Frozen Foods Distributor

The Challenge

Sales reps were promising delivery terms and discounts on the road without any visibility into a customer's outstanding balance or credit limit, so finance kept discovering over-extended accounts only after goods had already shipped and were perishable. Orders taken in the field were re-keyed into accounting by hand, causing mismatches between what was quoted, what was invoiced, and what was actually delivered — and short shelf-life stock meant every day a mismatch went unresolved was inventory quietly expiring in the warehouse.

Zoho Products Used

The Solution

Connected Zoho CRM and Zoho Books so every customer's live credit limit, outstanding balance, and payment history is visible on the deal record before a rep quotes a price. Built custom functions that block or flag orders exceeding a customer's approved credit limit at the point of sale, and automated the flow from accepted CRM quote to Zoho Books invoice so nothing needs re-entry. Added route-based delivery scheduling tied to order status, so warehouse and dispatch see confirmed orders the moment credit clears, cutting the gap between a sale and a shipment for stock with a short shelf life.

1
Phase 1
2 weeks
Order-to-cash mapping
Walked the full path from a rep taking an order in the field to cash landing in the bank, timing each handoff. The re-keying step between field order and accounting turned out to be where both the delay and the disputes originated.
What came out of it
• End-to-end order-to-cash process map with timings
• Catalogue of the mismatches between quoted, invoiced, and delivered
2
Phase 2
1 week
Credit policy encoded as rules
Turned an informal credit policy into explicit rules: limits per customer tier, who may approve an exception, and what happens to an order that breaches a limit. Nothing could be automated until the policy was written down.
What came out of it
• Written credit policy with limits by customer tier
• Exception approval matrix
3
Phase 3
3 weeks
CRM–Books integration build
Surfaced live balance, credit limit, and payment history on the deal record, and built the custom functions that block or flag an order over limit at the point of sale rather than after dispatch.
What came out of it
• Live credit and balance panel on the CRM deal
• Point-of-sale credit-limit enforcement with approval routing
• Accepted quote to Zoho Books invoice, without re-entry
4
Phase 4
2 weeks
Route-based dispatch scheduling
Tied confirmed orders to delivery routes so warehouse and dispatch see an order the moment credit clears — the change that shortened the gap between sale and shipment on short shelf-life stock.
What came out of it
• Route and delivery-slot scheduling on confirmed orders
• Warehouse picking view driven by route and dispatch date
5
Phase 5
1 week
Field rollout
Trained reps on mobile in their own territories, ran a fortnight of supported use, and adjusted the credit prompts that were firing on accounts everyone knew were fine.
What came out of it
• Mobile rep training by territory
• Two weeks of supported live use and rule tuning

Before and After

Business Results

• Credit-limit breaches caught before dispatch instead of after delivery
• Order-to-invoice re-keying eliminated between CRM and Books
• Faster order-to-dispatch cycle, reducing spoilage risk on short shelf-life stock
• Finance and sales working from the same live balance and credit picture