A customer asks a wholesale branch for stock. The rep checks the system, sees zero and quotes from an external supplier. The customer takes a day or two to say yes.
Meanwhile, the company's own stock arrives: a transfer from another branch, a supplier delivery or a return. Nobody tells the rep. The external order goes ahead, and the internal stock stays on the floor.
Many wholesale operators have stopped counting how often this happens. Counting it would mean knowing what stock was where, and when. That is exactly what the rep can't see at the moment of decision.
Four costs your P&L doesn't show
Margin lost on external buying. Buy from a supplier instead of your own stock, and you lose the gap between their price and your cost. Small gaps on many orders can add up to a large yearly number.
Carrying cost on slow-moving stock. Stock that could have filled an order sits instead, tying up cash and space while it loses value. Plants age past their best, seasonal building products miss their season, and food expires.
Rush charges on stockouts that weren't real. When a rep sees zero and orders urgently, the supplier can charge a premium for fast delivery. That premium hides inside your normal cost of goods.
Phone calls between branches. Branch managers ring each other to ask "do you have X?" It isn't a line item, but it uses your most experienced people's time most days.
The phone calls aren't the problem. They're the symptom. Nobody can see stock across the network until someone asks a person standing near it.
Your ERP holds the stock data, but not at the moment of decision
Most wholesale operators have an ERP that holds stock-on-hand data. The data exists. What's missing is a view of it at the moment of decision.
An ERP is built to record transactions: what was received, sold and transferred. It usually isn't set up to show stock across branches while a customer is on the phone. The stock report is a snapshot, and the rep has to leave the sale to run it.
An ERP also answers questions; it doesn't ask them. Once a rep has quoted from a supplier, they have no reason to check again. The ERP may record the overnight transfer, but nothing tells the rep it arrived.
What our team built: a live stock view and an agent that warns the rep
Our team built this for a national horticulture wholesaler with 12+ branches. Read the wholesale horticulture case study.
Some of this work was delivered by Reenva's founder and team before Reenva was formed.
The work had three parts.
A live stock model. One model holds stock on hand, incoming purchase orders, branch transfers and grower returns, refreshed every 30 seconds. It doesn't replace the ERP; it shows the ERP's data as it changes.
Live views for the team. Power BI shows live stock by branch. A weekly scorecard shows the margin lost to external buying, so the sales floor can track it.
An agent that warns the rep. The agent is set up to watch each open quote for the company's own stock that could fill it. When that stock arrives, the rep gets a nudge inside the ERP and decides before the external order is confirmed.
The agent went live nine weeks after kickoff. The result: 58% of identified procurement-margin leakage recovered. Slow-moving inventory cycle time fell 38% in the first six months.
If your ERP already shows stock, the problem is timing
A common pushback is: "our ERP already shows stock across branches." It usually does. The question is whether it shows the right person, at the moment they decide.
If reps place supplier orders while stock sits in another branch, the gap isn't the data. It's the workflow. An agent that watches stock across branches can fix that timing problem; it doesn't need new data.
See what else we fix for wholesale and distribution businesses.
+ Your next step
Want to know what this looks like for your network?
Book a 30-minute call. If there is a fit, a two-week fixed-fee review maps your quote-to-procurement flow and shows where stock visibility gaps cost you.