Distribution, Trading and Wholesale Operations

A trading business lives on two numbers: what is actually in stock, and who actually owes money. Both are usually wrong, and the gap between the recorded figure and the real one is where the margin quietly goes.

This hub covers the operations of businesses that buy and sell rather than make: stock accuracy across locations, the order-to-cash cycle, receivables that age past the point of easy collection, and the pricing decisions made from a WhatsApp message rather than a current cost.

The failure modes are specific. Stock that exists in the system but not on the rack. A customer whose credit limit was set three years ago. A sales team quoting from a price list nobody updated after the last purchase. Six people who can commit stock and no record of who committed what.

The posts here are written for the person who signs off a purchase order and then wonders, three months later, why cash is tight while the warehouse is full. Blocked cash does not appear in a profit and loss statement as a loss — which is exactly why it goes unexamined for so long.