Have you every questioned yourself – How efficient is your sales cycle?

Sales is the essence of your business. It’s why you do a business in the first place- to provide value through your product or service. It is a prime indicator of your business profitability. Needless to say, efficient handling of your sales cycle becomes top priority!

A sales cycle or an Order to Cash (O2C) cycle encompasses all the activities needed to close a B2B sale. It encapsulates the way your business manages and completes customer orders. 

How does it work for you as a vendor?

1. Firstly, you’d receive a request for quotation from your buyers. Once you send a price quote for the products, you’d have to negotiate for the best agreed upon price.

2. After the buyer has agreed to a reasonable price, they send a purchase order. On receiving this PO, you as a vendor create a Sale Order. A sale order is a document which includes details about the product (or service) such as its price, quantity, billing and shipping information along with the terms and conditions.

a) This sale order is sent to the buyer for confirmation.

b) Next, you’d have to assemble the products as you near the delivery date and once it arrives, you deliver the products as per the terms mentioned in the sale order.

c) Along with this, you also create and send a vendor invoice, which is thoroughly evaluated by the buyer and then the buyer makes a payment for the same. 

The sales cycle spans for a number of days and might be longer if you rely on manual processes. Sales cycle is very important for your business and must be handled and documented properly.

Manual processing of the same exposes it to risks such as :

• Data entry errors 
• Lack of transparency during the process
• Problems in allocating inventory
• Redundant and repetitive tasks
• Risk of late or incorrect delivery which would lead to poor customer service
• Compliance issues while creating invoices

These can adversely affect your relationship with your clients and you might lose business with them. 

Challenges and Benefits of Sales Cycle Automation :-

Better customer service – Automating will help in processing and delivering orders faster.

Save time – A lot of paperwork and steps to crosscheck is eliminated when you switch to automated solutions, this saves time considerably. The scope of duplicity and re-entry is also eliminated.

Less Errors – As everything is automatically updated in the system, you avoid the errors your employees would have made by manually entering data which in turn eliminates the scope of misunderstanding between you and your clients.

Better inventory control – Stock allocation and managing inventory becomes simple, you can always view the stock in hand at any time and allocate the goods to multiple orders accordingly.

Using smart inventory and accounting software to automate the sales order process will enable your business to track and monitor the entire journey from order receipt to delivery.

Something that streamlines various steps in the sales cycle and provides a centralized system to manage the whole process, sounds like the perfect fit for you, right?

Why not switch to a software solution that gives the above mentioned benefits and more?

That solution lies in RealBooks!

RealBooks is a GST-compliant accounting and inventory management cloud-based software that facilitates accurate sale cycle management.

With RealBooks you can be sure to deliver on time and have a smooth sales journey that leads to better customer service with the following benefits- 

• Keep track of inventory- Only when you have a clear picture of the available stock in hand is when you can confidently accept any sales order and deliver on time. RealBooks comes with a robust inventory module that aids in tracking the stock in hand at any given date. 

• Keep track of sales cycle– With multiple reports generated throughout the sales cycle, you can track all open and closed orders either party-wise or ledger group-wise using the Sale order status report. It lists the quantity dispatched the the quantity that is pending along with other details such as voucher type and number, segment and and date.

• Thorough Analysis of sale- You can check the efficiency of sales activity through the sales analysis report. This report categorizes your items as fast moving, slow moving and non moving and shows the sold and returned quantity of goods. This analysis will help in deciding where you need to put more effort for quicker delivery and client satisfaction. 

• Track delivery status- Among the multitude of reports that RealBooks generates for RealBooks is the Delivery Order Status report that helps to track the total delivered and billed quantity for a specific party. 

• E-invoicing and e-way bills– With RealBooks, you won’t have to worry about any compliance issues as the software is integrated with the GST portal via GSP, making the creation of invoices and e-way bills simple and quick.

The success of your sales cycle is tied to your profitability as well as better client relations. Running it hurdle-free will help you to deliver efficiently on time. With RealBooks, Ditch the hardwork and Introduce the smartwork- switch to a smart and robust accounting software to automate the tedious sales cycle.