Sector · Wholesale and distribution

Reporting for wholesale and distribution

Your margin plays out over thousands of lines, between purchasing terms that change and year-end rebates that arrive after the fact. Seeing it item by item means bringing purchasing, sales and stock into one model.

Expert consultants: 11
Projects delivered since 2019: 100+
Of scoping workshop, free: 2 h
Saint-Priest, and the whole region: Lyon

Where the figures come from

The systems we connect in this sector

The sales ERP

Orders, deliveries, invoices, price lists and terms by customer, often across several companies or several warehouses.

Purchasing

Supplier terms, year-end rebates, discounts and trade cooperation budgets, sometimes kept outside the ERP.

Logistics

The WMS or warehouse management: picking, shipping, backorders, returns and locations.

The CRM

Open opportunities, quotes and follow-ups, to compare what is sold with what was promised.

What you follow

The indicators these companies really watch

These are the ones we find from one project to the next. Your list will differ at the edges, and refining it is the work of the scoping workshop.

Margin at line level

Selling price set against the real cost price, rebates included. It is the most requested indicator and the one that takes the most modelling, because the rebate rarely arrives at the moment of the sale.

Service level

Orders delivered complete and on the promised date, with backorders and their age. It degrades before sales do, which makes it an early signal.

Turnover by item

Cover in days, dormant stock and overstock. Crossed with margin, it separates the items that earn from those that tie up cash.

Product and customer mix

What explains a change in overall margin: a volume effect, a price effect, or a shift of the mix towards less profitable items.

Purchasing terms

The gap between the negotiated price and the price actually invoiced, and the tracking of rebate thresholds during the year.

Receivables and customer risk

Aged balance, credit limit overruns and late payments, set against the revenue generated.

What calls for care

The points where these projects are decided

They come back almost every time in this sector. Knowing them in advance changes how the project is run, and the order in which things are done.

Frequently asked

What people ask us about this

Can margin be reliable with year-end rebates?

Yes, and it is the heart of the subject. Three approaches exist: allocate the rebate in proportion to the volume bought, provision it according to the forecast attainment of the thresholds, or leave it out of line margin and show it separately. All three are defensible; what matters is that the rule is chosen by your buyers and written once in the model, rather than recalculated in every report.

Our supplier references change often, is that an obstacle?

It is a known constraint, handled with a historised mapping table: every reference keeps its lineage, and a year-on-year comparison stays possible even when the code has changed. The work is to build it once, then maintain it as the changes come.

How long before a first margin report?

A gross margin report from a single ERP fits in three to ten days. Bringing in year-end rebates, several companies or several item reference sets moves the project towards several weeks, because the work then sits on the alignment and the business rules rather than on the report.

Other sectors

We also work here

Let us talk about your case.

Eleven expert consultantsSaint-Priest, near Lyon, France

Two hours with a consultant to look at your sources, measure the volumes and spot the rules to settle. Free and without commitment.

Request a scoping workshop

No commitment · in Saint-Priest, at your offices or over video