01 — Customer records
Build customer records that earn their place.
A wholesale customer is not a retail customer — they buy regularly, expect their pricing to apply, and want their history close to hand. The customer record is the single most-leveraged record in a wholesale operation.
- Capture trading name, account number, contact and delivery address as core fields.
- Attach the pricing rule (band, list, customer-specific) to the customer, not the order.
- Surface payment terms, credit limit and account status at the point of order.
- Keep an order history visible to the counter, not buried in reports.
02 — Trade pricing
Apply trade pricing without staff doing maths.
Trade pricing should apply automatically. When a counter assistant or phone operator enters a customer’s order, the price should already reflect their band, their volume discount and their negotiated lines. Manual price overrides are where margin leaks.
- Build price bands or list pricing that map to customer types.
- Override at the customer level only when an exception exists — and audit it.
- For volume discounts, set the trigger and discount once, centrally.
- Surface margin (or at least price vs cost) at the point of override.
03 — Trade counter sales
Keep the counter fast.
A trade counter exists because customers want speed. Anything that slows the counter — searching for a product, looking up a price, confirming stock — costs both the sale and the relationship. The counter flow should be: scan, confirm, take payment, done.
- Use barcodes or short product codes wherever possible.
- Surface customer-specific pricing automatically.
- Show stock-on-hand at this branch and others without leaving the basket.
- Take payment in cash, card or on-account in the same flow.
04 — Phone orders
Treat phone orders as first-class orders.
For many wholesalers, the phone is the primary channel. The phone-order workflow should give the operator the same context as the counter — customer record, pricing, stock, history — plus a clear way to confirm the order back to the caller.
- Tie inbound calls to the customer record where possible.
- Show the customer’s last orders so re-orders are quick to recreate.
- Confirm the order back in the agreed channel — email, SMS or callback.
- Track missed calls explicitly; assign follow-up to a person, not a queue.
05 — Quotes
Quotes are unfulfilled orders waiting to become real.
A quote is a sales document with a half-life. The longer it sits without conversion, the less likely it is to close. The quote workflow should make conversion to order a single decision — with all the customer, stock and pricing context already attached.
- Build quotes from the same product, pricing and customer records as orders.
- Set expiry dates so quotes do not linger forever with stale prices.
- Track conversion rate per quote, per customer and per salesperson.
- Convert quote to order in one step — never re-enter line items.
A clean quote pipeline converts in one click and inherits the customer’s pricing, history and account terms. The slower the flow, the more quotes go stale before they close.
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1
ENQUIRY
Trade enquiry
Phone, counter or email. Customer lookup runs.
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2
QUOTE
Quote drafted
Customer pricing band auto-applied. Expiry set.
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3
CONVERT
Convert to order
One-click conversion — no re-keying line items.
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4
FULFIL
Pick & dispatch
Stock check, picking note, delivery slot.
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5
SETTLE
Invoice & payment
Generated from delivered order. Margin recorded.
One source — quote, order and invoice all read it.
- Tier A−18%
- Tier B−12%
- Tier Clist
Tracked per customer, salesperson and product family.
- Customer record drives the price applied at every stage — no manual lookups.
- Price bands are set centrally; quotes never start from a blank price field.
- Conversion rate is the metric that tells you whether quotes are working.
06 — Stock & backorder
Promise only what stock can support.
Promising stock you do not have is the fastest way to lose a trade customer. Stock-on-hand, on-order and committed-to-other-orders should all be visible at the moment of order — and backorders should be a known workflow, not an awkward phone call later.
- Show free-to-promise stock at the point of order, not just on-hand.
- Allow split delivery — ship what is available now, backorder the rest.
- Communicate backorder ETA explicitly; do not let customers wonder.
- Reconcile backorders against incoming purchase orders automatically.
07 — Purchasing
Buy from demand pressure, not from comfort.
Wholesale purchasing should react to demand — confirmed orders, backorders, forecast — not to a buyer’s memory of how the line usually moves. A clean replenishment view turns purchasing into a daily 10-minute task.
- Build a replenishment view that combines on-hand, on-order, demand and reorder point.
- Group purchase orders by supplier; minimise per-supplier admin.
- Track supplier OTIF (on-time, in-full) so performance is visible, not assumed.
- For seasonal lines, pre-plan; do not improvise at peak.
08 — Margin
Keep margin honest, line by line.
Wholesale margin death is rarely one big discount — it is a hundred small overrides, untracked. Margin should be visible at the line, at the customer and at the product. When it is, conversations with reps and customers become evidence-based.
- Show margin (or at least cost) at the point of price override.
- Report margin by customer, by product family and by salesperson.
- Track price overrides; investigate any that happen repeatedly.
- Compare list, customer and actual selling prices for stale rules.
09 — Invoices & payments
Tie invoices and payments to the order, not to a separate ledger.
In wholesale, the order, invoice and payment are three states of the same conversation. Keeping them connected — visible from the customer record, traceable from the order — keeps disputes short and chasing efficient.
- Generate invoices from delivered orders; never re-key.
- Track payment status — paid, partial, overdue — against the customer.
- For credit accounts, surface credit limit and ageing at the point of order.
- Reconcile bank payments against open invoices systematically.
10 — Reporting
Wholesale reports for the buyer, the seller and the owner.
Three audiences, three reports. Sellers need customer activity — who is buying, who has gone quiet. Buyers need stock pressure — what to order, from whom. Owners need margin — by customer, product and account. Build all three.
- Customer activity: orders, value, frequency, lapsed accounts.
- Stock pressure: what to order, lead times, backorder coverage.
- Margin: by customer, product family, salesperson; trends not just totals.
- Keep reports drillable to the order, line or customer behind the number.
SUMMARY
The shape of it.
A wholesale operation works when the customer record, the stock record and the margin record all stay close to the order. Most trade counters already know the customers that matter and the products that move. The system should make it easier to act on that knowledge, not harder.