In this post, we dive into what order entry software is and the benefits it can provide you in more detail. Read on to find out more.
Manually processing individual B2B eCommerce customer orders is stressful, time-consuming, and result in costly errors. Standard manual processing also provides little insight into the sales order cycle, leaving room for inefficiencies.
Using the right order entry software offers centralized data on sales orders from each of your B2B sales channels. This allows for greater transparency and control of your sales order cycle and greater order-to-cash insights. With a streamlined O2C process and automated processing, you can save time and improve order accuracy.
Order Entry Software: An Introduction
What exactly is order entry software? Order entry software is software that enables you to effectively manage your customer and business data and automate order processing – automatically capturing and tracking data on:
- Customers
- Sales
- Suppliers
- Inventory
- Orders
You can use this data to help you quickly and easily fulfill your orders.
Order entry software lets you start processing customer orders right away. In comparison, traditional manual order entry is a very time-consuming process – leaving businesses with a long list of orders to manually manage painstakingly upload day-in-and-day-out.
One of the biggest benefits of order entry software is the time it saves you – as the data is uploaded and processed automatically. The time-saving benefits are further emphasized in the case of a high number of batch orders – something order entry software can handle with ease.
Unlike manual order processing, using order entry software helps you avoid the inevitable daily mistakes that go hand-in-hand with manual uploads – improving the efficiency of your order entry process and saving you time on corrections.
As an order entry software user, you benefit from centralized data on your customers and their orders. Order entry software provides real-time data on your orders from every sales channel – including via:
- Ecommerce platforms – such as Amazon
- Mobile
- Web
This allows you to gain a better overview of your sales processes and gain insights into how you can improve the O2C process.
Having a centralized view of your orders from every sales channel allows your sales reps to easily view and take control of orders online – doing away with manual processing. This allows your sales reps to process orders more efficiently and sell more products.
Order entry software also enables you to create a customized, simplified wholesale customer experience. Approved customers can view price and product lists and easily place orders online – enabling a seamless customer experience and improving conversion rates.
Is All Order Entry Software One in the Same?
While every business will be using a simple version of order entry software, such as their ecommerce platform or a spreadsheet, the best tools are ones that offer more advanced capabilities.
These impressive capabilities often include:
- Omni-channel order management
- Excellent tracking capabilities
- Mobile and desktop functionality
- Enhanced customer communications, automation, and ease of integration with the other applications and systems you currently use – such as your financing software or your Enterprise Resource Planning software.
NuORDER was built with both retailers and brands in mind, making order entry easy and better for everyone involved:
- EZ order functionality, send buyers direct email links to place orders
- Easily view, copy, edit, cancel or download orders with a single click
- Advanced real-time reports that keep your business ahead of the curve
- API or FTP integrations with NetSuite, AS400, QuickBooks, and many more
Order Entry Software: Greater Transparency for You and Your Customers
Beyond saving you time on order processing and fulfillment, the best order entry systems also offer transparency. One of the biggest benefits of transparent data is its ability to improve supply chain management.
As order entry software helps you gain greater transparency on the different stages of order fulfillment, it’s far easier to track and source the information you need on a customer order. This makes managing order fulfillment and dealing with any returns fast and simple.
Ensuring you have greater transparency in this area can also help you more effectively analyze your sales – highlighting where you can improve, such as chances for discounts or upsells.
You can also offer greater transparency to your customers too by turning on automatic updates that let customers know at what stage in the fulfillment process their product is at. This will go a long way in helping to improve both your customer satisfaction rates and customer retention rates.
Order Entry Software: The Unique Challenges of B2B E-Commerce Order Management
As a B2B e-commerce business, you often have to manage orders across a range of channels. As B2B customers typically require a larger amount of high-quality products than B2C customers, your B2B customers will often come with far higher expectations. As such, you must be ready to meet B2B customer needs with fast, seamless orders and excellent customer service.
B2B customers also bring other expectations than B2C consumers, including expecting a range of payment options and delivery options, discounts for bulk product orders, and the option for pre-orders and backorders.
Order Entry Software: The Benefits of B2B E-Commerce Order Management
While B2B ecommerce offers its own unique challenges, order entry software can help you meet those needs. We show you how below.
Say Hello to Unified Ecommerce and Order Management with a B2B Ordering System
As explored above, one of the biggest benefits of using a B2B ecommerce platform is that it centralizes your data and offers seamless omni-channel capabilities.
This helps you centralize and streamline your order management processes across several channels – and avoid the costly mistakes and delays tied into haphazardly managing orders across multiple disconnected channels at once.
Beyond improving omni-channel management for order processing and sales, you can also ensure your software and processes are both automated and integrated. For example, with an order management system, you can make sure retail data is shared easily between each system – including data on your inventory levels, customers, invoices, products, and orders.
Ensuring your customer data and entry management processes are all accessible from one place is also key to assuring that your staff doesn’t become overwhelmed with too many processes and siloed data.
Making sure such data and processes are easily accessible and centralized can help you process orders faster – improving your customer satisfaction and retention rates.
Improve the B2B Ecommerce Customer Experience with a B2B Ordering System
As explored above, one of the biggest issues facing you as a B2B ecommerce platform owner is the expectations and needs of the B2B customer base. Order entry or order management software can help you meet these needs and offer a far better customer experience, thanks to:
- Personalized, Automatic Updates
Beyond faster delivery times through automation, thanks to improved tracking capabilities on customer orders, you can also offer your B2B customers automatic, personalized updates on the status of their order – improving the customer experience.
- Easier Ordering with the Cloud
You can also help meet your B2B customer needs by using an order management system powered by the cloud, as such capabilities allow you to arrange orders during in-person meetings.
How Do You Know You Need Order Entry Software?
Despite the many benefits outlined above, you may still be asking yourself whether or not you really need order entry software for your business. Here are 4 signs to look out for:
- Customers are frustrated by the lack of transparency offered on orders.
Are customers frequently frustrated by the lack of information offered on their orders? Are they often asking your team for updates on when an item will be delivered? Order entry software can automate updates – improving customer satisfaction rates.
- Your team is overwhelmed by information and multiple channels.
Another sign you need to invest in order entry software is team members becoming overwhelmed and stressed by siloed data and too many channels. Providing centralized data and omni-channel management capabilities will go a long way in reducing employee stress.
- Mistakes keep happening.
Few things can hurt your reputation more than frequent mistakes on orders. Sending out the wrong order and frequent order delays can lead customers to lose trust in your business. Order entry software does away with the mistakes tied to manual processing by automating the process for you.
- You struggle to manage your inventory.
Not having a handle on your inventory can easily lead to overselling. Order entry software ensures you always have enough items in stock to fulfill your orders and can manage your orders effectively thanks to greater transparency.
Capitalize on the Benefits of Order Entry Software
Processing B2B e-commerce customer orders can be stressful and time-consuming. But thanks to order entry software your team no longer needs to feel overwhelmed managing product orders across multiple channels.
Order entry software centralizes your data and automates and simplifies your order management process – reducing errors, streamlining order fulfillment, and improving your customer experience.
Find out how NuORDER can transform your wholesale business with EZ orders, custom linesheets, reporting, and countless integrations – request a demo today.
