Wholesale: items, prices and ordering without duplicate maintenance
In distribution it is not the goods that decide the margin, but the maintenance around them: item master data that looks different in three systems, customer prices and volume tiers held in spreadsheets grown over years, supplier price change notices arriving in every conceivable format. We capture those workflows, name the points that consume the most manual work, and build the connections that reduce the effort for good.
Wholesale and technical distribution rest on a simple equation: many line items, thin margins, high frequency. That is precisely why every minute of manual work per transaction shows up directly in the result. A business with ten thousand active items, three price levels and two hundred suppliers rarely loses its time to spectacular mistakes. It loses it to small things: to an item number written one way in purchasing and another way in sales, to a price change notice someone retypes into a spreadsheet, to an availability enquiry that takes three phone calls. This page describes which workflows typically tie up effort in distribution, where technology genuinely takes work away, and where the decision has to stay with your people.
Where we start in distribution
Where time is actually lost in distribution
When we start a review in a distribution business, we first hear about the big themes: breadth of range, availability, competitive pressure. The effort, however, becomes visible somewhere else — at the handovers between purchasing, master data maintenance, sales, the warehouse and accounting. That is where the same details are touched several times, because no system takes over what another one already holds. The following six areas appear in almost every review, whether the business trades in fasteners, electrical supplies, plumbing products or food.
Item master data in several systems
Item number, description, unit of measure, packaging unit, conversion factor, commodity code, weight, country of origin: these details rarely sit in one place only. They also live in the purchasing list, in the marketing catalogue document and in a spreadsheet the field sales team works from. Where one version differs, the result is wrong freight costs, wrong quotes and a query with every order.
Price maintenance by hand
List price, customer price, volume tier, promotional price, negotiated net price: price levels grow over the years. If they are maintained in a spreadsheet and then transferred into the inventory system, accuracy depends on the care of individual people. Every price round then means several days of concentrated transfer work, and nobody can say afterwards which version applied when.
Supplier lists in many formats
One supplier sends a semicolon-separated file, the next a table full of merged cells, the third a PDF of price change notices, the fourth offers a data interface. Every format is prepared differently, usually by the same person who has learned the knack over years. If that person is away, purchase price maintenance stops.
Ordering and replenishment
Order proposals come from minimum stock, lead time and sales history — or from experience, when the system does not hold those parameters properly. Minimum order quantities, tier advantages and open back orders are often tracked separately, in someone's head or on a list. The result is either excess stock or an inability to supply popular lines.
Availability enquiries
The most frequent question in sales is: when can I deliver? If answering it requires checking free stock, open orders, goods on order and the supplier's confirmed date in different screens, every answer costs minutes. With several hundred enquiries a week, that becomes a staffing question.
Returns and credit notes
Returns are everyday business in distribution: ordered in error, delivered in error, damaged, discontinued lines. Every case needs a decision about resaleability, putaway and credit. Without a defined workflow, returns sit on a floor space in the warehouse while the credit note waits for a message nobody has sent.
Item master data: one number, several truths
Why master data is the core of every distribution project
Almost every point of friction in distribution traces back to master data. An order goes wrong because the packaging unit held in purchasing differs from the one held in sales. A shipment costs too much because the item has no weight and dispatch calculates with an estimate. A quote cannot be defended because the description comes from an outdated catalogue version. We therefore begin with a sober stocktake: which detail is held where, which system prevails in the event of a discrepancy, and who is allowed to change which field. Only once those questions are answered is technical work worthwhile. Dependent systems can then be fed through data integration instead of being maintained one by one.
- One leading system per field, written down rather than tacitly assumed
- Mandatory fields for new items, so gaps never arise in the first place
- Unit of measure, packaging unit and conversion factor aligned across all systems
- Discontinued and successor items held as data rather than described in comment fields
- Supporting details such as commodity code and country of origin maintained in one place
| Detail | Leading system | Finding |
|---|---|---|
| Packaging unit | Inventory system | purchasing 6, sales 1 |
| Weight per item | Inventory system | 312 items with no value |
| Item description | Catalogue maintenance | aligned |
| Commodity code | Inventory system | maintained |
| Successor item | Inventory system | held in a comment field |
Price maintenance: list price, customer price, volume tier
Pricing is the most sensitive area in distribution, because it acts directly on the margin and because mistakes only surface when the customer checks the invoice. It is also the area where a spreadsheet is most often in use — not out of negligence, but because the main system does not cover a particular calculation. Such side tables are no annoyance to us; they are the best possible clue as to which requirement has gone unmet so far. During the analysis we capture every price level separately and clarify how it comes about, who may change it, and how a change reaches order entry.
