If distributors and stockists serve your sari-sari stores, wholesalers, supermarkets and drugstores, judge SFA (sales force automation) software in the Philippines on what happens after the rep leaves. Did the distributor serve the order? What stock does it have left? Do its secondary sales match its invoices at month-end? Visit screens and dashboards are the easy part to compare.
A common setup today runs on Viber and Excel. Orders reach the distributor as Viber messages, someone keys them into billing, and the month's secondary sales arrive as an Excel file weeks later. You will know where a rep was, but not what sold.
New to SFA? Start with what SFA means for a Philippine sales team. Still choosing the kind of tool? Our guide to sales force automation tools covers that, with the questions to ask about visits and route plans. This page is for when you have a shortlist.
What to check in SFA software, from sari-sari store to month-end
A demo usually starts and ends at the store. Your sale does not. Walk one order through each stop below, and ask each vendor to show it with your own stores, prices and promos loaded.
At the sari-sari store
The rep should book with that store's own price and the running promo already applied, so a "buy 10 cases, get 1 free" deal is not left to memory. The store's unpaid balance should be on screen before the rep adds more. Test it on an older Android phone with the signal off, the way a rep works on a provincial route. The order should save, then sync when the signal comes back.
Supermarkets, drugstores and promodisers
Supermarket and drugstore chains need shelf and display checks, often by a promodiser who stays in the store. Promodisers should work in the same app as your reps, on the same outlet list, so a chain store you also reach through a distributor is not counted twice. If they use a separate tool, store checks drift back to Viber.
On the van
Teams here often sell two ways. On a booking route the rep takes the order and the distributor delivers later. On an ex-truck route the rep sells, invoices and collects from the van. If you run ex-truck routes, ask to see the full van day: the load in the morning, the invoice printed at the store, the cash collected, and the day-end count of what is left on the truck.
At the distributor or stockist
When a distributor serves your stores, a booking is only a request. The sale happens when the distributor serves it. So the rep needs the distributor's stock for each SKU while booking. A rep who books 20 cases the warehouse does not have has made a promise someone else will break.
Then ask how the order reaches the distributor's billing. Some distributors run billing software. Others keep sales in Excel, and a few small stockists still write them by hand. A platform that only connects the first group leaves gaps exactly where your coverage is thinnest. Ask the vendor how the smallest stockist on your list would bill its stores.
At the wholesaler
Wholesalers in the public market and the town center buy differently from a sari-sari store. Their orders run to dozens of lines, they often have their own price list, and they may buy on credit terms. The rep should see the wholesaler's prices and what it already owes before adding more to its account.
At month-end
Secondary sales are what your distributors sell on to stores and wholesalers. Ask to see them by distributor, store, SKU and day, as the distributor bills them. An Excel file that lands in the second week of the next month is too late to act on. Then check the promo claim against the same orders that earned it.
Test your shortlist on one distributor through month-end
A demo shows what a platform can do. A pilot on one distributor shows whether its numbers match the distributor's books.
One rule decides most of it: if the secondary sales in the platform do not match the distributor's invoices at month-end, nothing else on the scorecard matters.
Your targets, incentives and promo budgets will all rest on that number.
Plan on four to eight weeks, since the test has to run through one full month-end close. Set it up like this:
- Pick a hard distributor: a stockist on Excel, with a wholesaler and an ex-truck route in its area. It tells you more than a distributor whose books are already clean.
- Load your real data: the outlet list from your Excel tracker, which distributor serves which store, price lists and promo slabs. Merge duplicate sari-sari stores and fix locations as you load, or the pilot only tests your list.
- Agree with the distributor's owner, before day one, which invoices you will compare at month-end.
| Test | How to run it | A pass looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Month-end match | Take the stockist's own invoices for the month, printed or handwritten, and set them beside the platform's secondary sales | Totals agree store by store and SKU by SKU, and every gap has a reason you can name |
| Booked versus served | Book a SKU the warehouse is out of, then check what the delivery truck actually brought | The rep sees the shortage before promising, and the unserved lines show on the order |
| Wholesaler order | Book a long order for a public-market wholesaler that is close to its credit limit | Its own prices load, and what it already owes is on screen before the order is sent |
| Promo claim | Run one "buy 10 cases, get 1 free" deal for the month, then take the distributor's claim | Every free case claimed traces back to an order that earned it |
| Van day-end | Close one ex-truck route at the end of the day | Cash and stock left on the van match what the app recorded as sold |
| No-signal order | Book a few stores in a row on a provincial route with mobile data off, then drive back into signal | Every order arrives once, with nothing lost and nothing doubled |
Watch the distributor's office as closely as the numbers. If its staff still re-key orders from Viber by week two, the integration is not finished, whatever the demo showed. On your side, have the area manager ride along with each rep in the first week and fix whatever slows them down.
How BeatRoute handles each test
BeatRoute runs the SFA app, the distributor management system and the retailer ordering app on one platform, with 6,000+ channel partners connected. Here is how that maps to the scorecard.
- Month-end match: each distributor connects the way that suits it: a connector to its billing software, an API, a scheduled file, or the BeatRoute distributor app if it runs no system.
- Booked versus served: distributor stock sits on the same platform the rep books in, so the shortage is visible before the order goes out.
- Wholesaler order: each account carries its own prices, and the rep sees what it already owes before adding more to the order.
- Promo claim: a distributor's scheme claim is checked against the bills that earned it.
- Van day-end and no-signal order: van stock and cash close in the app, and orders taken offline sync when the signal returns.
In Nigeria, AAVA Brands runs BeatRoute SFA and distributor management linked to its ERP, with primary and secondary sales in one view. On the platform it grew store-level sellouts 25–30% and field force productivity 18–20% (AAVA Brands case study). In the Philippines, a leading paints brand selling through hardware stores, retail chains and paint centers raised sales productivity by 30% on BeatRoute (read the paints brand case study).
BeatRoute suits brands whose reps sell to many retailers through distributors and want distributor management on the same platform. If that is you, book a demo and ask us to plan the pilot above with one of your distributors.
Frequently asked questions
Who from the distributor should join the pilot?
The owner, or whoever signs off the month's invoices, and the person who keys orders into billing. If the distributor has its own salesmen who book orders, include one of them. On your side, bring someone from sales operations to own the data, the area manager for the pilot routes, and the person in finance who approves promo claims.
What if a stockist will not share its data?
Start with the distributors who will. Then show the holdouts what they get back: orders that arrive already keyed, and promo claims settled against the orders on file instead of argued over Viber. Ask your area manager to make the case in person, with the pilot distributor's month-end as the example.
Can we start with SFA alone and add distributor management later?
Yes. BeatRoute sells SFA on its own or with distributor management. If you start with SFA only, still run the month-end match using the Excel file or report the distributor sends you now. You will see how big the gap is before you decide on the rest.
How much does SFA software cost?
BeatRoute is subscription software, priced by module and team size on annual contracts, with no free trial. When you compare quotes, ask each vendor to price the pilot apart from the full rollout, so a one-distributor test does not commit you to the whole contract.
