ERP for building materials distributors
For distributors of cement, steel, blocks and finishes who sell to contractors on account. The orders are large, the credit is real, and a single order rarely leaves the yard in one delivery.
What gets hard
Large accounts carry real credit risk
Contractors buy on account, and one site order can be worth more than a month of counter sales. When a customer is already deep into their credit, a new order has to wait for someone to decide, yet the pressure to ship it anyway is strongest on the busiest days.
Every contractor trades on their own terms
One customer pays thirty days after the invoice, another at the end of the following month, another on a fixed day. Working out due dates by hand across hundreds of invoices is slow, and knowing who is late, and by how long, depends on getting every one of them right.
Projects start with a quote, not an order
A contractor asks for prices on a bill of quantities, compares offers and comes back weeks later. By then list prices may have moved, and the order has to carry exactly what was quoted, or the argument starts with the first invoice.
One order, many deliveries, many units
A site takes its steel this week and its blocks when the slab is poured. The same cement is sold by the bag, the pallet and the tonne. Stock, shipments and invoices all have to agree on what has actually gone, in whichever unit it was ordered.
How Axon Suite handles it
Every order checked against the customer’s limit
Each customer carries a credit limit. When an order is saved, in the office or the rep app, what the customer has been invoiced less what they have paid, plus the new order, is compared with it. Over the limit, the order is held or refused, as your sales settings say.
Credit limits on every orderDue dates worked out from each customer’s term
Set each term once: net days, days after the end of this month or the next, or a fixed day of the month. Every customer carries a term, their documents start with it, and each due date is calculated from the document date and that term.
Payment terms and due datesQuotes that become orders at the quoted prices
Write the quote from the customer’s price list with an expiry date, print it as a PDF in Arabic and English, and mark it sent. Accepted, it becomes an order with its lines, prices and discount unchanged. Draft and sent quotes past their date expire on their own.
Quotations that become ordersShip what is ready, invoice what went
A shipment opens from the order with everything still to go, and you send the lines and quantities that are ready. The order shows as partially shipped, each invoice is drawn from goods that have left, and the order closes itself once it is shipped and billed in full.
Partial shipping and invoicingBags, pallets and tonnes on the same item
Each item holds its stock in one base unit, with its own conversions to every other unit it is traded in, such as 40 bags to a pallet. Orders, receipts, transfers and counts take any of them, and a line in a unit the item has no conversion for is refused.
Buy by the carton, sell by the pieceWho owes what, and for how long
Aging puts what is still owed on each open invoice into current, 1–30, 31–60 or over 60 days past due, counted from its due date. A statement gives one customer their opening balance, every invoice, payment, credit and refund with the balance after it, printed in Arabic or English.
Aging and party statements
Guides for this trade
Questions distributors ask
Who can release an order held over the credit limit?
Only a user whose role holds approval rights on sales orders. Releasing the hold confirms the order.
Can one order go out to site in several deliveries?
Yes. Each new shipment opens with whatever is still to go, until the order is shipped in full, and each invoice bills what actually left the warehouse.
Can a pallet have a different price from a bag?
Yes. A price list holds a price per item and unit, and each unit carries its own quantity breaks.
Can we email quotes from Axon Suite?
Not yet. Print the quote as a PDF, send it your usual way, then mark it sent in Axon Suite.
