As the Australian Food and Beverage Industry continues to change, the demands of running a distribution business have increased to the point that it’s almost virtually impossible to operate without using an Order Management System.
An Order Management System is a Food and Beverage Industry specific program that automates the ordering and fulfilment process of running a B2B Food Distribution Business.
Here’s how an Order Management System can help your Food Distribution Business.
1. Automates Customer Ordering
Australian customers are becoming more and more reliant on online ordering. If your business continues to force customers to order manually either by SMS or Email, you could risk losing them to other providers. Arguably the greatest benefit of an Order Management System is it simplifies your customers ordering process.
Using an Order Management System customers can place orders through your very own Online Ordering Website. In the click of a button customers can select their product, their quantity and pay for their order quickly and easily. Online Ordering makes a once time-consuming process simple.
The benefit for your distribution business is the customers order request will automatically sync the management system and update the relevant areas such as live inventory numbers, jobs that need to be fulfilled and your route management.
Related article: What Online Ordering Can Do for Your Business?
2. Simplify Inventory Management
Inventory management is a necessary but time-consuming task for all Food and Beverage business. An Order Management System simplifies and greatly reduces time spent on the inventory management process.
An Order Management System automatically updates your stock numbers as you buy and sell products. Instead of having to manually record numbers and compile Inventory reports, an OMS gives you the ability to quickly see your businesses stock position via a centralised management dashboard screen. Distributors also have the option to export an inventory spreadsheet report in the click of a button.
Related Article: The Most Time-Consuming Tasks in the Food & Beverage Industry.
3. Automates Customer Credit Card Payments
Chasing customer payments is a frustrating job, not only is it time-consuming but it costs your business greatly in both labour and processing costs. The benefit of using an Order management system like EasyVend is you can Automate Customer Credit Card Payments.
An Automatic Customer Credit Card Payment Solution automates your entire payment and invoicing process.
- Customer invoices are automatically generated and sent to the customer at the correct time
- Payment is debited from your customer automatically at the agreed time
- Customer payments are automatically allocated and receipted to the correct invoice
- Handles different discounts, price levels, price adjustments and rebate structures
An Automatic Credit Card Payment solution will save you hours of time every week and ensure you get paid on-time, every time.
To learn more about Automatic Credit Card Payments in EasyVend click here.
4. Integrated Accounting
Accounting is a common frustration for many F&B businesses. Not only do you need to keep on top of everything, but you often waste time working through the process with your accountant.
Using an OMS, Distribution business can integrate the management system with your accounting system. The benefit of integrating your two systems together is financial information will automatically transfer between the two programs upon entry – no duplicate data entry tasks!
Related Article: Why Integrated Accounting Is So Important For Food Distributors.
5. Automates Customer Reminders
It’s always frustrating receiving late or incorrect orders from a customer. Another benefit of using an OMS is you can automate customer order reminders.
In the click of a button, your business can automatically schedule reminder messages to be sent via SMS or email to customers who have either failed to place an order at their regular interval or to notify customers that your cut-off time is approaching. Using an OMS, you will never need to manually call or remind customers again!
Related Article: How EasyVend Helps You Retain Your Customers.
Reduce Order Fulfilment Errors with Real-Time Order Visibility
A real-time order tracking system cuts fulfilment errors because everyone working on an order sees the exact same information at the exact same time. No one is working off yesterday’s printout or a text message that got buried in a group chat somewhere.
For example, if a customer calls in a top-up order at 9 am. The office adds it to a spreadsheet. The warehouse team is already halfway through picking based on the morning’s original list, so they do not see the update until someone walks over to tell them. By then, the truck is half-loaded, and the new item either gets missed completely or is thrown on at the last minute without a proper check. That is not a training problem. It is a visibility problem that happens in food distribution businesses every single day.
Order fulfilment software for food distributors closes that gap by giving your whole team a single, live view of every order from the moment it lands until it is signed for at the customer’s dock.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand requires wholesale food suppliers to have a written recall system under the Food Standards Code, and the ability to quickly trace exactly which batch went to which customer can be the difference between a contained recall and a chaotic one. You can read FSANZ’s food traceability guidance here for the full requirements.
