Case Study: How to Organize Distribution in the Destination Country? Part 2

In the first part, we talked about a case where, after delivery to the destination country, the goods are directly shipped from the vessel to a warehouse, from which small batches are distributed to end consumers. We also promised a continuation: to explain how invoices, payments, and debts are managed in this same case. Here it is!

Customer Statistics and Balances

The first thing the client analyzes on the dashboard after seeing warehouse balances is customer analytics.

We created several tables to show balances for each customer by product:

• We see how many tons were reserved and shipped for each customer
• We see how many tons were invoiced and paid by them
• We see the difference between shipment and payment, and between issued invoices and payment

The last point is important because it allows controlling the timeliness of invoice issuance. Ideally, these figures should be the same, but even better when they are “zeroed out”.

The next table is formed with similar logic, but in monetary terms:

• Amount reserved and shipped
• Invoiced and paid
• Shipped – paid and invoiced and paid

An important clarification: each currency is displayed separately in the table to avoid mixing funds and converting units of measurement. We also highlight in red the situations that require attention: invoices that should have been issued but were not.

Debt and Payment Delays

After this analytics, the client is interested in clarifying the situation with customers who have outstanding debts.

They do this in two approaches:

1. Amounts and volumes across all customers with unpaid invoices, grouped by warehouses
2. A list of specific invoices that are already overdue, sorted by the number of days overdue to identify debts.

Weekly Cash Flow and Accumulation

The last graph on the dashboard gives the client a visual understanding of their incoming cash flow by week.

1. On the first graph, they see account receipts for each week by each contractor
2. On the second graph, they see the accumulation of funds from week to week

An important addition: this dashboard also has a large number of filters, and the most frequently used is the vessels filter, which immediately provides an understanding of what is reserved, shipped, invoiced, and paid from a specific vessel.

In total, just this client’s warehouse dashboard contains 12 different graphs or tables. We were excited working on this case, although we still marvel at how the client manages to analyze such a huge volume of information from so many different angles.

The dashboard is already launched in production and has received positive feedback, which motivates us to continue making similar exercises.

We look forward to new challenges! 🚀