The deal sheet that goes out late
Every month, your buyers agree promotions with manufacturers: a price per case for four weeks, funded partly by the supplier. The list is finalised a few days before the month starts. Someone keys the promotional prices into the system, someone else builds the deal sheet in a design tool, the reps get a PDF, and the web shop is updated if anyone remembers.
At the end of the month, finance asks what to claim from each supplier. The answer involves pulling sales by line for the promotion dates, subtracting anything sold at other prices, and matching it to the funding letter. Some claims go in late. Some never go in.
Where promotion admin comes from
Each promotion touches several places (prices in the system, the flyer, the reps, the web shop, the claim) and each is updated separately by hand. The deal terms themselves are in emails. So a single change, such as a supplier extending a deal by a week, has to be made in five places, and the claim at the end relies on someone remembering the terms exactly.
| Step | Usually done by | Common slip |
|---|---|---|
| Agree deal terms | Buyer, by email | Funding basis not written down |
| Set prices | Office, by hand | Starts late or runs over |
| Deal sheet | Marketing, in a design tool | Wrong price or out of date image |
| Brief reps | Sales manager | Reps sell old prices |
| Claim funding | Finance, at month end | Missed or disputed claims |
What that costs a distributor
Promotions that start late sell less and irritate customers who saw the flyer. Promotions that run over give away margin nobody is funding. Deal sheets with errors lead to invoice disputes. And unclaimed or late claims mean supplier money you earned but never received. The buying and marketing team spend a large part of each month on admin rather than on choosing better deals.
There is a customer side as well. Trade buyers plan their own promotions around your deal sheet. If the sheet arrives late, or the price on the invoice does not match it, they stop planning around you, and the promotion that was meant to drive volume becomes a line on a flyer nobody acts on.
The promotions tool we build
- Each deal is entered once: supplier, lines, promotional price, start and end dates, customer groups included, and the funding terms (per case, per unit, or fixed).
- Promotional prices are written to your stock or order system to start and stop on the dates set, through its API or import.
- The deal sheet is generated from the same data using your own layout, as a PDF for print and email, and as a page on your trade website if you have one.
- Reps get a brief on their phone with the deals, the prices and the customers who bought those lines recently.
- After the promotion, the tool reports quantities sold at the promotional price per customer group and prepares each supplier's claim in the format they ask for.
- Claims are tracked until paid or credited.
This works alongside a rebate tracker if you have one, since promotional funding and annual rebates often come from the same supplier and get confused.
How the month runs afterwards
Deals are entered as they are agreed. Everything that depends on them follows from one record, so a change is made once. The deal sheet is ready when the deals are, and the claim is ready when the promotion ends. Buyers can look back at which deals actually shifted volume and plan the next month with that in hand.
Is your promotion process like this?
- Deal sheets are built by hand every month.
- Promotional prices start late or run over.
- Reps and the web shop show different deal prices.
- Supplier claims are prepared in a rush or missed.
- Nobody can say which promotions were worth running.