On August 1, 2018 at 13:52, Fred Harding said...
I'm going to wade into the pool just a little bit.
Many of my dealers use portal for a variety of reasons.
As a distributor, when someone places an order with portal directed to me, portal processes, sorts and forwards an email to me. I get it, and I open it, and I acknowledge address, shipping, and items. If I don't open it, portal sends me a reminder email after a while (same day, half an hour?) saying look at this.
I look at it and if pricing is wrong (due to manufacturer promos, price increases, etc) I notify the customer. Most of the time pricing is good, because we provide it to portal on a VERY timely basis to make sure it's accurate. If pricing is inaccurate, do not blame portal, blame the supplier you chose. Frankly, it's set up so it's their responsibility to update pricing.
After completing the order, I send a confirmation to my dealer saying all in stock, shipping today, due to you by such and such, depending on all that stuff.
The failsafe is if I don't look at the order, and it's not entered, portal won't send a confirmation email. So looking for a response is a way to not only know it was received, but also stock status, etc. To me, it's like emailing an order; if I don't get a "got it" message, I'm nervous.
Hope this helps clarify some of what the process is like from my side.
Does not address any of the other issues, like charges, etc. Good luck with those.
Fred,
Thanks for the info from the distributor side. I think there are two issues.
1) One is the pricing in Portal. As you mentioned its the vendor that provides the update to Portal. That's fine but... when you are in the catalog and enter in an item, it doesn't show you the last time the price was verified on that screen, by the default vendor set for that item. You would have to manually click into every item in order to see how long ago that price was set (i.e. last verified). This should be stated right on the initial screen where you can click to add to proposal or.. at least shown when you say to "add to proposal". Then that could be the 1st clue something is off and then allows dealers to push the vendor for more repeated updates. Now we know, based on what you said.
2) This leads to the "ordering" side. Caveat here is I haven't done an order only a test PO once or twice, so maybe it does do what I am about to state.
For one its possible that a price could have changed between the time an Integrator created a proposal to the time it was accepted and ordered. This could be in either direction. So, Portal should be checking the pricing in the poposal vs. what is in the database as current. There then should be some designation (color change, text, etc) letting you know that the price is different then what was the cost set on your proposal for those item(s). Second, it also should reflect the same info showing you for each item when that price was last verified.
Second issue is Promo's and qty price breaks. You stated you check for those when you enter the order and then adjust. Question is are all Vendors doing that? This again means you need to check websites to ensure you are being billed the correct qty break price or promo price, if less. I see a lot of potential here from portal since they should be able to pull in the full catalog, price breaks, etc and alert dealers if an item has breaks and how many. Should be able to enter in promo pricing as well to alert dealers. or Prompt dealers that an item they quoted is on special non an outstanding proposal. "Supply Stream" was an ordering centric system so you would think this part would have been nailed down.
Third, is ordering time. As you stated an email is sent and you have to open it. If you didn't open it after a period of time then you get alerted again. However, this does nothing for the dealer that submits an order prior to a shipping cutoff expecting that the order will ship out that day as it would if placed direct on the vendors site. How is an integrator to know how much earlier in the day they need to submit to make same day cutoff's or even next day shipments? Its the emailing of orders that is an issue and weak link. If this was electronically submitted orders direct into the system via the integrators account number, which Portal already has on file, then this would be a different story and we would feel more secure.
