Inside A.C. Moore's LP Audit Overhaul

By Erin Harris, Editor-In-Chief, Cell & Gene
Follow Me On Twitter @ErinHarris_1

September 2014 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

A new automated compliance audit management tool helped A.C. Moore shave nearly two hours from its audit process.

Arts and crafts superstore A.C. Moore operates 140 stores on the East Coast. Steven Werner, director of loss prevention, explains that a 140-store audit process can be laborious and cumbersome if it is done manually. When Werner joined the A.C. Moore team nearly two years ago, the specialty retailer relied on a paper-based audit process that lacked the flexibility necessary to benefit the entire organization. In order to maintain compliance and reduce shrink, Werner set out to find an automated solution that would streamline the entire audit process.

When Werner joined A.C. Moore, the LP team relied on one audit, “the loss prevention audit,” for both loss prevention and in-store operations. “It was the exact same audit,” laments Werner. “It lacked flexibility; we couldn’t separate the scores, and we couldn’t separate an LP audit from an operations audit.” Werner also explains that his team had no administrative rights to the audits. His team had to work with a third-party company to make any kind of changes.