A parts business where customers can finally find the right part themselves

The Challenge

The hardest question in the business is 'which part is it?'

Hagar supplies parts and service for commercial foodservice equipment across Oklahoma and Texas. Its biggest day-to-day challenge is identifying the part a customer needs, which kept every order tied to a phone call with someone who knew the equipment.

Behind the counter, the retail system had to work with shipping, sales tax, card payments and receivables — and when the tax link produced missing or duplicate transactions, the finance team spent each month correcting them by hand.

National restaurant chains wanted their own ordering sites with contract pricing, approvals and tax exemptions, which the existing store couldn't support.

The Strategy

Make the catalog navigable, then make the back office reconcile

PeakBeyond's view was that a parts business lives or dies on navigation, not on search alone. We rebuilt the store around manufacturer and model — with model categories built from Hagar's own item lists, model images and a parts request path for anything not listed.

For the back office we pushed for reconciliation rather than firefighting: a daily audit between the tax service and the retail system, a review of the integration itself, and vendor sessions when accounting distributions fell out of balance.

As the systems aged, we advised replacing them rather than patching: one ERP as the system of record and a B2B commerce platform beside it, chosen through a proper evaluation.

The Solution

A parts store, connected operations and ongoing IT leadership

PeakBeyond works as Hagar's technology group: leading projects, managing vendors and setting direction.

PeakBeyond worked with Hagar Restaurant Service's internal team and specialized technology partners to:

• Rebuilt the parts store around manufacturer and model navigation, with a per-model parts index built from licensed data sets, a parts request page, customer-specific pricing and personalized search
• Built B2B ordering sites for national accounts — contract pricing, quote-first ordering, approvals, tax exemptions, dropship and store pickup, all flowing into the back office
• Connected the back office to shipping, card payments and receivables automation, including invoice PDFs out and cash receipts back in
• Took sales tax and accounting reconciliation in hand: vendor fixes, a daily audit, and an emergency session when distributions fell out of balance
• Leads the selection and architecture of a new ERP and B2B commerce platform, with a master field map and the ERP as the system of record
• Serves as fractional IT leadership — servers, backups, security, monitoring and software decisions, including standing up systems for a new sister service company

The Results

Customers self-serve, finance reconciles, and the next platform is chosen

The rebuilt parts store launched in early 2022 with manufacturer and model navigation, followed by the search personalization phase, so customers can find parts without a phone call.

Accounting distributions stayed in balance in the weeks after the emergency reconciliation, and tax handling moved from monthly manual correction to a checked daily process.

In 2026 Hagar selected a new ERP and a new B2B commerce platform with PeakBeyond leading the selection and now guiding the architecture.

Hagar has gone from a phone-and-paper parts business to one with self-service ordering, reconciled books and a clear technology roadmap.