Use Business Intelligence to Make Better Inventory Decisions
Business intelligence turns your inventory dashboard from a stock count into a decision-making tool. Instead of just showing you what is on the shelf right now, it shows you what is selling, what is sitting, and what you are about to run short of before it becomes a real problem.
Most distributors already track stock numbers. Far fewer actually use that data to guide buying decisions. There is a real difference between opening a screen to check if you have enough milk for tomorrow’s run and opening a report that shows you three customers whose order volume has quietly dropped by 20% over the last month, or a product line that has been sitting slow for six weeks and tying up cash you could be using elsewhere.
An order management system with built-in reporting gives you that second view. You can pull sales trends
- by customer
- by product
- by route
and spot patterns long before they would show up in a plain stock count. Reordering also becomes sharper, since it is based on actual buying history rather than a gut feeling or last week’s numbers. This matters most with perishable stock, where overordering not only ties up cash but also eventually results in write-offs.
None of this replaces good judgement. A dashboard will not tell you that a customer is switching suppliers or that a product is about to go out of season, but it will give you the early warning signs so you can act while there is still time. Business.gov.au’s inventory management guidance is a useful starting point if you want to brush up on the fundamentals before layering software on top.
Optimise Delivery Routes and Lower Distribution Costs
Delivery route optimisation for food distribution means planning driver routes around
- live order data
- delivery windows
- vehicle capacity
rather than around habit or whichever driver has covered that street before. It sounds like a small change, but for a distributor running multiple trucks every day, it rarely stays small for long.
An order management system with built-in route management plans deliveries around what is actually happening today rather than what happened last year. It groups orders by location, respects each customer’s delivery window, and adjusts automatically when a new order comes in, or an existing one gets bumped. Drivers get a route that makes sense on the road, not just on paper.
The payoff shows up in a few places at once. Fuel costs drop because trucks are not covering extra kilometres unnecessarily. Drivers get through their runs faster, which creates more capacity without adding another vehicle. Customers also get a more reliable delivery window, since the route does not fall apart the moment something changes mid-morning. For food and beverage distribution in particular, where much of the stock is temperature- and time-sensitive, a shorter, tighter route is not just a cost-saving measure. It also means less time that product spends sitting in a hot truck.
EasyVend’s MiniVend driver app puts this route data straight into the driver’s hands, so the plan built in the office is the plan that actually gets driven.
How EasyVend can help?
For food and beverage vendors, distributors, and wholesalers, EasyVend supports and automates every part of your business, freeing you up to grow your sales simply unlike other ERP systems.
EasyVend includes all your everyday management needs like Stock Management, Online Ordering, Invoicing, Receipting, Automatic Credit Card Payments, Xero Accounting Integration, Route Management, and Business Reporting – in the one central, industry-specific platform.
For a no-obligation Trial EasyVend of EasyVend call us today on 1300 473 744 or submit the form below.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does an order management system reduce order processing errors?
An order management system reduces processing errors by removing manual re-entry from the ordering process. When a customer places an order online, that order flows straight into your inventory and fulfilment systems without anyone retyping it from an email or a phone note. Fewer manual touchpoints mean fewer chances for a wrong quantity, wrong product, or wrong customer to slip through.
Can an order management system improve delivery efficiency for food distributors?
An order management system with route management built in plans deliveries around current orders, delivery windows, and vehicle capacity instead of relying on a fixed route that never gets updated. This cuts unnecessary kilometres, gets drivers through their runs faster, and gives customers a more reliable delivery window.
What is the difference between inventory management and order management?
Inventory management tracks what stock you have, where it is, and how much of it is moving. Order management tracks the full life of a customer order from the moment it is placed through to picking, dispatch, and invoicing. The two work together, but inventory management answers what you have, while order management answers what needs to happen with it next.
How does real-time order management system benefits for distributors businesses?
Real-time order tracking gives your office, warehouse, and drivers the same live picture of every order at once. This means fewer missed updates, fewer fulfilment errors, and a faster response when a customer changes or adds to an order. For perishable stock, it also means you can trace exactly which batch went where if a recall ever becomes necessary.
What should food distributors look for in an order management system?
Look for a system built specifically for food and beverage distribution rather than a generic retail tool retrofitted for wholesale. At minimum, it should cover online ordering, real-time inventory syncing, route management, automatic customer payments, and accounting integration, all in one platform, so your team is not juggling five disconnected tools just to