Dealer account and collection visibility: how much does the dealer owe?

“How much does this dealer owe?” When the sales manager asks, the answer comes from accounting; when the dealer asks, it comes from accounting again, and until it arrives the order waits. A dealer account is the account in which a dealer’s receivable and payable relationship with you is tracked through invoice, payment and collection movements; visibility means that everyone concerned can see the correct and current state of this account.

In this article, through YazSis Online Dealer Software, we explain what account information means for each party in a dealer network, what seeing it in the portal makes easier, where to draw the line between the portal and the accounting record, and which rules need to be settled before you build.

One balance, three different questions

Three separate parties look at a dealer account, and each has a different question. When the information does not sit in one place, all three try to reach the same figure by different routes.

• The dealer: “What is my balance, which invoice is unpaid, did you see my payment last month?” Each of these questions means a phone call or an email.
• The sales team: “Can I open a new order for this dealer, is there an invoice awaiting payment?” If the answer is late, the order is late.
• The finance team: “From which dealer are we expecting payment and when, which payment was matched to which invoice?” If this information is scattered, collection follow-up depends on individuals.

Think of month end. A dealer says “there is a difference in my records”. The finance team pulls the statement and sends it by email; the dealer compares it with their own accounting, and after a few rounds of correspondence the two sides find which invoice the difference comes from. As the dealer network grows, so does the number of such exchanges. Opening the account to the dealer’s own screen aims to remove a large part of this correspondence from the start.

What does the account cover in the portal?

The account and collection section of YazSis Online Dealer Software brings balance, statement, invoice, payment and collection connections together in the dealer’s own account. Each dealer sees only their own account information; the headquarters team follows the commercial flow of all dealers from one place.

1. Balance: The dealer’s current position is the first thing they see on logging in; nobody has to call the team to learn the amount due.
2. Statement: A listing in which the movements of a given period can be seen in order and compared with the dealer’s own records. This makes it easy to find at which movement a difference began.
3. Invoice: Issued invoices and documents are accessible without the dealer having to request them; no correspondence is needed to have an invoice sent again.
4. Payment and collection: Payments made and collection movements are tracked together with the relevant invoice; the dealer does not have to ask separately whether their payment has been processed.

The longest conversations with dealers are often about which of the figures is the right one.

The portal shows the information, the source stays in the ERP

For account information to be correct, the portal must not keep a separate ledger. That is why product, order, account and shipment data is synchronized with the ERP; the portal shows the ERP record within the permissions of the dealer and the headquarters team. This way what accounting sees and what the dealer sees rest on the same source; if a figure differs, the cause is looked for in the record, not in the portal, and the correction is made in one place. Which methods and systems will be used for the payment and collection connections varies by business and is decided together in the scoping work.

Five rules to settle before you build

1. How often will the balance be updated? The interval at which data from the ERP is reflected in the portal should be known from the start; the dealer must know what to treat as “current”.
2. Which documents will be open to the dealer? It should be clear which of the invoices, statements and other documents the dealer can view; a sensitive document becoming visible by mistake damages the commercial relationship.
3. Who will see the balance? Within a dealer, the user who places orders and the user responsible for finance may not have the same permissions; you do not have to open balance information to every user.
4. Where are the due-date and risk rules kept? If there is a rule tied to the balance for the dealer to be able to order, where this rule will be managed should be decided in the scoping work.
5. How will disputes be handled? When a dealer disputes an invoice or a balance, whom to tell and through which channel should be defined.

When sales and finance look at the same figure

The most concrete effect of account visibility is less friction. The dealer sees their own balance and does not call your team; before approving an order the sales team sees the account on its own screen instead of asking finance; and the finance team spends its time following up receivables that fall due instead of giving out figures. Trust grows on the dealer side too, because the dealer learns the state of their account by looking at their own account, not by asking someone.

If you are planning to show your dealers’ balances and collection movements in a single portal, you can look at the account and collection section on the Online Dealer Software page.