Sichuan Building-Materials Dealer Automates Cost-Profit, Commission and Order Tracking

Company Profile / Background

A building-materials dealer based in Sichuan supplies contractors and project sites with cement, steel, tiles and related materials. Like many regional distributors, the business runs on thin margins and fast turnover, so knowing the true profit of every order and paying the right commission to every salesperson is central to survival. A single mispriced load can erase a week of margin, and as order volume grew, the owner found that the old way of working, built on spreadsheets and memory, could no longer keep up.

Core Challenges

Cost and profit hidden inside each order

Every delivery mixed purchase cost, freight, handling and selling price, but none of it was tied to the order automatically. Staff recalculated margin by hand on a sample of orders, so the dealer often learned whether an order was profitable only after the fact, if at all, and thin-margin jobs slipped through unnoticed.

Commission disputes and slow statistics

Sales commissions depended on collected or invoiced amounts, yet the data lived in different places and different ledgers. Calculating who earned what took days each period, opened the door to disputes, and left the owner unsure whether incentive spend matched real collections or just optimistic invoices.

Order status impossible to see at a glance

With orders taken by phone, WeChat and walk-in, no single view showed what was quoted, delivered, invoiced or still owed. The team could not answer a customer or a manager quickly, and follow-up on overdue accounts was inconsistent, so cash that should have arrived stayed outstanding.

How the System Solved It

The dealer deployed the HaoYeCai cloud ERP suite (the ERP product by Chanjet) and, rather than rebuilding the business, targeted the three tasks that consumed the most manual effort. Each task became a built-in capability instead of a monthly chore.

Trick one: automatic cost and profit per order

The platform records the purchase cost and selling price on every order line and automatically derives gross margin including freight and handling. The dealer can open any order and see profit immediately, filter loss-making orders, and price future quotes with full cost visibility instead of gut feel, which protects margin on the next bid.

Trick two: commission calculated, not negotiated

Commission rules are set once in the system by salesperson and settlement basis, such as collected or invoiced amount. When a payment is posted, the platform computes the commission automatically and keeps a transparent audit trail, eliminating manual tallying and most disputes. Reps see their own earnings without asking, which builds trust in the number.

Trick three: one place for order statistics

Quotation, delivery, invoicing and accounts receivable are tracked on one screen instead of across notebooks and group chats. The owner sees outstanding orders, aging receivables and daily sales without asking anyone, and an online storefront lets the dealer publish a catalogue and capture orders digitally, reducing the phone-tag that used to eat the morning.

Measurable Results

From reactive to real-time

Profit is now known on every order the moment it is entered rather than reconstructed afterward. Commission runs are reduced from days to minutes and are reproducible, and order status is visible to anyone with permission, which shortens response time to customers and improves collection discipline.

Cleaner incentives and cash focus

Because commission is tied to actual collections, the sales team is naturally pushed to chase payment, aligning incentive spend with cash in the bank. The owner gains a single daily view of margin, commission and receivables that supports faster, better decisions.

A distributor that prices to win

With margin visible per order and commission tied to cash, the dealer can quote aggressively on the jobs it can actually profit from and walk away from the ones it cannot. That discipline, applied across hundreds of small orders a month, is what turns a thin-margin trade into a dependable business with room to grow.

Conclusion

Three focused capabilities, cost-profit per order, automated commission and unified order statistics, removed the manual busywork that held this Sichuan dealer back. The result is a distributor that prices confidently, pays fairly and sees its business in real time, with the owner finally spending the day selling and managing rather than reconciling spreadsheets at night.