Solutions for the Wholesale & Distribution sector

Our Coda financial management software is proving to be an excellent fit for wholesale and distribution companies, which typically have the following characteristics:

High volume of transactions with low margins. This makes it very important to maximise efficiencies that can be gained from reducing debtor days, cash to bank processes, reducing credit notes and analysing customer profitability.
A number of distribution centres across the UK, Europe or the globe. Using the same instance of financial software greatly assists big-picture analysis of the business as a whole, while providing certain autonomy to individual cost and profit centres.
Detailed reporting requirements. Monthly reports can often take many man-days of effort to produce with resultant ‘packs’ being delivered mid month, when ideally the information should be delivered far quicker and with much less effort.
The Desire to have a ‘best-of-class’ solution for the finance department. A recognition that best of class provides greater flexibility to adapt to your processes and allows speedier implementation times to maximise the return on investment.

Our experience with wholesale and distribution companies has shown that they have a great many needs in common, including:

in-depth analysis of: sales; product movements; profitability by customer and by product; and effectiveness of promotions (i.e. while they are happening, not after the event)
swift and efficient cash allocation (matching) to ensure credit limits are cleared
integrated front- and back-office to ensure one point of entry and one set of master files (such as ‘customers’)
separation of transaction engines from reporting databases plus speed and performance of the system itself.

How can we help?

UNIT4 has a number of clients in the wholesale and distribution sector, where – through the implementation of Coda Financials and other Coda products and services – the finance departments have assisted their businesses in addressing the above needs. And, in doing so, they have transformed themselves from being merely providers of background processing and retrospective reporting to becoming high profile and valued teams that deliver significant strategic advantage.

The profile of UNIT4's wholesale and distribution customers ranges in size from 10 to over 700 users.

A good example of a business for which our Coda solution has transformed the finance department is the major milk distribution company, ACC (Associated Co-operative Creameries). ACC implemented Coda Intelligence (a dedicated reporting datamart), which is linked to Coda Financials as well as to ACC’s other operational systems. This solution provides up-to-the-minute, detailed analysis on its key performance indicators.

Two other customer signings further highlight the strength of our Coda solutions for this sector. Firstly, one of Europe’s largest pharmaceutical distribution companies (Alliance UniChem) chose Coda Financials for its 700 users across Europe. And, secondly, a leading player in the office supplies business (Spicers Ltd) signed for Coda Financials across 6 countries, with a total user population of over 100 users.