ERP for auto parts distributors
For distributors who supply workshops, retailers and fleets from thousands of part lines. The catalogue is wide, the stock is spread across branches, and the part a customer needs is often in the other warehouse.
What gets hard
Thousands of lines to set up and find
An auto parts range runs to thousands of items, and new lines arrive with every supplier price file. Typing them in one by one is slow and error-prone, and at the counter or in the van a part has to be found in seconds, not by scrolling through a list.
The same part in pieces, boxes and sets
Filters arrive by the box and sell by the piece, plugs go out in sets, oil leaves by the litre and by the carton. If stock is kept in more than one of those, nobody can say how many are really on the shelf.
Every kind of customer expects its own price
A workshop buying every day, a retailer buying in bulk and a walk-in buyer all expect different prices for the same part, and large buyers expect less per piece the more they take. Keeping those prices straight by hand invites mistakes on every invoice.
Stock in one branch, the order in another
Fast movers run out in one branch while they sit in another. Orders arrive for parts that are not in yet, and when stock comes in, it has to go to the customers who waited longest, not to whoever calls first.
How Axon Suite handles it
Bring the catalogue in from a file
Import items from a CSV or Excel file of up to 5,000 rows, with columns matched by their header name. Every row passes the same checks as an item typed on screen, and one bad row means nothing is saved, with every refused row listed by its line.
File imports that land wholeA barcode for each unit of a part
An item can carry several barcodes, each tied to one of its units, with one marked as its main barcode. A barcode cannot be used twice across the company, and reps scan the main one with the phone camera to find the item, even offline.
Several barcodes per itemOne stock figure, traded in any unit
Each item keeps its stock in one base unit and has its own conversions to every other unit it is traded in. A line in boxes lands in stock as pieces, and a line in a unit the item has no conversion for is refused, naming the item and the unit.
Buy by the carton, sell by the pieceA price list for each customer, with quantity breaks
Give a customer a price list of their own, or let them trade on your default. Each list prices an item per unit, with lower prices from a quantity up, and each line takes the highest break it reaches. A customer’s list that is not valid on the document’s date is refused.
Price lists by customer and quantityShort lines wait their turn as backorders
Saving an order holds stock for each line in its warehouse. A line the warehouse cannot cover waits as a backorder, and when stock comes in, through a receipt, a return or a transfer into the warehouse, it goes to the oldest waiting order first.
Stock holds and backordersMove stock between branches in one document
A transfer names where the goods leave and where they land: another warehouse, another bin in the same warehouse, or a rep’s van. Posting it takes the stock out and puts it in at once, and a transfer that would take a bin below zero is refused.
Transfers between warehouses and vans
Guides for this trade
Questions distributors ask
Can we set prices by customer group, such as all workshops?
Not yet. Give each customer a list of their own, or let them trade on your default list, your subsidiary’s before the company-wide one.
Can a box and a single piece have different barcodes?
Yes. Each barcode is tied to a unit, so the box code and the piece code both belong to the item.
Who gets scarce stock when it arrives?
The oldest waiting order. Waiting lines are filled by order date, then line number, as far as the new stock goes.
Does a transfer between branches change the value of stock?
No. The goods keep their cost, and the ledger moves it out of one warehouse and into the other.