- The origin of every price level named: calculated from purchase price, fixed agreement or promotion
- Customer prices and discount groups held traceably instead of in side tables grown over years
- Volume tiers and minimum quantities held in the system, not in the memory of the sales team
- Supplier purchase price changes imported and given a validity date
- The effect of a purchase price change on the affected selling prices made visible
- History preserved: which price applied on which day for which customer
- Rebate and back-margin agreements handled as their own workflow instead of a year-end surprise
Scope: connecting an online shop
Ordering, availability and back orders
Replenishment that does not rely on memory
In many businesses replenishment works because one experienced person knows what runs short in spring and which supplier typically delivers two weeks later than confirmed. That knowledge is valuable, but it is written down nowhere. We turn it into held data: maintained lead times, minimum and reorder levels, minimum order quantities per supplier and a traceable view of back orders. The order proposal does not replace the decision, it prepares it, so purchasing checks instead of searching. Combined with a dependable availability view in sales, the number of queries between departments drops noticeably (project experience).
- Order proposal from stock, sales history, open orders and back orders
- Lead times maintained per supplier instead of estimated
- Minimum order quantities and tier advantages taken into account in the proposal
- Supplier order confirmations recorded, date deviations made visible
- Availability answered from one view instead of across several screens
Picking and returns
From the picking list to the parcel
Picking errors rarely come from carelessness; they come from paper: a picking list in order sequence rather than in walking sequence, missing bin locations, similar item numbers without a distinguishing description. We capture the route through the warehouse and bring list, bin location and parcel build into an order that matches how the work actually happens — often without any new technology, purely through how the documents are laid out.
Delivery note, dispatch advice and invoice
A picked order produces a delivery note, a dispatch advice and an invoice. If those documents are created one after another in different programmes, partial deliveries and back orders easily get out of step. We make sure each document arises from the previous one, and close the gap to accounting with a controlled handover rather than a printout.
Returns with a defined workflow
A return needs a number, a reason, an inspection and a decision. If all of that is organised through a mailbox, the case gets lost between the warehouse, sales and accounting. A defined workflow with a return number, an inspection step and automatic preparation of the credit note keeps the volume of open returns visible at all times.
Where technology helps — and where your people decide
| Task in distribution | Well suited to technology | Remains a human decision |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase prices from supplier lists | Import, format check, validity date, deviation report | Handling unusual jumps and whether the increase is accepted at all |
| Selling prices | Applying the calculation rule, proposing affected items, keeping history | Enforcing a price with a long-standing customer and exceptions under competitive pressure |
| Order proposal | Calculating from stock, history, back orders and lead time | Bringing an order forward because of expected shortage or promotional goods |
| Availability enquiry | Combining free stock, open orders and confirmed dates | Committing to a customer when the date is tight |
| Accepting returns | Return number, status tracking, preparation of the credit note | Goodwill decisions and judging the condition of the goods |
| Claims against suppliers | Collecting documents, monitoring deadlines, triggering reminders | The negotiation and how far the business relationship can be strained |
Goodwill stays with management
Whether a customer receives a credit note outside the agreement depends on the relationship, not on a rule. We model such cases as an exception route: the transaction is recognised, held and put in front of the responsible person — with everything needed for the decision. What gets automated is the preparation, not the judgement.
Do not force rare special cases
Drop shipments, made-to-order items, project business with a different calculation: where a case occurs a handful of times a year, the effort of modelling it fully is rarely justified. We say so openly and describe a clean manual route instead, so that the exception is at least documented.
Range decisions
Which item is listed, delisted or replaced by a successor is a commercial decision. Technology can prepare it: turnover and sell-through patterns, stock coverage and slow movers can be made visible through metrics and reporting. The choice itself is nobody else's to make.
Approvals that reach the outside world
Price approvals, credit limits and delivery holds act directly on customers. We deliberately set such steps up to require confirmation. In distribution, an automation that stops and asks when in doubt is worth considerably more than one that quietly runs through.
Entry point for distributors · net plus VAT
- Review in purchasing, master data maintenance, sales and the warehouse
- Rated by working time consumed per year and by implementation effort
- Written report with an estimated price per measure
- A fixed price for implementation only once scope and system landscape are known
The process analysis is the entry point: we capture one clearly defined workflow in your business — the maintenance of purchase prices, say, or the route from order to credit note — and present a written report with prioritised measures. For one defined workflow at a single site, the analysis is 1,900 € net. Implementation afterwards starts at 4,900 € net per automation or interface as a fixed price set after the analysis, and ongoing support at 190 € net per month. All prices net plus VAT; details on the pricing overview.
Prices as of September 2026. Ongoing services are booked individually and can be cancelled monthly; there is no minimum term.
How a distribution project runs
Initial call
We clarify which workflow currently costs you the most time: purchase price maintenance, availability enquiries, returns handling or the handover to accounting. You receive a first assessment of whether an analysis is worthwhile, plus a written scope with dates and price.
