Systems that run wholesale and distribution businesses
Wholesalers and distributors run on systems that hold the price book, the stock figure and the rounds, usually written years ago for one counter or one warehouse and extended every year since. Solve With Software takes those systems over and modernises them in stages, so the counter, the buyer and the drivers keep the screens they know while the customers, the branch and the accounts get connected to them, and AI turns the emailed lists and PDF orders into orders for someone to check. The pages below take those systems one at a time, in both their generations, and say what modernising each brings.
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Where the counters and the warehouses are
Builders' and plumbers' merchants, electrical and industrial wholesalers, food and drink distributors and catering suppliers run on systems like these in every region of the UK. Nearer home they sit on the estates around Chelmsford, Colchester, Braintree and Witham, along the A12 and out to the M25 fringe where the London deliveries begin. Each has a trade counter or a warehouse with a system at its centre that knows every account's price and every product's location, and each has the same question about it: how do we bring it forward without the counter stopping or the vans standing?
Our base is Colchester; the counter or the warehouse can be anywhere in the UK. The work runs remotely, with a visit in person across Essex, Suffolk and London when the system needs one, and the regional page says how that works locally.
Two generations behind the counter
The Old Guard was written between the early 2000s and about 2013 by a contractor or a small software house that has since folded. The trade counter system is a Visual Basic 6 program with Crystal invoices; the stock and purchasing system is Access for the buyer and a .NET program at goods-in; the rounds system has a Cordova app on rugged handhelds; the ordering portal is Classic ASP with Web Forms on top.
The New Legacy is the same system built from about 2016 by a web agency or a freelancer: an order screen in a browser, a scanner app on ordinary phones, a portal that works on a buyer's phone, or a low-code build in Power Apps or Zoho Creator. Since 2023 a few have been attempted in an AI builder and stalled before the Sage link. It looks modern, and nobody can change it.
Most merchants and distributors of this size run a bought trade package for some of this, often with a homegrown price book, portal or rounds app beside it. That homegrown piece is the same kind of work.
What comes out of modernising them
The price book comes out of the code into screens the sales office owns, so a new price for a big account takes minutes. The stock figure becomes one figure, at every location, because goods-in, the pick and the transfer are scanned as they happen. The drivers get an app that installs on a phone that can be replaced, and the office sees the drops during the day instead of at six. The customers get live stock on the portal, confirmations that send themselves, and EDI feeds in the formats the national accounts now ask for. And the whole thing comes off the one PC and the server with a date on it, onto a supported database with a backup that has been restored on purpose. Once the system can be changed safely, AI takes the keying off the sales office and the buyer too: an emailed list or a PDF purchase order drafted into an order with the codes matched, a supplier's price list read into new costs, a customer's doorstep note read into a standing order. Each system page works out the time that gives back at its own order volumes.
None of it needs the old system switched off. Each piece is added beside it, on the same data, and the counter, the warehouse and the drivers switch when the new screen is better than the old one.
Systems in wholesale and distribution
One page per kind of system: the Old Guard version, the New Legacy version, what modernising it brings and where AI helps.
The sales order system behind your trade counter
- The Old Guard
- Written 2003 to 2010 in VB6 by a contractor or a small software house, on SQL Server, and still running on the back-office server and the counter PCs.
- The New Legacy
- Built 2016 to 2022 by a web agency in PHP or React, or on a low-code builder, with the contract price rules buried in the agency's code.
- Where AI helps
- AI drafts orders from emailed lists and photos at each account's own prices, typically half an hour to two hours of keying back each morning.
The stock and purchasing system your warehouse picks from
- The Old Guard
- An Access database from about 2004, with a .NET goods-in program and SQL Server added around 2010, on one Windows server in the warehouse office.
- The New Legacy
- Built 2016 to 2022 by an agency in PHP or React, or in Power Apps, with an Ionic scanner app that the replacement handhelds no longer install.
- Where AI helps
- AI reads supplier price lists and acknowledgements into draft costs and dates, typically a couple of hours to most of a day of the buyer's week back.
The rounds system and handheld app that run your vans
- The Old Guard
- A .NET office program from about 2008 by a contractor, on SQL Server, with a 2014 Cordova app on rugged Android handhelds syncing to the office server.
- The New Legacy
- Built 2016 to 2022 by an agency, the office side in React or Node and the drivers' app in React Native or Ionic on ordinary phones.
- Where AI helps
- AI drafts the extra van stock for each round from what customers take on that weekday, typically fifteen to forty minutes of the planner's afternoon back.
The ordering portal and EDI feed that take your customers' orders
- The Old Guard
- Classic ASP from 2006, rebuilt in ASP.NET Web Forms around 2011 with a PHP catalogue added, on an IIS server in the office beside the EDI script.
- The New Legacy
- Built 2016 to 2022 by a web agency in React, Node or early .NET Core, or in Bubble, with the EDI left on the old translator script.
- Where AI helps
- AI drafts emailed PDF orders into the portal for checking and holds orders that do not fit, typically half a day to a day of keying back each week.
Questions
What people ask before they book.
Will the counter or the warehouse have to stop while the system is modernised?
No. Each new piece goes in beside the old system, on the same data, and the counter, the pickers and the drivers switch when the new screen is quicker than the one they have. The old program stays as the fallback until nothing still opens it.
Our prices, reorder levels and round rules are all inside the old system. Do they survive?
They are the first thing found and the last thing changed. The assessment writes them down with the people who use them, and they go into data the office can see and maintain rather than code only one developer could read. A contract price or a substitution pair that has held for years keeps holding.
We have a counter system, a stock system and a portal, and they all need work. Which goes first?
The one with a date on it. A server that goes out of support in January 2027, a handheld app that will not install on a new phone or an EDI line that ends with the analogue switch-off sets the order, and the assessment says which. Where nothing has a date, the piece the customers feel usually goes first.
Half our orders still arrive as emails and PDFs. Can AI do anything with a system like ours?
Yes, once the system is safe to change. On systems like these it reads what already arrives in writing, the electrician's emailed list, the buyer's PDF purchase order, the supplier's new price list, the note a customer hands the driver, and drafts the order or the update for someone to check rather than type. It can also hold an order that does not look like that customer before it is picked. In a sales office where half the orders arrive that way, the keying is the first part of every morning. It comes after the first stage, and the assessment maps where it would pay back on the system as it stands.
What does it cost, and how soon does something work?
The assessment is from £395 + VAT, with an exact price before you commit, and it produces costed options with a fixed price for each. The first stage is sized so something is working in about six weeks. The report is yours. Take it to us, another developer, or nobody.
Start with a free consultation
An hour on your system, online or by phone. From there we size the assessment, from £395 + VAT, and give you an exact price before you commit.
Want the numbers first? See how pricing works.
Written by Marc Allington, founder. .