AxisIQ for distribution and wholesale

AxisIQ runs a distributorship: principals, schemes, beats, sales orders, challans, GST invoices, retailer credit, collections, batch stock and principal claims.

AxisIQ is the system a distributor or stockist runs the whole trade in: principals and their schemes, a catalogue with MRP, PTR and HSN, salesmen and their beats, sales orders and dispatch challans, GST invoices, retailer credit and collections, purchases and GRNs, batch stock with expiry, and the returns and claims that go back to principals — one live workspace instead of a billing package, a godown register and a dozen WhatsApp groups. The Distribution & Wholesale template sets it up at signup, and Ask Axis, the built-in assistant, then adapts it to the way your distributorship works.

The work this replaces

A typical distributorship runs on a billing package that knows invoices and little else. Orders arrive as a diary page, a WhatsApp voice note or a phone call. Credit is extended on familiarity — until the cheque bounces. Stock by batch lives in the godown in-charge's head or register, and near-expiry goods are discovered when a retailer sends them back. Scheme free goods are passed on to retailers but the claim to the principal is assembled months later from photocopies, and part of it is never recovered.

None of it is carelessness: order, dispatch, bill, payment and claim sit in places that never meet, and someone carries the information across by hand.

What the Distribution & Wholesale template sets up

Seven apps and eighteen record types, with the built-in Invoices and Payments types extended for distribution:

Invoices gain a sales order, salesman, taxable value and GST; payments gain Collected by and a Cheque / UTR no., so a cheque collected on the beat is traceable to the salesman who carried it. Sales orders, challans, purchase orders and returns number themselves (SO-2610-0001, DC-…, PO-…, SR-2026-…), and the template also builds a Godown dispatch work queue, a Become a retailer partner form, and two PDF layouts — a GST tax invoice and a delivery challan.

The links do the work. A stock batch points at the GRN it arrived on. A sales return points at the invoice it is against and the principal whose goods came back, and its lines carry batch and expiry. A retailer visit ties retailer, beat and salesman to the order it produced.

How a week runs in it

On the beat. Each salesman works the beat for that weekday. Every call is a Retailer visit — order taken, collection only, no order, shop closed — and an order becomes a Sales order with its Order lines, scheme and free quantity included. Phone and WhatsApp orders go in the same way, with the source recorded. A new shop can sign itself up through the Become a retailer partner form — shop name, outlet type, owner, mobile, GSTIN and address — which lands as a retailer record.

Approval, then the godown. An order with a taxable value of ₹1,50,000 or more waits as pending approval until the sales manager clears it; everything else goes straight to picking. A confirmed order enters the Godown dispatch work queue on its own — To pick → Picked & checked → Loaded on vehicle → Dispatched — where each picker claims the next order on a lease, so two people never pick the same one.

Dispatch. Each load goes out on a Delivery challan naming the vehicle, driver and case count, printed from the delivery challan layout for the retailer to sign, with the e-way bill number from the government portal recorded on it. Marking the challan dispatched moves the order to dispatched. An order can go out in several loads; the one ticked Final delivery closes the order when it is delivered.

Billing and collections. The invoice points back at its sales order and salesman, and the GST tax invoice layout renders it with both GSTINs, taxable value and GST. Online payers get a Razorpay payment link through your own account; a paid link comes back as a payment record. Cheques, NEFT and cash are entered as payments with the cheque or UTR number and who collected them.

Purchases. Primary orders go to principals as Purchase orders. When the lorry arrives, a GRN records the principal's invoice, shortage and damage; once it is accepted, the PO is marked received, and Stock batches are entered with their batch, expiry and godown.

Returns and claims. Expired, damaged or unsold goods come back as a Sales return with batch-wise lines. When the return is approved, a draft Principal claim for the same value is opened against that principal, so expiry and damage claims are raised as the goods arrive, not at year end.

Automations included

Five flows, all switched on:

• Big orders need approval — orders with a taxable value of ₹1,50,000 or more are held for the sales manager before picking.
• Dispatched challan moves the order — a challan marked dispatched moves its sales order to dispatched.
• Delivered challan closes the order — when the last load reaches the retailer, the sales order is marked delivered.
• Accepted GRN receives the PO — an accepted GRN marks its purchase order received.
• Approved return opens a principal claim — an approved sales return opens a draft expiry/damage claim on the principal for the same value.

Each can be changed or switched off, and every run is logged.

