Sell-out and inventory reporting: automating the reports manufacturers require
Distributors: do your suppliers require your sales, purchases and stock every month? Why this reporting matters, what makes it painful, and how to automate it from Sage or Odoo.
If you distribute IT hardware, electronics or major-brand products, you know the obligation: every month, the manufacturer expects your report. Sales made, purchases, remaining stock, product by product, often customer by customer.
We automated this reporting for two distributors in Côte d’Ivoire who were running Sage. Here is what we learned.
Why manufacturers care so much
For a brand, its distributors’ reporting (often called sell-out for sales and channel inventory for stock) is the only way to know what actually sells in the market, not just what it invoiced to the distributor. It is used to:
- calculate volume-based rebates and incentives;
- manage price protection when list prices drop;
- steer replenishment and product launches.
In other words: late or inaccurate reporting can cost the distributor money.
What makes it painful
- The mandatory format: columns, manufacturer product codes, country codes, dates in an exact format.
- Product code mapping: your item code is not the manufacturer’s.
- Consistency: closing stock must equal opening stock, plus purchases, minus sales.
- Time: done by hand in Excel, this report often ties up one person for several days every month.
How we automate it
- Direct extraction of sales, purchases and stock from the business software, Sage or Odoo, with no re-keying.
- A mapping table between your product codes and the manufacturer’s, maintained once and for all.
- Automatic checks: unknown product codes, negative quantities, stock gaps between two months.
- File generation in the exact required format, ready to send.
The result for our clients: a report produced in minutes, compliant with the manufacturer’s requirements, without changing business software.
Good practice
- Make product codes reliable at the source: an item created twice distorts the reported stock.
- Close the month before extracting: deliveries and returns posted, inventory up to date.
- Keep a record of every report sent, with its figures, in case the manufacturer has questions.
One report, several brands
Most distributors work with several manufacturers, each with its own format. Once the data is clean and the method is in place, adding a new brand is mostly a matter of describing a new format. That is where automation really pays off.