Independent Sales Reps and Online Ordering Systems for QuickBooks

Independent sales reps can significantly enhance the growth of SMBs in the manufacturing, importing, and wholesale sectors. They extend your market reach and effectively communicate your offerings to new customers. As your strategic partners in the field, these reps provide valuable insights into customer feedback and competitor activities. They drive sales and serve as the frontline for addressing customer service concerns. Additionally, new reps can swiftly introduce a ready-made customer base.

Independent sales reps

Are your outside sales reps causing you frustration? Managing independent multi-line reps can feel like trying to herd cats—each with their own direction and mindset. Equipping your reps with an online Rep Portal can enhance your sales team's productivity and independence while distinguishing your company from the other lines they represent. An effective online ordering system seamlessly integrates with QuickBooks, transforming the orders placed by your reps into sales orders without requiring any data entry from your customer service team.

Here’s a quick list of some of the things that sales reps do.

Order things you don’t even offer

Are your reps in the habit of ordering things you don’t offer? Do they order sizes, styles, or colors that they seemingly dreamed up themselves? Do they order things that you discontinued years ago? If they do, you know it is time-consuming and annoying to email or call them and explain what they did and should do. A good Rep Portal will allow you to easily control what is on the online order form so the reps only order what you make available to them.

Order things that are out of stock or at the wrong price

Wholesale customers often have particular policies on backorders and they usually have special pricing. A good online portal will integrate with QuickBooks and display updated availability and the specific customer’s QuickBooks custom pricing, so you won’t have to take extra steps to process the order.

Ask “How am I doing this month?”

Do your reps call or email you like clockwork during the last week of each month to ask how much they’ve sold or if they have met their sales goal? Let them log in to a portal and see their up-to-date numbers.

Ask for information you have already given to them

Do your reps constantly ask for information you have already sent them? Do they ask for their account list or contact details? Do they ask about their customers’ discounts, credit terms, or tracking numbers? Do they ask if an invoice has been paid or if an order has been shipped? An online rep portal can provide all this information, plus pricing and inventory, with just a few clicks.

For many businesses, the outside sales reps put up the numbers, but managing them and keeping them happy can seem like a full-time job. Make everyone’s life easier by giving the reps the ability to do their own order entry and answer their own questions 24/7.