Blog · Wallet share and penetration · Distributors
The ten questions a distributor's commercial director puts to the branch and sales managers, which accounts are dormant and worth what, which branches leak category share, which accounts earn least after cost to serve, which take too many drops, which lines were lost to stock-outs, where is private label under-penetrated, which reps cover their books, what are the unagreed discounts, which counter customers deserve an account, and what changed, each with the table from the invoice lines and the delivery log, and the answer to send back.
A distributor's commercial director asks the branches how the month went and gets a feel for the month. The invoice lines, the delivery log and the account master hold the month as tables. This guide is the ten questions, the tables, and the answer to send back.
| # | The question | The table | Identity | Send back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which accounts earn least after cost to serve? | Contribution per account with drops, returns, lines at stated rates | Margins sum to ledger gross margin | Revenue ranking |
| 2 | Which accounts are dormant, and worth what? | Dormant list by run rate, own cadence, seasonality flagged | Accounts in one state | Days-silent list |
| 3 | Which branches leak category share? | Category penetration per branch against the norm | Category revenue sums per branch | Branch revenue |
| 4 | Which accounts take too many drops? | Drops per week against the type norm; excess cost | Deliveries reconcile to route stops | A blanket minimum order |
| 5 | Which lines were lost to stock-outs? | Lost lines by item, branch, account; recurrence; frequency effect | Order lines in one state | Fulfilment count |
| 6 | Where is private label under-penetrated? | Own-label share on paired SKUs against type norm; value at norm | Own-label plus branded equals ledger per category | Category-wide penetration |
| 7 | Which reps cover their books? | Coverage at cadence per rep; untouched revenue; data quality | Assigned accounts sum | Calls per day |
| 8 | What are the unagreed discounts? | Price realisation per customer and rep against agreements | List less agreed less unagreed equals invoiced | Realisation alone |
| 9 | Which counter customers deserve an account? | Repeat walk-ins by token, value at the account norm | Counter revenue in three classes | Counter sales as noise |
| 10 | What changed? | The movements page | Every line cites | Narrative |
Commercial director: Which accounts earn least? Response: Account 1187: third by revenue at $3.1m, forty-first by contribution at $30,000. Daily drops to eleven sites, returns three times the base. Table 1, row 41, with the components. Commercial director: What would fix it? Response: Three drops a week saves $168,000 at the stated rate; a returns policy $74,000. Both on the row. Commercial director: And the branch? Response: Branch B-04 is at 41 percent on trade type confirmed and $410,000 of value at norm on the accounts it has typed. Typing the rest is a morning at the counter. Table 3.
Three tables; two conversations, one with an account and one with a branch.
Revenue as the ranking. The expensive account looks best.
Branch feel as the report. The branch manager's impression of the month.
Delivery log unused. Cost to serve, drops and lost lines all live in it.
Counter sales ignored. The largest uncovered customers.
Covirage produces the ten tables from the invoice lines, the delivery log, the account master and the point-of-sale export, with the identities checked. The distributors page describes the setup, and the margin by account guide covers the first table.
Contribution per account after cost to serve, because it re-ranks the accounts everyone thinks they know. The third-largest customer by revenue is often the forty-first by contribution, and the branch manager should see that before any list about growth.
Cost to serve, drop frequency and lost lines do; they are the delivery log joined to the invoice lines. The rest come from invoice lines and the account master. The point-of-sale export adds the counter customers. All exports, on account identifiers.
Invoice lines sum to the ledger at every level; gross margin per account sums to the ledger's gross margin; deliveries reconcile to route stops. A branch table that does not sum to the branch's ledger figure is sent back.