01
Capture first, type again
Reps worked on paper or spreadsheets in stores, then re-entered orders at the office.
CASE STUDY 03 / B2B WHOLESALE & SYSTEMS
HANSFORD
From shop floor
to finance.
Without double entry.
At retail stores, reps reviewed shelf stock and agreed prices and quantities before writing orders on paper or in Excel. Coco built the wholesale sales system on OpenCart and integrated it with QuickBooks, then kept evolving it through an eight-year relationship.
Visit client websiteSydney food distribution · B2B ordering · Ongoing digital partnership
▦ Overview ▤ Orders ▥ Inventory ◫ Accounts
OPERATIONS / INVENTORY ● Connected
Stock overview
CATALOGUE ▦
ORDERS ↗
ACCOUNTS ◎
PRODUCT STOCK STATUS
Product A Available In stock
Product B Limited Low stock
Product C Available In stock
ORDER SHEET THEN / MANUAL
Wholesale order
Customer details / product list
Item A Qty ____
Item B Qty ____
Item C Qty ____
HANDWRITTEN PROCESS → DIGITAL
FIELD SALES / ORDER CAPTURE ◎
RETAILER VISIT / DRAFT ORDER Capture the order.
Product A +
Product B +
Submit order ↗
8 YEARS
PARTNER
PARTNER
WORKFLOW CONCEPT
01 / THE STARTING POINT
The friction began
on the shop floor.
Sales reps visited retail shops, checked shelves and sales patterns, and agreed products, prices and quantities with owners. Orders went onto paper or Excel, then had to be entered again into a finance system before dispatch and invoicing.
The bottleneck went beyond the order form.
02
Stock and batch details were hard to find
Stock, batch and date-related information was difficult to retrieve during a sales visit.
03
Re-entry created avoidable risk
Re-keying orders increased error risk, slowed response and could affect customer satisfaction and cost.
02 / THE CONNECTED SYSTEM
Keep the finance backbone.
Modernise how orders begin.
The team retained QuickBooks for finance and built a wholesale-ready sales system on OpenCart: ordering and lookups, fractional quantities, stock and batch information, with an integration carrying ready orders into the finance workflow.
In-store sales
Reps agree products, quantities and prices with shop owners.
Stock & batches
Access stock, batch and relevant date information.
Flexible quantities
Support non-integer quantities where wholesale products require them.
Submit & track
Capture and track orders in one suitable sales interface.
Finance handoff
Ready orders flow into existing finance without manual re-keying.
Workflow concept: connecting field-sales orders with the existing finance system.
03 / THE WHOLESALE DETAILS
Wholesale doesn't always fit
a retail checkout.
Useful software must fit the people ordering, selling and reconciling. The detail matters: quantities, batch visibility and a clean handoff to finance.
01 / FLEXIBLE ORDERING
Not every order uses whole units.
Allow fractional order quantities where the wholesale catalogue requires them.
02 / INVENTORY CONTEXT
PRODUCT BATCH DATE
Item A B-02 —
Item B B-04 —
Item C B-07 —
Inventory needs more context.
Make stock, batch and date-related information easier to access for frontline staff.
03 / EXISTING FINANCE
ORDER → READY → FINANCE
Keep finance. Remove needless re-entry.
When orders are ready, connect them into the established finance workflow without another round of typing.
Stock and batch information concept.
04 / LATER EVOLUTION / OFFLINE WORKFLOW
No signal in the store?
The sale can still go on.
A later Hansford implementation added offline order capture. Reps could continue using available pricing information, adjust a negotiated deal and save a draft in low-signal stores, then upload saved orders when connected again.
OFFLINE → ONLINE Designed for real field conditions
‹ Retailer order Offline
CUSTOMER VISIT / ORDER DRAFT
Keep taking orders
Item A 1.5
Agreed price Editable
Save on device ✓
Keep the visit productive when coverage drops.
‹ Order drafts Online
LOCAL DRAFTS / RECONNECTION
Upload saved drafts
Retailer order 01 Saved
Retailer order 02 Saved
Send queued orders ↗
Orders can rejoin the sales process for downstream finance handoff.
Workflow concept: save orders offline during store visits and submit them after reconnecting.
05 / EXPLORE THE WORKFLOW
A wholesale system
worth looking inside.
Explore three workflow concepts: rep-led ordering, stock and batch information, and finance handoff.
Wholesale orders taken in-store
Sales reps review the range, check information and capture the order agreed with store owners.
Hansford
◧ Catalogue
▦ Orders
⇄ My account
FIELD SALES / CATALOGUE ● DEMO VIEW
Product catalogue
ITEM STATUS ACTION
Product A · 1.25 Available Add +
Product B Available Add +
Product C Limited View
Product D Available Add +
In-store rep ordering Online ordering Fewer phone calls
Concept interface
Switch scenarios above. All labels and data are illustrative. Explore the partnership ↓
06 / PARTNERSHIP, NOT A HANDOFF
The launch wasn't
the finish line.
Wholesaling evolves: catalogues, buyer expectations, team workflows and internal systems change. The work with Hansford has evolved alongside those needs.
8 YEARS / AS REPORTED
Long-term iteration & support
Long-term iteration & support
Understand the wholesale operation
Map the handoffs among sales reps, customers and existing financial processes.
Build around the real workflow
Deliver wholesale ordering, a customer portal, inventory and pricing functions, and finance integration.
Improve as the business changes
Refine the system over time rather than treating delivery as a one-off handoff.
These phases summarise the partnership, not dated project milestones. The original case describes an eight-year engagement.
WORDS FROM THE CLIENT
“Huge thanks for years of support.”— Jonathan, Sales Director · Hansford
Client feedback from the original project case.
07 / BUSINESS VALUE
The value shows up
in everyday operations.
The value was a cleaner handoff from field sales to finance, better access to product details and fewer manual error points. No independently verified time savings or sales-growth figures are published.
01 / SPEED
Less paperwork in field sales
Reps can capture orders on site instead of repeating data entry at the office.
02 / VISIBILITY
A clearer view of stock
Availability, pricing and orders become easier to access across the workflow.
03 / FOCUS
More time for relationships
Less order administration means more attention for customer relationships.
FOR YOUR BUSINESS / WHAT'S NEXT
Your sales team deserves
a better way to order.
If wholesale orders still travel through calls, messages, email or spreadsheets, start with the bottlenecks. We can work through what should change.