Review during normal trading
We accompany the workplaces concerned on an ordinary day: order entry, master data maintenance, purchasing, picking, goods returns. We ask to be shown the same case twice, because the second time the exceptions come up — drop shipment, partial back order, differing packaging unit. Those exceptions are what later determine the scope.
Systems and data routes
In parallel we record which programmes are in use, where which details are held and which lists serve as unofficial interim storage. That includes the question of which files suppliers send and in what form, and whether existing interfaces are already used. The outcome is a map of your data routes that lives on in the process documentation.
Report with prioritised measures
Every finding gets a frequency, an estimated annual effort and a measure with an estimated price. The order deliberately starts with small, safe steps: when the first measure is noticeable in daily work, the team carries the larger undertakings. The report belongs to you and remains usable even if you award the implementation elsewhere.
Implementation at a fixed price
Depending on the findings, that is process automation for recurring manual work, an interface between the inventory system and the accounting system, or properly consolidating item and price data through data integration. If paper is in the way, the topic is document digitisation; if an old programme no longer carries the workflow, it is legacy replacement.
Rollout and operation
Before acceptance we test with real transactions from your business, including the awkward ones. Those involved receive a short set of instructions and a briefing through training and rollout. Afterwards we can monitor the transfers we set up as part of operations and maintenance, so that a run which failed to happen is noticed the same day rather than at the month-end close.
We clarify which workflow currently costs you the most time: purchase price maintenance, availability enquiries, returns handling or the handover to accounting. You receive a first assessment of whether an analysis is worthwhile, plus a written scope with dates and price.
We accompany the workplaces concerned on an ordinary day: order entry, master data maintenance, purchasing, picking, goods returns. We ask to be shown the same case twice, because the second time the exceptions come up — drop shipment, partial back order, differing packaging unit. Those exceptions are what later determine the scope.
In parallel we record which programmes are in use, where which details are held and which lists serve as unofficial interim storage. That includes the question of which files suppliers send and in what form, and whether existing interfaces are already used. The outcome is a map of your data routes that lives on in the process documentation.
Every finding gets a frequency, an estimated annual effort and a measure with an estimated price. The order deliberately starts with small, safe steps: when the first measure is noticeable in daily work, the team carries the larger undertakings. The report belongs to you and remains usable even if you award the implementation elsewhere.
Depending on the findings, that is process automation for recurring manual work, an interface between the inventory system and the accounting system, or properly consolidating item and price data through data integration. If paper is in the way, the topic is document digitisation; if an old programme no longer carries the workflow, it is legacy replacement.
Before acceptance we test with real transactions from your business, including the awkward ones. Those involved receive a short set of instructions and a briefing through training and rollout. Afterwards we can monitor the transfers we set up as part of operations and maintenance, so that a run which failed to happen is noticed the same day rather than at the month-end close.
Which of these steps your case actually needs is decided by the report, not by a salesperson. Some businesses first need order in their item master data before an interface makes any sense at all. Others have clean data but lose their time at the handover between the warehouse and accounting. The services page gives the full picture; other sectors are covered under industries, and the regional overview is under regions.
Evidence, retention and data protection in distribution
In distribution, more record-keeping duties hang on the workflows than in many other sectors, because every transaction is a commercial and a tax event at the same time. We are not legal or tax advisers and give no advice on those matters. What we do watch is that a technical solution makes record-keeping easier rather than harder — and that it does not present your tax firm with a fait accompli. We raise the following points regularly in distribution projects so that they are settled early rather than at the next audit.
- Traceability and immutability: documents relevant to bookkeeping must remain traceable later in their original form. We therefore log automated handovers completely instead of letting them run quietly in the background.
- Retention: commercial and tax law set retention periods for books, documents and business correspondence. Which period applies to which document is a matter for your tax firm; we set up storage so that the agreed period can be met technically.
- Electronic invoicing: staged requirements for electronic invoices apply to business-to-business invoicing in Germany from 2025 onwards (Federal Ministry of Finance). We set up outgoing and incoming invoicing so that structured invoice formats can be processed.
- Product-related evidence in technical distribution: safety data sheets, declarations of conformity, batch and serial numbers belong with the transaction and not in a separate mailbox. They should be findable alongside the delivery note.
- Registration and take-back duties: distributors have their own reporting and take-back duties for packaging, electrical equipment and batteries. The quantities required can usually be derived from existing movement data rather than counted separately.
- Foreign trade: commodity code, country of origin and supplier declarations belong in the item master. Maintained there, they no longer have to be looked up for every export shipment.
- Data protection: customer data in distribution is largely business data, but it contains named contacts and therefore personal details. Processing and storage take place in Germany, access is limited to what is necessary and agreed in writing.
The best moment is before the price round
Typical starting situations from conversations with distributors
Illustrative scenarios from typical project sequences (project experience), anonymised and without customer details. No outcomes are promised.