Blog · Coverage and territory · Industrial distributors
How a distributor's inside sales team builds a weekly reactivation list from invoiced sales: the dormancy rule that combines a global window with each account's own rhythm, the past-value ranking, the reasons that move an account to a watch list instead, and the branch roll-up that shows how much revenue went quiet.
Every branch has accounts that used to buy weekly and stopped, and nobody noticed because nothing in the sales report goes down when an account goes quiet; it simply stops appearing. The reactivation list is the report that makes silence visible, ranked by what it costs. This guide sets out how to build it from invoiced sales.
Per account:
Interval = the account's typical days between orders over the trailing two years Dormant = days since last order > max(global window, 3 × interval)
The global window, ninety days by default, handles accounts with too little history. The interval handles the rest, and it is what makes a monthly buyer dormant at ninety days and a quarterly buyer fine at the same point.
Dormant accounts are ranked by trailing twelve-month value before the last order. The account that used to spend $4,000 a month is above the one that spent $200, whatever their days since order.
Account identifiers only.
One branch, this week, top five.
| Account | Last order | Days since | Interval | Trailing 12m | Used to buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACC-0412 | 71 days ago | 71 | 14 | $48,000 | Fasteners, safety |
| ACC-1187 | 96 days ago | 96 | 30 | $31,000 | Cutting tools, abrasives |
| ACC-0933 | 58 days ago | 58 | 10 | $22,000 | Fasteners |
| ACC-1301 | 130 days ago | 130 | 60 | $19,000 | Power tools |
| ACC-0770 | 92 days ago | 92 | 21 | $17,000 | Safety, fasteners |
ACC-0933 is the interesting line: 58 days is inside the global window and nearly six times its own interval. The single-window report would not have shown it. Together the five are $137,000 of trailing revenue that went quiet, and the inside team's week is five calls with a category to offer on each.
One window. Misses the frequent buyers, flags the infrequent ones. Use both.
Identifier changes. An account re-keyed in the ERP appears as a dormant old account and a new account. The assertion counts them; the fix is a mapping.
No reason capture. Without a way to mark "project ended", the same accounts appear every week and the list is discredited. Capture the reason and move them to the watch list.
Value at last order only. A single large order before dormancy inflates the rank. Use trailing twelve months.
Mapped once, the ERP export produces the list per branch every week, reconciled, with the watch list beside it. Covirage builds this from the export as it is. The industrial distributors page describes the setup, and the category penetration guide covers the growth half of the same export.
A single ninety-day window misses the account that ordered every three weeks for two years and has been silent for eight, and wrongly flags the one that always ordered quarterly. The account's own interval catches the first; the global window catches accounts with too little history to have an interval.
The account, its last order date, its trailing value before dormancy, and the two or three categories it used to buy most. The inside rep needs a reason to call and something to offer; the categories are both.
Dormant value by branch sums to the company's dormant value, and every dormant account was an active account in the trailing year's invoiced sales. The report counts accounts that appear dormant only because their identifier changed.