Distribution runs on thin margins and high volumes, which is an unforgiving combination: a small percentage error repeated across thousands of lines is the difference between a profitable year and a flat one. Most distributors do not have a sales problem. They have a visibility problem.
Margin by customer, product and salesperson
The aggregate gross margin tells you almost nothing. The useful version is margin per customer after discounts, returns, delivery cost and credit terms, and margin per product after rebates and landed cost. Distributors who look at this for the first time commonly find that a meaningful share of their customers are being served at or below cost, usually the ones who negotiate hardest.
Landed cost, not invoice cost
Freight, duty, clearance, insurance and bank charges belong on the item, not in a general expense account. Without landed costing, every margin figure in the business is optimistic by a variable amount, and the variation is largest exactly where it matters, on imported lines with long lead times.
Credit control that is enforced, not advisory
Credit limits that live in a policy document are suggestions. Limits enforced at order entry, with a defined override and a named person who can grant it, are control. The alternative is the familiar conversation where a large receivable is discovered at the same moment the customer stops answering the phone.
Van sales and the gap between the truck and the ledger
A mobile application that handles orders, deliveries, returns and cash collection at the point of sale closes a gap that paper never does: stock on the vehicle is a real quantity, collections are recorded when taken rather than at the end of a route, and settlement at the end of the day is a reconciliation rather than a negotiation.
Expiry, batch and the stock nobody wants to discuss
Batch and expiry tracking is a regulatory requirement in some categories and a commercial one in all of them. Combined with ageing reports that nobody can ignore, it forces the decision to discount or write off while the stock still has value, instead of at the point when the only option left is disposal.
A first phase that pays for the second
Stock accuracy and landed costing first, because every other number depends on them. Credit control and customer margin reporting next, which is usually where the first real money appears. Van sales and warehouse automation after that, once the data they will feed is worth feeding.