Moving from Excel and chats to order software: a 30-day plan for distributors

When Excel and chats stop working

At the start Excel and WhatsApp are quite enough: orders are few, the shops are known and you keep everything in your head. The trouble builds slowly and so quietly that it takes time to notice.

The same order is written in two places and sometimes differs between them.
In the evening copy-out one line was missed, and the driver could not bring it to the shop.
You changed a price in the spreadsheet, but the shop still has the old one in a chat.
At the end of the day the cash does not match the deliveries and the sorting-out goes on.
A new person on the team cannot find their way, because the system lives in one person's head.

If two or three of these already sound familiar, it is time to think about moving. This article shows how to do it day by day, so the business does not stop and nobody gets lost.

Preparation: before day one

A good move starts with preparation. It takes two or three hours and makes the whole following month easier.

Write down why you are moving: fewer mistakes, more time, more shops? This tells you what you will measure success by.
Choose one person to lead the move: the owner, a manager or one organised person, not everyone at once.
Export your data from the spreadsheet: products, prices, units, shops and their addresses.
Clean it: duplicated products, old prices, shops that have not ordered for a year.
Pick three to five shops to start with: regular ones, frequent orderers, and those who trust you.

Cleaning the data is the step most often skipped, yet it is exactly what protects the new system from the same mess you had in the spreadsheet.

Week 1 (days 1-7): the catalog and the first shops

The goal of the first week is small: have in the new system what a shop needs to order, and get to know the first shops there.

Days 1-2: build the catalog with your 20-30 best-selling products, each with a name, a unit and a price.
Day 3: check the prices and the delivery zones where you work, and add a zone only where you really go.
Day 4: ask the first three to five shops to find you by your identification code and send a request, and you approve them.
Days 5-6: make the first order together with the shop, over a call or a chat, while the screen is in front of them.
Day 7: look at what they found hard and which product was missing from the catalog. Fix it.

In this week you do not stop the spreadsheet. It is still the main one, and the new system is tried out beside it.

Week 2 (days 8-14): working in parallel

In the second week the two systems run together. It looks like extra work, but it protects you: if something goes wrong in the new one, the old spreadsheet remains a safe road.

Take every order from the first three to five shops in the new system, and carry on with the old routes for the rest.
At the end of the day compare: does what is in the system match what was picked and delivered?
Write down every mismatch and its cause: what was missed, what was misunderstood, what was lacking.
Set a cut-off for changes, for example before picking starts, and send every shop the same text.
Show the drivers their own list and ask them to confirm deliveries on the spot.

At the end of the week ask yourself: how many orders did we take in the system, how many mistakes were there and where did time go?

Week 3 (days 15-21): switching over and widening

If the second week went calmly, it is time to say goodbye to the old way, little by little.

For the first group of shops you now take orders only in the system, and politely send anything written in a chat back to the new way.
Add a second group of five to ten more shops, with the same short explanation you tested on the first.
Give far zones their own day and split orders between drivers by zone.
Use the picking list in the warehouse instead of copying by hand, and mark each order as picked.
Leave the spreadsheet available, but read-only, so nobody writes in it any more.

The most important thing this week is that the new system becomes the only place where a new order is written.

Week 4 (days 22-30): refining and reports

By the fourth week the system is part of the daily routine. Now is the time to see what works and what does not, and to start using the new possibilities.

Look through the reports: what sold, which shop went quiet, which product got stuck.
Decide on one improvement to make this month, not ten at the same time.
Bring the remaining shops in gradually: those who are ready now; for those who are nervous, help them one on one.
Ask the team: what is missing, what works better, what would they like done differently?
The owner should take time once to judge what has changed compared with day one.

An example: one day in week two

To picture how running in parallel looks in practice, here is an ordinary Tuesday. The times are illustrative.

Morning: two shops already order in the system, while three still write in a chat. The manager takes the two chat orders into the new system as well at the same moment, so you have them in both places.
Midday: the warehouse takes the picking list, though the old spreadsheet is open too. If both say the same, the worker carries on; if they differ, one line records where.
At delivery: you do not give the driver both lists. They use only the new one, while the old list stays with the manager for comparison.
Evening: the manager compares the two: how many orders came into the new system, how many in a chat, and where they differ. Three lines are written down: what the difference was, the cause, and what was fixed.

Nothing hard happens on this day; it is simply a doubly careful day. But after a week the notes show you which kind of mistake keeps repeating, and that is the one to deal with first.

What to tell the shops and the team

A move is more about people than technology. A simple message, the same for everyone, saves a lot of confusion.

To a shop: "Besides ordering by phone, you can now order straight from the catalog. It is free for you, you can see the order status and the price is always correct. Payment on delivery stays as it is."
To a driver: "From now on you have one list and you confirm delivery on the spot at the shop. You will not need to copy anything in the evening."
To the warehouse: "You will use the picking list, and mark an order as picked only when it is really ready."
To a manager: "Orders will live in one place only. You enter changes and cancellations there, and remind shops of the cut-off."

Keep the message short and make it say the same thing to everyone. Every extra exception adds confusion.

Risks and how to deal with them

A shop refuses the new way: do not force it. Move the shops that like it first, and show the rest the results.
A driver avoids the new way: give them a simple instruction and double-confirm deliveries for the first week, until it becomes a habit.
There is an error in the data: a wrong price or unit. Note it and fix it at once; a shop remembers one mistake for a long time.
Something goes badly wrong mid-week: go back to the old spreadsheet for a day and find the cause. The plan is not spoiled, because both still exist.
Everything at once: first few shops, then more. This is the best answer to every risk.

How to know it worked

Success is not measured by feeling. On the last day look back at the goals you wrote down on the first.

What share of orders comes through the system: the aim is to approach 100% step by step.
How many fewer calls and chat messages you need to sort out an order.
How many mistakes remain in picking and delivery, and how many there were before.
How much time goes on evening copying and reports: it should approach zero.
What the shops and drivers say: simplicity and clarity are the best sign.

Checklist

You have written down the goal of the move and how you will measure it.
You have one person in charge.
Your data is cleaned and exported.
You tested the new system with three to five regular shops, alongside the old one.
You set a cut-off for changes and told everyone.
The spreadsheet is read-only and a new order is written only in the system.
In week four you looked at the reports and planned one improvement.

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