The week the manufacturers put their prices up
Three of your biggest suppliers have written to say costs go up on the first of next month. That means your own trade prices have to move, and your customers expect notice. So someone exports the product file, opens last year's price list template, and starts working through it: band A, band B, band C, the cash and carry list, the six contract accounts with their own agreed prices, and the catering group that insists on a PDF in their own layout.
Halfway through, one of the suppliers sends a revised file with different figures for two product groups. The spreadsheet gets reworked. Sales reps start ringing to ask which price they should quote this week. By the time the lists go out, some customers have had four days' notice rather than four weeks.
Why the lists are rebuilt from scratch every time
Your stock or accounts system usually holds the prices, but the price list itself lives outside it. The logic that turns a cost increase into a new trade price (which bands move by how much, which lines are held for a promotion, which contract accounts are fixed until a renewal date) sits in someone's head and in last year's workings. None of it is written down in a form a computer can repeat.
- Price bands are stored as numbers, but the rules that set them are not.
- Contract prices have end dates that are recorded in emails, not in the system.
- Each customer's list layout is a separate Excel or Word file.
- Supplier cost files arrive in different formats and are retyped.
- Nobody can see which customers have actually been sent the new list.
What a slow price change costs a distributor
Every day between your buy price rising and your sell price following is margin you do not get back. Short notice upsets good accounts, and some will simply ring a competitor. Reps quote old prices because they are unsure, and invoices go out at the wrong figure, which later becomes a credit note or an awkward phone call. The office team also loses days to a job that happens more than once a year.
The price list generator we build
- We connect to your stock or accounts system, whether that is Sage, a dedicated wholesale system or a database behind a custom tool, and read products, current costs, bands and customer price agreements.
- Your increase rules are written down as settings: percentage or fixed uplift per product group, rounding rules, lines held at current price, and minimum margin per band.
- Contract accounts carry their review date, so the generator leaves them alone until their agreement allows a change and lists them for the account manager.
- The tool produces a draft of every list with the old price, new price and effective date side by side for someone to check before anything is sent.
- Once approved, each customer receives their own list in the right format (PDF, spreadsheet or a link to your trade site) with a covering notice, and the send is logged against the account.
- On the effective date, the new prices are written back to your system so invoices change on the right morning, not when someone remembers.
| Task | Today | With the generator |
|---|---|---|
| Working out new prices | Formulas rebuilt in Excel | Your uplift rules applied the same way each time |
| Contract accounts | Remembered, sometimes missed | Held until review date and flagged |
| Customer lists | One file per customer by hand | Generated for every account |
| Notice sent | Unknown who has it | Logged per customer with date |
| System prices | Updated late or early | Switched on the effective date |
After the next increase
When a supplier letter arrives, the buyer loads the new costs, the sales manager checks the draft lists and the exceptions, and the notices go out the same week. Reps see the new prices and the date they apply in the same place, so there is one answer to 'what do I quote?'. The contract accounts that are due a conversation arrive as a short list rather than a surprise.
Does this sound like your office?
- A price increase takes someone off normal work for days.
- You keep more than one price list template per customer type.
- Reps ask the office which price is current.
- Invoices have gone out at the old price after an increase.
- You are not sure every account received the last notice.