Roles

• Sales manager — beats, targets, retailer credit and order approval.
• Salesman — works the beat: books orders, logs visits, collects payments.
• Godown & dispatch — receives stock, keeps batches, picks orders and sends out challans.
• Accounts & credit — bills, collects, controls credit and settles claims with principals.
• Purchase executive — places orders on principals, follows up supply, tracks schemes and claims.

Field-level permissions let a salesman see PTR and outstanding but never purchase rate or unit margin — on screen, in exports or in reports.

Your home dashboard

Distribution overview shows Sales (invoiced), Collections, Overdue receivables and Orders pending dispatch, then Sales by day, Sales by principal over 90 days, Outstanding by age, a table of Overdue invoices to collect, a table of Orders pending dispatch, Beat performance over 30 days and Top retailers over 90 days. Every widget is a SQL query you can edit in Analytics.

Platform apps that come switched on

• Invoices & Payments and the Accounting ledger — double-entry, exact decimals, immutable once posted.
• Messaging — email, SMS and WhatsApp through your own provider account, for payment reminders and dispatch notices; WhatsApp to retailers uses Meta-approved templates.
• Work Queues — the Godown dispatch queue, plus scan stations and GRN manifests checked carton by carton (barcode guide).
• Forms — the retailer sign-up form is published; opening it to the public internet is a permission the owner grants.
• Sheets, PDF templates, Knowledge Base.

Switched off: In-Store Checkout, Marketplaces, Content Studio, Web Campaigns, Functions and Calendar — a distributorship sells on credit to the trade, not over a counter or a storefront. Any of them can be turned on in Settings → Apps.

Make it yours

After signup Ask Axis asks what is different about your business, and you answer in plain words:

• "Hold any order from a retailer whose outstanding is above their credit limit."
• "Add a cash discount percentage and a CD-eligible flag to retailers."
• "Add a widget for batches expiring in the next 90 days by principal."
• "Add a van sales department with its own stock and daily settlement."

Ask Axis changes your live workspace under your own permissions and asks before anything destructive. Example data makes the dashboard readable on day one; it never sets off the automations, and Settings → Industry template → Clear example data removes it in one click — only the template's own rows, never yours. Started blank? A template can still be applied from Settings while the workspace is empty. Existing retailers, products and open invoices come in by CSV, keeping your invoice numbers (migration guide). See Ask Axis.

What AxisIQ doesn't do

• No GST return filing, e-invoicing (IRN) or e-way bill generation. HSN, GST rate and GSTINs sit on the records, the e-way bill number can be recorded on the challan, and the ledger balances; your CA files from there.
• No Tally sync or export, and no payroll for your salesmen.
• No automatic retailer outstanding. Outstanding is a field you keep current — by hand, by import, or with a flow you add; ageing on the dashboard is computed from the invoices themselves.
• No line items on PDFs yet. The invoice and challan layouts print header details and totals, not the SKU lines.
• No offline mode. Salesmen need a connection to book orders.
• No principal DMS integration. Data from a principal's own DMS portal comes in by CSV.

Sub-verticals

• FMCG distributors — beats and salesmen, schemes and free quantity, retailer credit, collections and claims to principals.
• Pharma distributors — batch and expiry on stock, near-expiry returns and expiry claims, chemists on credit.
• Building materials dealers — contractors and projects on credit, challans with vehicle and driver, large-order approval, part deliveries.

More industries at /industries. Moving off a desktop billing package? Read signs you've outgrown Tally.

FAQ

Can AxisIQ track schemes and free quantity? Yes. Each order line carries a free quantity and its scheme, so a scheme claim is a query over lines already entered.

How does AxisIQ handle retailer credit limits? Every retailer has a credit limit, credit days, an outstanding figure and a credit-hold status, and the dashboard shows outstanding by age. A flow that holds orders over the limit is one sentence to Ask Axis.

Does AxisIQ generate GST invoices and e-way bills? It keeps invoices with taxable value, GST and HSN and prints a GST tax invoice PDF, but generates no IRNs or e-way bills and files no returns.

Can one order be delivered in several loads? Yes. Each load is its own delivery challan; the one ticked final delivery closes the order when it reaches the retailer.

Can I track expiry and damage claims to principals? Yes. An approved sales return opens a draft principal claim for the same value, tracked through to settled.

Start with the Distribution & Wholesale template — or see AxisIQ in action.