Rajveer Shekhawat
When it comes to using software in a distribution business, many of us think that accounting software is all that's needed. It will do the billing and bookkeeping. That’s all expected from software, especially in case of small scale businesses. It’s true as well, to some extent.
But as a business grows, the number of employees, customers, products, orders, etc increase, together with it comes a lot of operational and managerial work apart from accounts. Typically beyond 3-4 employees, 100 customers and 20-30 orders per day, it starts becoming overwhelming for the business owners to efficiently manage and operate their distribution business.
Beyond this stage, typical accounting software is of limited help. It’s essential but isn’t enough. It can keep accounts of your invoicing, payments, stocks, receivables, payables, etc but won’t be able to help much in management and operations.
Let’s consider some functionality that becomes necessary to grow and scale your distribution business.
- Orders
- Taking orders in App rather than in diaries in the field.
- Auto conveying of order from field to warehouses.
- Controlling schemes and discounts.
- Tracking beat routes visited by salesmen.
- Credit Control
- Stop billing customers in case of poor credit history.
- Outstanding and due payment warnings.
- Payments
- Tracking Cash & Cheque collection by salesmen.
- SMS notifications on payments.
- Access Control for Staff
- Limiting access to software on a need-to-know basis.
These are only a few examples. Accounting software typically used in India can’t help with most of these. So a significant amount of your time and energy goes in resolving operational inefficiencies, which could be easily saved by use of software.
These were the exact challenges faced by Mr. Sanjeev Khurana, a distributor based in Chandigarh when he approached us. He was using only accounting software, the one commonly used in India. A lot of effort was getting wasted in, collecting orders from salesmen over calls; feeding them into accounting software; wrong products being packed & non-acceptance of deliveries; cash lost while payment collection; a lot of money remaining stuck in the market because of credit mismanagement and many others.
We knew what his business needed, an integrated solution that could help him not just with the accounting but also these operational and managerial aspects of his distribution business.
A Distribution Management Software does exactly that. It lets you take orders, track payment collections, generate invoices, control credit, keep track of deliveries, track your salesmen, manage your purchases, maintain inventory and manage other operations, together with your accounting.
Once we deployed our solution in Mr. Khurana’s business, most of these avoidable everyday problems were resolved and he could focus more of this time in solving bigger challenges in business. Still wondering why you need a Distribution Management Software for your business?
To put it in simpler words, thinking that, “Only an accounting software is needed to grow distribution business and not a management software specially built for it”, is like thinking, “Only an accountant is needed to grow a distribution business and not a manager specializing in it.”
So, for your business to be competitive, to grow and to maintain its position in the current cut-throat market of technology-age, you need an all-encompassing system to manage your operations along with your finances and that can only be achieved through an integrated distribution management software and not just accounting software.
