The distribution team: owner, manager, warehouse, driver. Who does what

Why dividing roles matters

In a small distribution business everyone often does everything: the owner takes orders, helps with picking and personally delivers to a valued customer. That is natural at the start, but as shops multiply this rule becomes a source of failures: two people did the same task, or nobody did, because each thought the other would take care of it.

Dividing roles is not bureaucracy. It is a simple agreement about who is responsible for what and who to ask when something does not work.

The owner: direction and decisions

The owner's job is to give the business direction and to make the decisions nobody else can. Daily orders should no longer be their task.

Chooses which zones and which shops the business works with, and controls the approval of shops.
Sets the policy on prices and promotions.
Decides the permissions of team members: who can see and do what.
Reviews the weekly reports and makes one or two big decisions, for example which product to promote or which zone to drop.

The manager: day-to-day running

The manager is the daily coordinator of the business: they follow orders, assign drivers and keep up communication with shops.

Receives and confirms orders, and keeps changes and cancellations in one place.
Assigns orders to drivers by zone.
Talks to shops when something does not match or a product is missing.
At the end of the day checks that the cash the drivers hand in matches the deliveries.

In Strelf a manager's permissions are set for each member separately: the owner chooses on the "Team" page what a particular manager can do. That way a new person gets only what they need.

The warehouse: picking and accuracy

The warehouse worker's task is simple and important: a picked order must contain exactly what is written down. A mistake made here becomes an argument at delivery.

Takes the picking list and picks by order or by product.
Marks an order as picked only when it is really ready.
Reports at once if a product is missing or damaged.
Checks the list with the driver at loading.

The driver: delivery and payment

The driver is the face of the company to the shop. They are the only person the shop sees, so their job is more than delivering: they check, take the cash and record everything on the spot.

Receives their route and list: shop, address, product, quantity.
Checks the goods with the shop present, takes the final order amount and confirms the delivery straight away.
Tells the office about a problem before leaving the shop.
At the end of the day hands in the cash and any leftover goods.

In Strelf a driver has their own mode and sees only their own orders, so they are not shown extra information or confused by someone else's route.

Who should see what

A good rule is that everyone has access only to what they need. This is more than security: less extra information means less confusion.

A driver needs only their own orders, not the whole company's turnover.
A manager needs orders and deliveries, while the right to prices and reports should not belong to every manager.
The owner sees everything, but should not be buried in daily tasks.

When the team is small: one person in several roles

If the team is two or three people, it is natural for one person to fill several roles. What matters is that the roles do not get mixed up.

The person who picks should not also confirm the delivery: a double check is valuable.
If the owner drives, set aside separate time for the manager's work, so that you do not mix it up with the driver's mode.
Write the roles down and tell everyone, even in a few sentences.
As the load grows, separate first the role that fails most often.

Checklist

Everyone knows what they are responsible for.
The manager has only the permissions they need.
The driver has their own orders and route and confirms delivery on the spot.
The warehouse marks an order as picked only when it is really ready.
The owner looks at the reports once a week and does not step into every order.

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