Orders come in.Without manual work.
In wholesale, orders arrive by EDI, portal, email and telephone – and are still largely entered by hand. At the same time, packaging units, deposits and customer-specific price scales have to be right before the vehicle leaves. fabular maps order intake, pricing, order picking, route and invoicing as a single process – a special report for one particular trading partner does not become its own EDI project, it becomes a description you give to fabAI.
fabular. process chain
Real timeOpen orders
128
Batches today
24
fabAI flagged batch L-2481: three days from best-before – FEFO suggestion created.
- B2B portal
- EDI automation
- Packaging unit management
- 100 %
- EDI automation
- 24/7
- B2B portal access
- Real time
- Stock data with batches
- 25+
- years of experience
Three bottlenecks in wholesale
Every order goes through sales
Business customers cannot place orders themselves. Every order ties up sales capacity that is then missing for advising customers.
A B2B portal with access to ordering, delivery status and invoices.
Packaging unit structures are hard to map
Returnable containers, deposit articles and pallet-carton-single-unit structures can hardly be represented cleanly in a standard ERP.
Packaging unit management that maps every article structure in full.
Orders are entered manually
Customer orders from external purchasing platforms have to be retyped. That is slow, error-prone and labour-intensive.
EDI and API take the orders over directly.
This page is for wholesale businesses that manage packaging units, deposits and customer-specific terms and still assemble their orders by hand from EDI files, emails and phone calls – fabular maps ordering, order picking, route and invoicing as one continuous process.
What is genuinely difficult in wholesale
The single order is rarely the problem. It becomes difficult where packaging units, terms and routes come together and every deviation has to be tracked in several places.
- Empties lag behind the flow of goods: returnable containers and pallets go out with the delivery, come back incomplete and are held on an account that has nothing to do with stock.
- Drop shipping without passing through your own warehouse: the goods go straight from the supplier to the customer, yet order, purchase order, supplier invoice and customer invoice still have to match.
- Terms have several levels: customer price, quantity scale, time-limited promotion and annual agreement interlock. Which term applies in the end has to be traceable at the time of delivery.
- EDI with retail chains leaves no room for asking questions: orders arrive automatically, but article number, GLN, packaging unit size and price have to be identical on both sides – otherwise you get an invoice discrepancy instead of an order.
- Route delivery with your own fleet: order picking, loading sequence and time windows are connected, and a shortfall in the morning changes the document chain all the way to the invoice.
- Back orders and partial deliveries: if a line is missing, someone has to decide whether it is delivered later, substituted or cancelled – and the customer has to know before the vehicle sets off.
Packaging units only as text in the article name
If pallet, carton and single unit are not stored as a structure with a conversion factor, every department calculates differently. Stock, price and EDI message drift apart.
Terms in side lists
Price scales and promotions maintained outside the system cannot be evidenced in a dispute. Subsequent credit notes then become the rule.
EDI as an isolated solution
A converter that only reads messages in moves the problem into an error list. Only the check against master data, price and stock turns the message into an order.
How fabular handles it
B2B portal
- 1.Customer-specific prices and product ranges.
- 2.Order history and repeat ordering with one click.
- 3.Delivery status and invoices available to view.
- 4.Roles and approvals per customer organisation.
Every customer sees their own terms, not a general price list.
Packaging units & prices
- 1.Pallets, cartons and single units as a structure.
- 2.Returnable containers and deposits managed in full.
- 3.Price lists per customer, scale and period.
- 4.Promotions and special terms with a fixed end date.
EDI & warehouse
- 1.EDI integration with platforms and retail chains.
- 2.Real-time stock with batch traceability.
- 3.Mobile order picking by scanner.
- 4.Shipping handling with carrier integration.
From order intake to invoice
- Step 01
The order arrives
EDI, portal or internal sales
Orders from EDI messages, from the B2B portal and from telephone entry all land in the same order pool. Customer assignment, article and packaging unit size are checked against the master data before the order moves into processing.
- Step 02
The applicable term is determined
when the order is created
Customer price list, quantity scale and time-limited promotion are evaluated for the delivery date. The price determined stays documented on the order, so that it is traceable later which term applied.
- Step 03
Order picking by route
warehouse, the day before or early on the delivery day
The picking list comes from the order and follows the loading sequence of the route. Mobile capture by scanner records batch and best-before date. Shortfalls become visible immediately and trigger the decision on later delivery or cancellation.
- Step 04
Delivery and return of empties
drivers on site
At the customer, delivered quantities are confirmed and returnable containers taken back are recorded. The return runs as a movement on the same container account that the delivery debited, and not as a note on the delivery slip.
- Step 05
Invoicing and evidence
during the day
The invoice is created from the quantity actually delivered, including packaging unit and deposit lines, and goes out as an EDI invoice or as a document, depending on the customer. Deviations between order and delivery stay documented on the transaction.
Wholesale with fabular
How does fabular handle returnable containers and deposits?
Packaging units are managed as a structure of their own, not as a text addition to the article name. Pallet, carton and single unit are linked by conversion factors, and returnable containers and deposit articles run along as separate lines. The delivery debits the container account of the customer, the return credits it again. The balance can therefore be read off at any time and does not have to be reconstructed at the end of the year.
Can we handle drop shipments through fabular?
In a drop shipment the goods go straight from the supplier to the customer, without passing through your own warehouse. The document chain still stays complete: customer order, the matching purchase order, supplier invoice and customer invoice remain linked, so that quantities and margin are traceable for each transaction. How your particular setup is mapped in detail, for example with partial deliveries or differing quantities, is something we look at on the actual case.
What happens if an EDI order does not match our master data?
The message is checked before it becomes an order. If article number, packaging unit size, GLN or price do not match the master data on file, the transaction is held for clarification instead of quietly triggering a wrong delivery. That is the difference to a pure converter: the check happens in the system in which the order is then picked and invoiced as well.
How are customer-specific prices, scales and promotions maintained?
Price lists are held per customer, scale and period, promotions and special terms with a start and an end date. When the order is created, the term valid for the delivery date is determined and recorded on the transaction. That makes it traceable months later which price applied and why. The most common cause of subsequent credit notes falls away.
Does the B2B portal replace an online shop of your own?
For business customer sales, in many cases yes. The portal shows each customer their own product range and their own terms, along with order history, delivery status and invoices, with roles and approvals per customer organisation. If you also run end-customer business, an online shop can be connected. In both cases stock and prices come from the same system.
How do order picking and route delivery fit together?
Order picking follows the route. The list comes from the order and takes the loading sequence into account, so that nothing has to be restacked at the vehicle. Capture is mobile, by scanner, including batch and best-before date. A shortfall is therefore visible before departure and not only at the customer, and the decision on later delivery or cancellation is made while it still changes something.
Companies working with fab4minds
A selection from our customer base – businesses with comparable requirements for traceability, batch management and reporting obligations.
- Naturkost Ernst Weber
- RWA
- BayWa
- B2 Biomarkt
Before you choose a system
A defined consulting engagement with a fixed scope, a fixed price and a written result. Worthwhile even if no system change comes of it.
Digitalisation consulting for wholesale
We record your order routes – from the EDI message through pricing to invoicing – and show which steps really are manual work and which would not have to be.
- Record and assess order intake from EDI, portal, email and telephone
- Document the logic of terms and price scales, including the side lists nobody officially maintains
- Walk through packaging unit, deposit and empties processes from the warehouse to invoicing
- An action plan with effort, effect and sequence
Let us talk about your order entry
How many orders are retyped today? In a consulting engagement we go through this on a real order day and show what comes in on its own via EDI and the portal. If the result does not help you, we refund the fee.