Improve Purchasing for Commercial Building Products Manufacturers and Distributers with an ERP Solution

Purchasing

For companies that manufacture and distribute commercial building equipment and products, purchasing materials and keeping track of current inventory is a big part of your business. While many purchase orders are straightforward, it’s often necessary to create special orders for individual clients, which can add many steps to the process.

In fact, as many as 75% of purchase orders are special orders in the commercial building products supply industry. It can be incredibly challenging to maintain and manage your inventory when you’re faced with so many special orders—unless you have a streamlined system in place to handle this high level of customization.

A Hypothetical Scenario

Let’s imagine a hypothetical construction equipment distributor. You work with a contractor who uses you to supply window and door materials, but halfway through a construction build they make an updated request that requires specialized materials on your end. What steps do you take in order to fulfill their request?

First, there’s a chance that you have the necessary materials in stock. You walk down to the warehouse floor and ask about what’s in your inventory. After asking around, you realize you don’t have what you need, and so you go back to your office and manually fill out a special order. Everything goes smoothly and you’re able to complete the custom order for your client.

However, you also need to collect payment from the contractor for the specialized order. Did you remember to take the extra step of updating the contract? You’ll need to create a separate invoice and make sure the client is billed correctly.

If this sounds like one (or 4 or 5) too many extra steps where any number of things could go wrong, then you can start to see the benefits of a centralized, integrated purchasing system. Thankfully, there’s an ERP (enterprise resource planning) solution that combines intuitive and integrated purchasing along with progress billing so that you can manage your inventory, fulfill on special orders, and follow up on billing, all through a centralized interface.

Take the hassle out of special ordering

With ContractERP, you (and your authorized employees) will have an in-depth window into your current inventory right from your computer screen, so you don’t have to hunt down key employees or make trips to the warehouse floor just to see what’s in stock.

You’ll get robust purchasing, so you and your employees can easily customize orders on the fly and automate redundant tasks.

And finally, with integrated process billing you won’t be left holding the bill after a special order has fallen through the cracks.

In summation, ContractERP offers all-in-one financial accounting software for building products manufacturers and distributors, including:

  • Accounts payable
  • Accounts receivable
  • General ledger
  • Collections
  • Asset management

ContractERP Purchase-to-Order solves special ordering bottlenecks

With so much of your purchasing getting tied up with special orders, it makes sense to have a centralized purchasing system in place that is integrated with your other business processes. Only then can you avoid expensive bottlenecks in purchasing and facilitate more growth.

To learn more about ContractERP purchasing software, contact us today to request a demo.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *