Load in the morning, settle in the evening
Distribution on a route is its own kind of business. Stock leaves the godown on a vehicle, gets billed at shops through the day, and what comes back has to agree with what went out — in goods and in cash, every day, for every salesman.
Billing on the route works without a signal.The settlement is the whole control
Everything in van sales depends on one reconciliation: stock loaded, minus stock sold, minus stock returned, should be nil, and cash collected should match the bills raised. When that is done on paper each evening it is slow, and it is where shortfalls disappear.
When the loading, the billing and the returns are all in one system, the settlement is a screen rather than an argument. Differences are visible the same evening, which is the only time they can usefully be discussed.
The day, in order
Loading against a route
Stock is issued to a vehicle and a salesman for the day, so the van holds a known quantity rather than an approximate one.
Billing at the shop
Invoices are raised on a phone at the counter, with the party's own rates and outstanding already on screen. Billing continues without a signal and syncs when there is one.
Collections on the route
Payments against today's bill and against older outstanding are both recorded where they happen, so the ledger is current rather than updated from a notebook the next morning.
Evening settlement
Loaded, sold, returned and collected, on one screen per salesman per day. What does not reconcile is visible immediately instead of at the end of the month.
This is where most of our work starts
What is described above is how Stock2Track does it out of the box, and for most shops that is the end of the conversation. When it is not — when your business does this one step differently and the difference matters — that part gets built. Over two hundred customers run a version of Stock2Track altered in some way for how they work.
How custom development worksQuestions owners ask
Does it work where there is no network?
Yes. Route billing is built to run without a connection and to sync when one is available, because that is the normal condition on most routes.
Can different parties have different rates?
Yes, and on a route they usually do. Party-wise rates and schemes are applied automatically, so the salesman is not deciding rates at the counter.
What about goods returned from the shop?
Returns are recorded at the point they happen and come back into the settlement, so a credit given on the route does not have to be reconstructed later.