The complete distributor guide: from order to reports

The whole distribution cycle at a glance

A distributor's work is one chain: you buy goods, offer them to shops, receive an order, pick it, deliver it, collect the money and finally count what you earned. A mistake at any link costs more at the links that follow: a wrong price becomes an argument at delivery, a missed item becomes an angry shop, and a number copied by hand becomes an unexplained shortage in the evening.

This guide walks through the chain in order. For each link it tells you what to have ready, what most often goes wrong and how to handle it. Some topics have an article of their own; this one is the whole picture, so it is clear how the parts connect.

Catalog, prices and zones: what you sell, at what price and where you deliver.
Shops: who orders from you and how you connect with them.
Orders: how they arrive, change and move through statuses.
Picking and loading: how an order is prepared for delivery.
Delivery and cash: how it is completed and recorded on the spot.
Reports: what you sold, who buys and where time is lost.

Link one: catalog, prices and zones

A shop orders only what it sees, so everything begins with the catalog. A clean catalog is the base of every later step: the picking list, the driver's list and the reports are all filled from its data.

Give each product a clear name, a unit (piece, case) and a price.
Grouping into categories saves the shop time, especially when there are hundreds of products.
Change a price in one place and let it update for every shop at once.
Make promotions time-limited so that the price returns on its own when they end; Strelf has a "prices and deals" page for this.

Delivery zones belong to this step too. Zones cover all of Georgia (the 10 districts of Tbilisi and 63 municipalities), and a company chooses by region where it delivers. Start where you already go today, and add a new zone only when you have several shops there and the route fits logically.

Link two: shops and connections

In Strelf a shop sees only the distributors that have approved it. The shop finds a distributor by its identification code (9 or 11 digits) and sends a request, and you approve it on the "Shops" page. This protects you from unnecessary and unknown orders.

In the first week connect with a few regular shops and invite them yourself; the rest will follow step by step.
A shop registers with its own identification code, which is checked on RS.ge, so the data can be trusted.
Explain to the shop that the service costs it nothing and that payment on delivery still stays with you, in cash.
The shop's address matters: it places a pin on the map and the zone comes from it, so before the first order check that it landed in the right zone.

Link three: orders and how they change

An order should appear in one list with a status: received, picked, on the way, delivered. This one list replaces calls, chats, notebooks and copying by hand in the evening, so give its integrity more attention than anything else.

Accept an order and confirm it to the shop at once, so it knows you can see it.
Set a cut-off for changes, for example before picking starts, and tell every shop the same way.
Always record a cancellation with its reason, so over time you can see whether one reason keeps coming back.
If a product is out of stock, tell the shop before delivery, not at the door.

Link four: picking, loading, delivery and cash

Picking and delivery do not work separately. The better an order is picked, the faster it is loaded and the fewer disagreements there are at delivery.

Close orders the evening before so the picking list is ready in the morning.
Pick by order, by product, or both: the main products together, the rest order by order.
Load the last shop first, so everything for the first stop is within reach.
The driver confirms delivery on the spot, with the shop present, and has the final order amount in front of them.
At the end of the day the cash the driver hands in should match that day's deliveries, and missing or damaged goods should be written down separately.

For many distributors cash on delivery is the most sensitive point. Strelf does not handle order money: the shop pays the company directly at delivery, and the software only helps you keep track of deliveries and amounts.

Link five: reports

Reports help only if everything above is collected in one place. Then a few simple questions answer themselves quickly.

Sales by period: is turnover growing from week to week?
Best-selling products: which ones you must never run out of.
The most active and the gone-quiet shops: who to call and why orders dropped.
Delivery results: how many orders you delivered on time and where the problems were.

Numbers only mean something if you act on them: you call a shop that went quiet, put a slow product on promotion, and look again at a slow route together with how loaded the drivers are.

One day at a distributor: an example

Below is an ordinary day at a small distributor with two drivers and a few dozen shops. The times are illustrative and your schedule will differ, but the order of steps is the same.

18:00 (the day before): orders stop coming in. The manager checks that every shop has made its necessary changes and writes to shops about products that are out of stock.
18:30: the manager assigns orders to drivers: one district to one driver, another to the other.
08:00: the warehouse takes the picking list and picks, the main products together and the rest by shop, marking each order as picked.
09:30: the drivers load from the last shop to the first, compare the list with the warehouse worker and leave.
10:00-16:00: at each shop the driver checks the goods on the spot, takes the cash, confirms the delivery and records anything that does not match.
16:30: the drivers return to the office, hand in the cash and write down any leftover goods separately; the total matches the orders and nothing needs to be copied by hand.
17:00: the manager looks at the day: how many were delivered, who ordered more, who went quiet and which product ran out.

None of the steps in this day is hard. What matters is that all the data appears in one place and nobody writes again what has already been written.

The most common mistakes and how to avoid them

Several lists: orders in a chat, a notebook and the system. Keep one list and move everything into it.
No cut-off for changes: changes arrive after picking. Set a time and tell every shop.
Old prices: a shop sees one price and you charge another. Change prices in one place only.
Picking without a second check: a wrong case is loaded. Have two people compare the list at loading.
Delivery confirmed in the evening: details are forgotten. Confirm on the spot.
Cash not compared with deliveries: a shortage appears days later. Compare at handover, the same day.
Zones added without a plan: far zones lose money. Add a zone only when you have shops there and a logical route.
Reports never opened: the numbers exist but nobody acts. Pick one weekly decision based on them.

A checklist and a 30-day plan

The catalog has your 20-30 best-selling products with prices and units.
Only zones where you deliver on time are switched on.
The first three to five regular shops are approved.
You have a cut-off for changes and every shop knows it.
Picking is set up the evening before, and the vehicle is loaded from the last shop first.
Delivery and amounts are recorded on the spot, with nothing copied in the evening.
At the end of the week you look at the reports and make one concrete decision.

If you are starting from scratch, here is a simple 30-day plan:

Week 1: build the catalog and connect the first three to five regular shops.
Week 2: take all of their orders only in the system, and fix the cut-off and the picking routine.
Week 3: add the next shops and give far zones their own day.
Week 4: open the reports for the first time, decide what to change, and start the cycle again with a few more shops.

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