Wholesalers, manufacturers, and distributors have to be talented jugglers. You wear many hats during the day, trying to keep one eye on daily operations and the other on business growth opportunities. You can’t afford to waste time wondering where you stand, especially regarding wholesale orders. Order entry software puts everything right at your fingertips.
Order entry software boosts the power of QuickBooks
The most effective order entry software integrates seamlessly with your QuickBooks system. The system captures and applies customer-specific pricing, inventory, and shipping data automatically, so there’s never a need for redundant data entry. This enables you to use QuickBooks to manage your financials and as a communication tool that connects sales, customer service, accounting, and shipping. You can even send your wholesale orders automatically to QuickBooks and integrate with your shipping software or 3PL warehouse.
Real-time data flow relieves frustration
Order entry software improves communication across the board by eliminating the risk of miscommunication. Automated data entry not only saves time, it ensures accuracy.
Everyone on your staff who’s involved in placing and checking orders will stay fully up to date. Your sales reps and wholesale customers can log in and see the information they need for themselves, so there’s no confusion, no delay, and no duplication of effort.
QuickBooks will automatically update the order entry software’s inventory levels and can block your customers from ordering out-of-stock products. This means customers can place orders, check availability, and select shipping details. They can check on order status or history any time they want, without interrupting you or waiting for an answer.
Improved communication lets everyone focus on what’s important
Sales reps would rather spend time selling more products and building personal relationships with wholesale customers. Customers would rather spend time on activities that relate directly to growing their own business.
With manual order systems, finding correct, up-to-date information is time-consuming, and there’s a high risk of errors thanks to redundant data entry points. Your customers and sales reps waste their time calling or emailing questions and waiting for a response. And your internal staff wastes time fielding those calls. With automated order entry, no one has to rely on someone else to obtain the information they need about inventory availability, pricing, order history, shipping status, etc.
Sales reps can check on details in real-time from the road or while standing in front of a customer, rather than having to contact the office and then wait to learn about the new pricing, discounts, or other details. They can immediately see orders placed by their customers, create and export order data and customer lists, and receive email or text alerts whenever certain changes are made in QuickBooks.
When sales reps are always fully prepared, they can make better use of precious one-on-one time with customers. Demonstrating concern for your customer’s time and making ordering easy and convenient for them improves satisfaction and loyalty. Better-organized reps communicate a higher quality, professional company image, too. Learn more about how ordering software can improve customer relations.
What’s the bottom line?
Are manual data entry and the lack of real-time visibility into your ordering process holding you back? Today’s wholesale customers expect a customized, personal experience. A B2B customer portal improves communication up and down the line. You may still have your hands full, but you’ll be focused on building your business instead of juggling minutiae.
