Apex for distribution
Thin margins, thousands of lines, one price per customer.
A distributor's price is rarely the list price. It is the customer's agreement, a quantity break, a rebate tier they are close to and the freight to their dock. Apex holds all of it against the customers and items in your ERP, so every quote and invoice carries the price that customer is owed.
What applies
The functions distributors use first.
Price agreements
Customer-specific price lists with effective dates, and blanket orders that draw down with each call-off.
Rebates
Volume tiers accrued from invoiced sales and settled as credit notes when the period closes.
Freight and landed cost
Freight per lane or weight band, fuel surcharge and duty, quoted before the order ships.
Invoicing
Invoices calculated from the order and the agreement, checked against the customer's PO, then written to the ERP.
Where margin leaks
Small pricing errors, repeated every day.
| Without Apex | With Apex | |
|---|---|---|
| Expired agreement | Old price keeps billing until someone notices | Effective dates end the price on the day |
| Rebate accrual | Estimated in a spreadsheet at quarter end | Accrued from each invoice as it posts |
| Freight | Added after the fact, or forgotten | Quoted on the order from your lane table |
| Blanket order | Balance tracked by the account manager | Drawn down with each call-off |
Order to invoice
A customer PO, priced the way you agreed.
- 01
PO arrives
An order agent reads the customer's PO and drafts the order against their agreement.
- 02
Price checked
Each line is priced from the agreement in force on that date; a mismatch waits for a person.
- 03
Order written
The sales order goes to the ERP, and the blanket balance moves.
- 04
Invoice and accrue
The invoice is calculated and written, and the rebate accrual updates.
Yours
Your agreements are your business.
Which customers get which prices, rebates and freight terms is the commercial judgment your business is built on. It stays yours, is set up to your rules, and lives in your own tenant.
Set to your terms
Agreements, tiers and lanes modeled as you write them.
Kept private
Your data stays in your environment; no model provider sees it.
Recorded in your ERP
Orders and invoices land where your team already works.
Agents propose, people approve
The agent drafts. A person decides.
An order agent turns customer POs into draft sales orders priced from the agreement, and a rebate agent flags customers close to their next tier. A person decides what is sent.
Every agent stops at an approval gate until it has earned its way out of one. Nothing releases cash, commits spend or touches a customer without a person saying so.
Your dataModels that read your data run inside your environment, behind your firewall. No client data reaches a frontier lab.
Start here, keep the foundation
Start with one function. Add the rest without starting over.
For a distributor, price agreements or rebates are a good first function. Once the customers, items and invoices are in your Ferrata foundation, adding freight, invoicing or revenue reporting works from the same records, with nothing re-implemented.
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly.
What does quote to cash mean for a distributor?
It is the path from a customer's request or PO to cash in the bank: the price, the order, the shipment, the invoice and any rebate or credit after it. For a distributor the hard part is pricing each line correctly for each customer.
Can Apex hold a different price list for every customer?
Yes. Customer price agreements are read from your ERP where they exist, or held in Apex with effective dates, quantity breaks and the items they cover.
How are rebates calculated?
From invoiced volume or value, against tiers you define per customer or program. Apex accrues as invoices post and drafts the settlement credit note at period end for approval.
Does Apex handle blanket purchase orders?
Yes. A blanket order sets a quantity or value; each call-off draws it down, and Apex warns before a release would exceed the balance.
Can freight be added to the quote?
Yes, from your own lane or weight-band table, with fuel surcharge and accessorials, before the customer commits.
Is this a replacement for our ERP's pricing?
No. The ERP stays the system of record for items and posted invoices. Apex adds the agreement, rebate and freight logic that ERPs tend to leave to spreadsheets.
Related in Apex
- Price agreementsCustomer price lists, blanket POs and call-offs that draw down a framework.View
- RebatesTiered rebates accrued from invoiced volume and settled as credit notes.View
- Freight and landed costFreight, duty and surcharges quoted per lane or weight band.View
- InvoicingInvoices calculated in Apex, checked against the PO, posted to your ERP first.View
- NetSuitePrice levels in, sales orders, invoices and journals out, on Oracle NetSuite.View
From Ferrata Labs
Start with Apex, or talk it through first.
Thirty minutes with Ferrata Labs on one workflow. You leave with a view of where Apex fits, and an honest answer if the sequencing is wrong and you should fix something else first.
Your pricing, approval and billing rules are your advantage, and they stay yours. Apex is configured to the way you sell and bill. You are not handing over a playbook or fitting into a template.