ERP for water and beverage distributors
For distributors who run water and drinks to homes, offices and shops on fixed daily routes. Each drop is small, there are dozens of them, and every one has to end the day in the van’s stock and the rep’s cash.
What gets hard
Dozens of drops on every route, every day
A route rep may call on forty customers before noon, in an order that only works if it is planned. Stops get skipped, customers get added on the way, and without a record of what was planned against what was done, a missed customer goes unnoticed for weeks.
The van has to carry the right load
Each morning the van leaves with what the day should need. Load too little and drops are lost; load too much and stock rides around all day. Every carton taken out of the warehouse still has to be traceable to the van that carried it.
Cash from every drop must add up by evening
Small drops are often paid at the door, in cash, by card or by transfer. By the end of the day a rep holds money from dozens of customers, and the office has to know whether it matches what was sold before the next day starts.
Signal drops out between stops
Basements, towers, industrial areas and long roads all lose coverage. A rep who cannot invoice without signal either stops selling or writes it on paper, and paper invoices come back late, get typed in again, and are sometimes entered twice.
How Axon Suite handles it
Weekly journey plans that become the day’s route
Put each rep’s customers on weekdays from a map, in the order they are visited. At midnight in your time zone the plan becomes that day’s route in the rep app. A skipped stop needs a reason from your list, and unplanned visits are counted apart from planned ones.
Weekly journey plans on a mapThe van is a warehouse, loaded by transfer
Every van is a stock location of its own under a parent warehouse. The rep asks for a load from the rep app, limited to the items in their catalogue, and it is saved as a draft transfer. The stock moves into the van when the transfer is posted.
Loading and unloading the vanSelling, invoicing and collecting with no signal
Check-ins, orders, invoices, payments and returns are saved on the phone when there is no signal, then sent once it returns. Each one keeps the day of the sale and is sent only once, however often it retries. Credit, catalogue and discount rules run on the server when it arrives.
Selling from the van with no signalA blind cash and stock close every evening
At the end of the day the rep counts the van’s stock, then the cash and the card or transfer takings. By default the count is blind, without the figures the system expects. The office approves the close, and any difference posts to your over and short account.
End-of-day cash and stock closeThe whole field on one screen
The field dashboard shows the day’s visits, sales and collections for every rep, closes to approve and van counts that do not match, planned customers with no completed visit in two or four weeks, and each rep on a map with the day’s stops numbered in order.
The supervisor’s field dashboardVan invoices print with their QR
Axon Suite signs each invoice as it posts and prints its QR on the rep’s Bluetooth printer and on the office PDF. An invoice the rep raised offline gets its QR once the van syncs, and a credit note is signed and carries its QR like an invoice.
Signed invoices with their QR
Guides for this trade
Questions distributors ask
Does Axon Suite plan the best road route?
No. It can order a day nearest first from the rep’s warehouse by straight-line distance, and you can drag stops into any order.
Can a rep load the van with no signal?
No. Loading and unloading need a connection, and so does the end-of-day close.
Can the rep see how much cash they should have?
Only if you allow it. By default the count is blind and the expected figures appear only to the office.
Can a rep take a return during the drop?
Yes, against one of the customer’s invoices or without one, even with no signal. Your field settings decide whether it is approved, received and credited on the spot.
