Software for wholesale and distribution businesses

Wholesale software has one job: get the right goods, at the right customer's price, onto the right van, and make sure the money comes back. Everything else follows from those four things. EasyTaskr puts orders, stock, credit, deliveries and the day close in one place, so the warehouse, the reps, the counter and the office all work from the same numbers.

What makes running a wholesale business hard?

Wholesale margins are thin and volumes are high, so small errors repeat hundreds of times. The problems are usually the same:

• Prices differ by customer. One shop pays the dealer list, another has an agreed 5% off, a third pays cash and expects more. Staff who have to remember this get it wrong.
• Credit runs ahead of payment. Goods go out on account long before the money comes in. Without a limit checked at the point of sale, a few slow payers can hold a large share of your cash.
• Stock is in motion. Goods arrive short, prices change on the supplier's invoice, and a van leaves before anyone notices a line was never filled.
• Orders come from everywhere. Reps on the road, the trade counter, the phone and customers ordering for themselves.
• The day never quite closes. Cash, card and account sales are spread across people and screens, and the count at night does not match.

The rest of this page shows how each of those is handled on screen.

What does a wholesaler's day look like in EasyTaskr?

It starts before the doors open and ends with the day locked. The steps below follow a sample distributor from the first pick to the evening reports. Every screen named here exists today, and each step links to a tour you can click through.

Step by step

1. Pick the morning's orders. In the warehouse, the picker opens each order's pick wave on a phone, one order at a time. Each line shows the aisle and bay, the product and the quantity, in large type. They scan or type each barcode and the picked count goes up. If only one case is on the shelf, the line stays part-picked and the wave will not complete, so the picker tells the office, who change the order before the van leaves.
2. Load the van in driving order. With the waves complete, the van's stops are listed in the order the route planner worked out, ready for the driver.
3. Check the morning list on Home. The owner opens Home and sees what needs them: orders to deliver, overdue payments and stock running low, with today's sales against yesterday and money owed grouped by age.
4. Take a rep's order at the customer's shop. The rep's planned visits are on their phone. Each visit shows the shop, its address, the time and the purpose, and the rep taps Mark done when the visit is over. The order itself is a new order for that shop: before talking prices the rep sees what the shop owes and the credit left, products go on at the shop's own price list, credit is checked when the order is confirmed, and the order lands in the office already priced.
5. Serve the trade counter, customer first. The till can be set to start every sale by choosing the customer. Their price list, agreed discount and remaining credit are on the cart before the first product. The discount comes off before VAT and is spread across the lines, so the receipt, invoice and VAT agree. Charging to account works inside the limit; over it, the sale stops for a manager.
6. Change an order when a customer rings. Open the order, tap Edit, change a quantity or use Add product, and the new total shows before saving. The order is marked Edited, and its invoice follows the new lines under the same number. Open / Print shows the invoice as it will print.
7. Reorder before it runs out. Products at or under their reorder point are listed together, grouped by usual supplier, with a quantity to bring stock back up. An AI suggestion reads recent sales and the supplier's lead time and explains its reasons. One tap makes a draft purchase order; nothing is sent until you say so.
8. Check goods in against the purchase order. Scan the purchase order number and the expected lines appear. Scanning each case adds one to its line. A short delivery is saved as received short, and the rest stays open on the order. If a price went up, type the new cost on that line. Saving puts the stock up straight away.
9. Chase what is owed. The aged debt report shows money not yet due, up to a month late, up to two months and older, with customers listed oldest first. Payment reminders go out on WhatsApp a day, a week and two weeks after the due date, the last with a statement. Paid invoices are never chased, and a customer can be muted.
10. Watch the deliveries land. The driver's phone shows the stops in order with the address, the order total and a call button. The driver rings in, the office marks each stop delivered or not delivered, and the office list shows the result when it is refreshed.
11. Close the day. End of day shows sales by cash, card and account, payments taken and cash paid out, ending in the cash expected. Type the count, explain any difference in a note and close. Only an owner can reopen a closed day, and the reason is logged.
12. Read the week. Reports show sales against last week, profit, best sellers, slow movers and sales by rep, the counter and the online portal.

Which jobs does each screen take off your hands?

How do customer price lists and discounts work?

Each customer can sit on a price list, and every place an order is taken uses it: the rep's phone, the counter and a customer catalogue link with its own prices. A worked example with plain numbers: a case lists at 100 on the dealer price list, and the customer has an agreed 5% discount. Six cases are 600 before the discount, 30 comes off, and VAT is worked out on the 570 that is left, line by line, with the tenant's VAT rate.

Some distributors give discounts in steps, for example a fixed trade discount, then a discount chosen per order, then extra for paying cash. EasyTaskr has an optional discount scheme for this. Each step is taken from what is left after the one before, the net is rounded once, and quotes and invoices print each step on its own line so the shop can check the sum. It is off until a business switches it on.

To see why the order of discounts matters, read markup vs margin and how to price products.

How do you keep credit under control?

Set a limit per customer, check it before goods leave, and chase by age rather than by size. EasyTaskr shows each customer's balance and the credit left on the rep's order, at the counter and on Home. The ageing view groups what is owed by how late it is, so a small debt that is three months old gets a call before a larger one that is not yet due. Statements can be printed or sent with the last reminder.

Our guide to customer credit for wholesalers covers how to set limits and terms in the first place.

What about printing invoices on older printers?

Many wholesale offices still print on ribbon dot-matrix printers with carbon copies. In Settings, Printers and scanner, the printer type for invoices and proformas can be laser or inkjet, dot-matrix or thermal. Dot-matrix prints black only, bolder and larger. The choice is saved per computer, so the counter and the office can use different printers, and the print preview has the same switch.

What does EasyTaskr not do for wholesalers yet?

Be clear on the limits before you switch. The driver's phone is read-only: the office marks stops delivered, and no signature or photo is captured at the door. Supplier invoices are not read from a photo on the goods-in screen; costs are typed on the line. Purchase orders are never sent automatically. Tax returns are not filed from the system. If any of these are central to how you work, plan for them separately.

How EasyTaskr helps

EasyTaskr gives a wholesaler one set of numbers from the pick wave to the day close: customer prices on every order, credit checked before goods leave, stock checked in by scan across several warehouses, and money owed chased by age. Start with the wholesale tours to see each screen with sample data, then read how to start a wholesale business.