Cashflow OS for dealers

What a dealership looks like

Dealers are found in almost every trade: paints, tyres, two-wheelers, electricals, pipes, cement, solar, agri inputs. The usual set-up is an authorised dealership for one or more brands, a counter or showroom, a few salespeople, and a mix of customers: walk-in retail buyers, contractors, institutions and smaller sub-dealers in nearby towns.

The dealer buys from the company, often against advance or short credit, and sells to many customers, some of them on long credit. Targets and schemes from the company add a layer: buy a certain quantity this quarter and earn a discount or credit note. See managing dealer schemes and discounts for how to keep those straight in the books.

The squeeze, in numbers

Suppose the company gives you 15 days and your contractors take 60. On monthly purchases of ₹20,00,000, you are funding about 45 days of that, roughly ₹30,00,000, from your own capital or your bank limit. Every 10 days shaved off customer credit frees around ₹6,50,000. This is why receivables are the single most useful screen for a dealer, and why your salespeople should know which customers are overdue before taking a new order.

How Cashflow OS helps a dealer

• Both sides of credit: bill-wise receivables from customers and payables to the company, with ageing.
• Statements on WhatsApp: share a party statement as a PDF in Tally's format or a Hindi हिसाब page.
• Price lists: dealer or customer types such as A, B and C, with layered discount rules that fill rates automatically, so a sub-dealer and a retail buyer get the rates you decided.
• Quotations and proforma invoices with your logo, letterhead, signature and bank and UPI details; a quotation converts into a sales order or a Tally sales invoice.
• Sales orders into Tally from the counter or the field, with lines and GST, once writing is switched on; frontline orders can need approval.

Counter, showroom and field in one place

Dealers often need several selling tools at once. Switch on only what helps:

All modules work on the same items and parties as your Tally books.

Protecting the accounts

Your margins, the company's credit terms and your bank balances are not for every salesperson's eyes. In Cashflow OS the salesperson role sees items and their own customers, not the company's accounts. The accountant gets the accountant role. Writing into Tally stays off until the owner switches it on, and every entry goes through Tally's own checks. The owner can see the team's activity.

For a broader look at access, read user roles and access control.

A day in a dealership with Cashflow OS

Picture a paint dealer with a counter, two salespeople and about 300 active customers. In the morning the owner opens Home and sees yesterday's sales, receipts and the bank balance. A contractor calls asking for a rate on 40 buckets of exterior emulsion for a site; the counter staff make a quotation with the dealership's letterhead, the price list fills the contractor's rate, and the PDF goes on WhatsApp within minutes.

Meanwhile a salesperson visiting a sub-dealer two towns away checks that sub-dealer's pending bills on his phone before booking a fresh order. The order needs the owner's approval because it comes from frontline staff; the owner sees the sub-dealer is within his usual pattern and approves. The order goes to Tally through the connector. By evening the owner checks payables to the company, sees a ₹4,80,000 bill due on Friday, and looks at which customers can be asked to clear old balances before then.

None of this needed the owner to sit at the Tally PC, and none of it went around Tally either.

A quarter-end checklist for dealers

1. Check purchases from the company against the quarter's target using the ledger and stock reports.
2. Confirm that scheme credit notes from earlier quarters are booked in Tally.
3. Clear old customer balances before the company's quarter-end payment is due.
4. Export Profit & Loss and outstanding to Excel or PDF for your CA or the bank.