The truth is, while manual spreadsheets might be working for now, they’re slowly draining your business of time, resources, and money. Like a ship with small leaks. Small holes may seem harmless, but over time they bring everything down, including the money and reputation you’ve worked so hard to build.
More orders. More stock lines. More delivery runs. More staff updating “the sheet” that could be overwritten or accidentally deleted at any point. Suddenly, the system that once felt manageable starts costing you money, time, and customers as service starts to suffer.
If you’ve ever:
…then you’ve already seen the risks of running your business on spreadsheets or notebooks. As your business grows, these issues only mount. Here’s what we hear most often from distributors in your shoes.
Your spreadsheet says there are 10 boxes in the warehouse. A customer places an order, you promise delivery, only for your driver to find there are none left. Or worse, someone didn’t press ‘Save’ or didn’t fully fill in the line item when the sheet was updated so one order gets fulfilled twice while another gets missed. That’s not just lost sales, it’s wasted time, wasted fuel, and a frustrated customer who might think twice before ordering again.
Every distributor has those key lines that keep customers coming back. But when reorder levels are buried in a spreadsheet, notebook or email, it’s too easy to miss. That means the line sells out, suppliers take time to replenish stock, and your customers look elsewhere in the meantime.
Margins in distribution are often razor-thin. Yet small mistakes in spreadsheets can erode them fast. Outdated price lists sent out, discounts applied incorrectly, or invoices duplicated or missed altogether. Every mistake either eats into profit or damages your reputation.
Stock in one spreadsheet. Orders in another. Finance in a separate system. At the end of the week/month you spend hours trying to reconcile them. By the time a report is pulled together, the numbers are already out of date. Decisions get made on guesswork instead of data, and cash flow becomes a constant worry.
If spreadsheets are putting your business at risk, the next step is moving to a system that works for the way distributors actually operate. It’s not about adopting the most complex ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning: one system that brings all your day-to-day work together) on the market, it’s about finding something simple, fast to set up, and designed to streamline your day-to-day processes.
Follow these five key steps to move beyond spreadsheets:
These steps create a clear picture of what life can look like when you move beyond spreadsheets. This is what your day-to-day operations look like before and after implementing an ERP designed just for distributors:
Before (Spreadsheets):
After (ERP Go):
With the right system, you spend less time firefighting errors and more time growing sales, looking after customers, and keeping the business running smoothly.
If your business is still run on diary notes, disconnected spreadsheets, or a generic ERP that doesn’t fit how distributors actually work, you’ve outgrown your current setup.
Read the guide, ‘The Distributor’s Guide to Getting Off Spreadsheets’, and see how distributors, like you, are making the switch to systems built for them. Simple to set up, easy to use, and designed for distribution.