How it shows up
- Available-to-promise is a best guess across screens.
- Special pricing lives with a salesperson, not in the path the order follows.
- Warehouse reality and sales reality diverge during the day.
- Credits and re-ships start as a typing difference.
- A customer portal, if it exists, shows a number nobody trusts internally.
Why it matters
Purchasing, warehouse, and accounting systems were implemented as departments. The order is the company's actual product, and it still hops between copies.
If nothing changes
- You sell what you cannot ship, or withhold what you could.
- Margin leaks through exceptions that never had a rule.
- Inside sales becomes a reconciliation job.
- The customer learns not to believe the first answer.
When it is working
One order object. Inventory and price that sales is allowed to promise are the same facts the warehouse and finance will use. Exceptions have an owner. The customer can be shown a number you would stand behind.
Problems we commonly work on
Possible systems
- Integration so inventory and orders are not re-typed.
- A place for special pricing and approvals that the order actually obeys.
- Status the customer can see without opening a ticket.
- Keep the WMS or ERP if it already does the standard job.
Signals worth watching
- Orders that require a manual inventory check.
- Credit notes caused by bad promise data.
- Time from pick to invoice.
- Share of customer inquiries that are 'where's my order'.
Integrations
- ERP / inventory
- WMS if present
- Accounting
- Ecommerce or EDI if they are already a channel
Roles this hits
Selected work
Comparable files are walked through in a working session. We do not invent percentages for the website.
Describe the process as it runs. A specification is optional.