More business means more orders. More orders means more invoices. That means more forms, more data entry, and more transferring of information between different departments. It's easy for a form or piece of information to get lost in the shuffle.
An online ordering system that is specifically designed for wholesale and integrates with QuickBooks is an effective tool for staying efficient and organized. It helps you streamline your order management process and eliminate cracks in which orders could disappear. With an online ordering system in place, you'll see an increased accuracy in your order fulfillment, and improved communication between your team and your customers.
Here are four specific ways in which a wholesale online ordering system can help keep you organized:
1) It reduces the number of inefficient orders. Right now, you may have orders coming in from all angles - via fax, phone, email, and maybe even through conversations between sales reps and customers. When there's no clearly preferred entry point for orders, it's easy for one to slip between the cracks.
A B2B ordering system that integrates with QuickBooks is the most efficient way for your customers, sales reps, and staff to place orders. We encourage you to keep email and fax available, but most wholesale customers will appreciate the simplicity and 24/7 convenience of placing an order online. They'll naturally gravitate to that ordering method.
Very quickly, you'll see the majority of your B2B orders come in online. That will reduce data entry and reduce the possibility that an order can slip through a gap. It will also allow you and your team to easily keep track of every order in the system.
2) Information is communicated directly to QuickBooks. Your system should be connected to QuickBooks, so whenever anyone places an order, QuickBooks is automatically updated. This eliminates the task of re-entering order information into your accounting software, a time-consuming step that could potentially be vulnerable to human error.
Online ordering software should pull product information from QuickBooks, so you can be confident that the data in both systems will always be consistent. When you need to change product information, simply make the changes in QuickBooks. The online ordering system will automatically reflect these changes, including inventory and custom pricing. See why you should integrate your QuickBooks' custom pricing with order entry software.
3) It allows customers to check the status of their orders. A customer inquiry about order status, inventory, or pricing can often interrupt your daily process. Your sales rep has to drop what they're doing and contact your office staff to track down the answer. They may have to make phone calls to your warehouse or distribution team to find out where the order is. Then they have to call the customer back to relay the information.
By the time that process is complete, the sales rep has lost valuable time and has had other work interrupted, and the wholesale customer has lost their flow, too. It's easy to get disorganized with that kind of process. A wholesale ordering system that syncs with QuickBooks allows the customer or sales rep to check the order directly, thus eliminating those emails, phone calls, and follow-ups. Learn more about the benefits a customer receives from an online order management system.
4) It eliminates data entry. Perhaps the greatest benefit of an ordering system is that the order is filled out by the customer. They have the ability to go online 24/7 and input the order themselves. The order information is then automatically available to accounting, distribution, and any other teams that may need it. That process eliminates the manual process of communicating information between departments, which can create too many opportunities for mistakes to happen.
Take control of your business with a wholesale ordering system. Get rid of the inefficient and old-fashioned order forms, emailed orders, faxed orders, and phoned orders. Allow your wholesale customers, sales reps, and other staff to immediately answer their own questions about inventory, pricing, order history, tracking numbers, and more. Check out how an online ordering system that integrates with QuickBooks can help you streamline your office's processes below. We would love to hear about your current ordering system and some of its pros and cons. How has an ordering system organized your business? Just leave us a comment below!
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