When products are either highly perishable or require weekly or even daily replenishment, distributors are keenly interested in any technology that can improve route efficiency and order accuracy. Solid Route Accounting™ can accomplish both of those goals with the help of mobile computers and real-time wireless communication.
The quality of information exchanged between your field sales reps and the corporate office has a significant impact on the efficiency of your sales processes. A route accounting solution, such as Solid Route Accounting™, enables your field sales staff to service the customer, accept purchase orders on-site, provide invoices and collect payment while better-managing customer and truck inventories.
Solid Route Accounting™ enables a two-way exchange of data. As sales orders are sent in, customer and pricing information is automatically updated on the mobile device. This eliminates error-prone paper forms, faxes, and phone-in orders. Below are some of the other key benefits of a route accounting solution for distributors:
Real-Time Customer Inventory Data
Solid Sales Pro™, the mobile sales component of Solid Route Accounting™, uses barcode scanning to track deliveries and returns and helps businesses keep track of sales at each customer site. This enables better manage the product mix at each location and allows companies to document and identify shifts in demand. Having that information on hand also helps the sales team make better recommendations to customers.
Store managers, sales managers, and delivery personnel spend hundreds of hours trying to resolve invoice discrepancies. Solid Route Accounting™ can eliminate this unproductive work by providing real-time, accurate order and invoice data to all parties, along with fast route audit and settlement processes.
Real-time order management helps improve productivity. Better inventory information also helps reduce out-of-stocks and returns. With a better idea of how fast inventory is moving at each customer site, businesses can also reduce stale rates, which improves customer relationships and saves money.
A More Efficient Salesforce
Solid Route Accounting™ puts valuable customer, order, and inventory data right in the hands of sales reps. This reduces manual data entry, paper shuffling, and phone calls required to complete deliveries or answer customer questions. Taking shelf inventory is a snap using a barcode scanner, saving even more time.
Sales representatives can quickly complete the delivery and order-taking process, which gives them more time to spend upselling customers or re-working displays to improve sales. This also helps the reps save time for the customers (who can reduce receiving time) and allows them to complete more stops on their own routes.
Increased Sales
Solid Route Accounting™ provides real-time customer data to sales reps. They can then use this sales history and promotional data to engage with customers more effectively at the point of transaction. They can immediately take advantage of potential add-on or upsell opportunities, provide more competitive pricing and discounts, generate quotes on the spot, and accept payment using their mobile computers.
Reduced Paperwork
With Solid Route Accounting™, you can let customers check their sales information right on the mobile device and collect electronic signatures on the screen. Reps can issue invoices and receipts via email or mobile printers as soon as the delivery is made or payment is collected. View all sales orders on screen, which eliminates the need for bundles of paper order sheets. Removing paper and manual data collection also reduces errors.
This not only saves printing time and paper costs but also eliminates problems associated with lost documents. Immediately upload all of the information into billing, accounting, and inventory systems. If there is a question about an order or delivery later, sales reps can quickly call up that information electronically. The billing cycle is also accelerated because invoices can be generated instantaneously.
Solid Route Accounting™ can make your sales representatives more informed, effective and efficient. This saves time and reduces costs while also enabling the entire team to provide better customer service and boost sales.
For more information, please get in touch with a Solid Product Specialist or refer to the Solid Route Accounting™ for QuickBooks® or Sage 100 product pages.