Cashflow OS for field sales teams

What field sales looks like in Indian MSMEs

Field teams range from two salespeople covering a city to thirty spread across a state. They visit retailers, dealers, contractors, institutions or farmers, depending on the trade. A good visit does four things: takes an order, collects money, solves a complaint and learns something about the market. A wasted visit does none and still costs fuel and a day's salary.

The owner's questions are always the same: where did they go, what did they bring back, and who is doing well? Without a record, the answers are guesses. Our guide to managing a field sales team covers targets and routines; this page covers the tools.

The salesperson's day in the app

The staff app opens on a Today screen built for salespeople: customers to attend, visits, orders and collections. From there:

1. Check the route plan and recommended visits for the day.
2. At the customer, check in; the visit records the location.
3. Look at the customer's pending bills before talking about a new order.
4. Take a sales order with lines and GST, at the rate the price list gives that customer type.
5. Record any amount collected.
6. Add visit notes and photos, for example a shelf display or a damaged-goods complaint.

Leave requests go through the app too, so the owner knows who is out on which day.

What the salesperson can and cannot see

The salesperson role sees items and their own customers, not the company's accounts. That is deliberate: a salesperson needs a customer's dues and the rate to quote, not the Balance Sheet or other salespeople's parties. Orders from frontline staff can be set to need approval before they go to Tally. Once approved, and once the owner has switched writing into Tally on, orders are posted into Tally through the connector; Tally validates each one.

Routes, areas and visit planning

With the field force module, you mark dealer locations, define areas and build route plans. The app suggests recommended visits so that important customers are not left out for weeks. A simple rule of thumb that many owners use: customers who buy every week need a weekly visit, those who buy monthly need a fortnightly one, and a customer who has not ordered for twice his usual gap needs a visit before he quietly moves to someone else. See sales beat planning for building the beat itself.

Measuring the team without micromanaging

The owner gets a performance view of the team, alongside visit records and the team's activity in the app. Useful measures:

Compare people on the same territory type; a city route and a rural route are not the same job. Our guide on measuring salesperson performance goes further.

Collections in the field

In many trades the salesperson is also the collector. That is efficient, but it needs discipline. Before he walks in, the salesperson should know exactly which bills are pending: "₹18,400 from 12 September and ₹9,750 from 3 October" gets paid more often than "sir, something is pending". After collecting, he records what he collected in the app, so the owner sees it the same day instead of when the cash or cheque reaches the office.

Two habits help. First, agree which bills a payment is against at the time of collection; it avoids disputes later when the receipt is entered in Tally. Second, if a customer disputes a balance, send him the party statement on WhatsApp from the office the same day, in English or as the Hindi हिसाब page, rather than letting the salesperson argue on the spot. The guide on payment reminder message templates has wording you can reuse.

Rolling it out

• Clean up customer ledgers in Tally and assign customers to salespeople first.
• Set up price lists before the first order, so rates are right from day one.
• Start with visits and orders; add routes once the team is used to checking in.
• Keep approval on for the first few weeks.
• Explain to the team that location is recorded at check-in, and why.