Why Use an Online Order Management System for B2B Orders?

Technology_migration_-_direction_choices_and_decisions_for_new_wayMost companies use software like QuickBooks to keep track of their finances, and in many cases, this makes accounting easier. The exception is when it's time to enter sales orders into that system. Then, it often forces the company to do double work. This is because many companies will receive an order via email, fax or phone from a sales rep or customer and then the QuickBooks user in the home office must enter the order into QuickBooks.

Fortunately, there is a way to avoid this need for double data entry. Our online order management system integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks so that once an order is entered, it's automatically transmitted into the financial software.  At that time, you can make the choice to send the order electronically to your fulfillment team so that they can be processed and shipped. This eliminates the redundant data entry that plagues other systems and speeds up the order process. 

This is just the start of what is possible with online order management.  Many B2B providers struggle when customers call to ask about the status of their orders, find out what has already been ordered, and make similar queries. Customers also struggle with the limitations imposed by traditional B2B systems, such as the need to contact their sales rep in order to buy anything.  Such methods may have been fine a few decades ago, but now, businesses don't have time for that.  Online order management allows you to meet today's demands for speed and responsiveness by allowing your customers to track the status of their orders over the internet.  Even better, it lets them order online from you as easily as they would from a B2C company.

This convenience is just as important when you deal with other businesses as it is when dealing with individuals. In fact, it's often more important. When a business realizes that it needs a product right away, the purchasing agent doesn't want to have to chase a salesperson down in order to get the ball rolling. The agent needs to get a lot of things ordered from a variety of companies, and would much rather deal with firms that let him get done faster. You will be a hero to these busy agents if you hand them a URL and tell them that they can get done with their jobs in minutes instead of hours!

Benefits to Your Operations

Your customers aren't the only ones that benefit when you streamline your order handling. Since you won't have to manually take as many orders, you'll eliminate many chances for costly errors. Passing data between departments will take a click of a button instead of mistake-prone manual transcribing. This will speed things up while ensuring that the last person in the fulfillment chain is still seeing precisely what the customer or sales rep originally entered.

The accounting benefits, touched on briefly at the start of this article, go beyond integration with QuickBooks. You'll enjoy the lower rate of errors in this sphere as well. Nobody will have to try to memorize the prices of items, decipher quickly-scrawled figures, or worry about typing errors when orders are taken. The prices and individual customer discounts will already be in the system and ready to use.

Finally, your new online order management system will still serve customers who prefer to do things the old-fashioned way. If a client calls its account manager to place or check on orders, the account manager can log in securely to the portal to provide all of the necessary services. Thanks to this order system, everything will be at his or her fingertips. This will make your rep seem extremely efficient and can greatly improve customer satisfaction.

To learn more about our order management system, just give us a call. We'll be glad to explain everything and help you get set up.order management system