal workflows: The ability to customize workflows is critical for managing Millborn’s unique agricultural fulfillment seasons. The system allows prioritizing immediate fulfillment orders alongside long-term pre-orders for seasonal shipments. This allows the team to perfectly manage their complex pipeline:

“The workflow functionality is really handy for us to be able to manage pre-orders or bookings and then, when we’re in season, fulfill them or even fulfill same-day orders. We blend these two things together and the workflow helps us keep that straight,” Heemstra said.

Unlocking depth with customization: Millborn leverages SalesPad’s deep customization tools, including extensive scripting and the use of over 100 user-defined fields (UDF). These fields are essential for tracking the lot-specific information required for legal seed testing and quality assurance. Furthermore, scripting manages complex units of measure (UOM), ensuring that whether a customer orders by the pound or by a custom bag size, the order is entered accurately.

“The SalesPad UDF is way better,” Heemstra states, concluding that the platform’s overall flexibility allows them to truly “cater it to your business and what you want to do.”

Sticking with what works:

The ROI of Flexibility

Faced with a seven-figure bill just to maintain the status quo, Millborn made the firm decision to stick with their current, highly efficient and well-loved SalesPad and Dynamics GP environment. They recognized that the investment was better spent continuing to evolve their current system than building a costly, rigid replica in a new platform.

This decision was validated by the realization that SalesPad’s flexibility delivered immense comparative value:

“If I could compliment the Cavallo team on anything, you really built a flexible tool that people can configure to do a lot of different things in the way they want to. We didn’t see that as much with Business Central. So we were getting into this: ‘do we change our process, or do we have to do something to modify it?’ And too many times the answer was modifying it. As that budget kept getting bigger for modifications, and we actually weren’t getting additional functionality—these modifications were really just to get us to the point where we were functioning at approximately the same level we are today with SalesPad—the ROI was no longer there.”

Millborn is now leveraging the cost savings from avoiding migration to focus on high-value, measurable automation projects within their existing environment. This includes implementing the WooCommerce integration with Automation Agent to fully automate the flow of e-commerce orders directly into SalesPad, eliminating manual order entry by their team.

For Millborn, the experience confirmed that the true value of technology is finding systems that are flexible enough to change with the business.

“The really cool and interesting piece about SalesPad is just the flexibility of it. You can take workflow and set rules and really cater it to your business and what you want to do. And it’s relatively simple to do.”

Cavallo’s Commitment:

Unwavering Support for our SalesPad Customers

Millborn’s experience is a powerful testament to the enduring value and flexibility of SalesPad for GP. By avoiding a seven-figure migration cost that offered no functional gains, Millborn is stable, efficient, and confident in their future.

For Millborn and all Dynamics GP clients, Cavallo has one clear message: