Congratulations! You’ve just become the owner of a perishable foods business. As exciting as this is, there is one major problem: Your delivery system is flawed. In the competitive perishable foods field, this can be a problem that can absolutely sink your business. You are desperately seeking ways to not only fix this issue but also get a leg up on the competition. What options do you have? This scenario is one of the many reasons that Harvest Food Solutions was created. We create software to help your company be better than the rest.
When Harvest Food Solutions was created, the company used real-world knowledge and experiences to shape our solutions. We understand your business challenges because we’re industry veterans. Our intimate knowledge of your perishable foods business allows us to focus on what you want your outcomes to be. And unlike our competitors, we can come in and hit the ground running. So, what can we do for the business owner that lacks modern food distribution software and needs to transition to new technology? For this business owner, we would recommend HarvestDSD.
HarvestDSD (Direct Store Delivery) delivers a comprehensive and modern workflow that matches the fast pace of your business. It was created to be flexible and scalable to meet the demands of your evolving business. Our direct store delivery (DSD) software solutions focus on improving your delivery systems through inventory, delivery, ordering, and settlement all in a single, secure, and integrated portal.
Inventory Management
HarvestDSD brings a new level of inventory management to any perishable foods business. The software is able to be configured to manage anything from typical, everyday loads to complex multi-day, multi-location deliveries. It has real-time features that assist in the delivery process. Here is how HarvestDSD technology can transition your inventory management from cumbersome to cohesive:
- Future Day: Manages the loading, picking up, and delivery with Multi-Day inventories
- Inventory: Assists with managing bins, lockers, and freezers throughout your routes.
- Pick List: Helps set up an automated picklist that adjusts to the flow of the customer’s daily plan.
- Inventory Types: Tracks damaged, returned, fresh, and other product types.
- Transfers: Transfers fresh product with returns between routes with reconciliation.
- Real-Time: Enhanced real-time inventory visibility during routes.
Delivery
Once the business’ inventory is taken care of, HarvestDSD now focuses on store deliveries. What’s the best way to increase sales for your product? Create a more efficient route management system. Harvest Food Solutions’ food distribution software options are designed to maximize route efficiency by providing real-time intelligent workflow options. The options consist of the following:
- Service: Gives access to multiple delivery strategies
- Invoicing: Provides off-cycle, credit, and multi-format invoices for customers
- Shelf: Reorders item lists for optimal workflow during deliveries
- Signature: Uses signature capture instead of hard copy receipts for paper reduction and time savings.
- Pricing: Flexible sales promotion allows for enhanced pricing strategies
- Survey: Allows for customer input on what needs to be improved or was satisfactory
With better store delivery and increased sales comes the need for more products, and HarvestDSD can also help with that.
Ordering
HarvestDSD can help with market-ready ordering. Our software helps to decrease any inefficiencies and mistakes made during ordering. The ordering process takes place on an easy-to-manage screen that displays the right information at the right time. It’s perfect for the fast-paced world of direct store deliveries. The ways HarvestDSD is able to ensure the best ordering practices are the following:
- Visibility: Helps see orders with a single-screen, multi-day ordering
- Forecast: Uses advanced forecasting to help the sales team to order properly
- Shelf: Shelf management helps determine the location of your products
- Orders: Create permanent, temporary, and suggested orders, specific to each customer
- Notifications: Execute sales strategy through notifications and promotions
- History: Normal, promotional, and holiday history help guide sales to successful ordering
After the orders and deliveries are taken care of, HarvestDSD helps to streamline the settlement process.
Settlement
The software’s automated settlement process addresses the need for accountability while minimizing wasted auditing time. The whole process is completed through an easy-to-view reporting dashboard. This gives you complete control over your reconciliation process. HarvestDSD allows you to simplify your settlement process in these easy ways:
- Reporting: Easy to print, export, and view daily settlement reporting.
- Cash: Enhanced cash settlement, regardless of the method of payment
- Thresholds: Exception-based settlement with configurable tolerances
- Visibility: Cleaner visibility for management across all sales operations.
- Multi-Day: Dynamic and multi-day settlement
- Finance: GL mapping and interpretations to most ERP systems.
Secure Web Portal
Your inventory, deliveries, ordering, and settlements are all taken care of but how is everything tied together? HarvestDSD gives you access to a portal. This portal helps you manage all your route data in a single location. No more switching between spreadsheets or uploading data between departments. It is a single, streamlined, up-to-date management tool that allows for the following:
- Security: Tailored with today’s role-based activities and security in mind
- Configuration: Direct store deliveries and mobility configuration for workflow control
- Visibility: Route and customer information, route location, and service status in real-time.
- Survey: Set up and manage Direct Store Deliveries and customer surveys
- Reporting: Developed with advanced route and customer activity reporting
- Documents: With a single click, you can recreate route activities and customer documentation.
Integration
Finally, integrating this system into your business allows powerful visibility into future orders. It also assists in reducing out-of-stocks and returns. Along with this, it simplifies the complex ordering knowledge and helps the modern-day sales department. Transitioning to HarvestDSD will give you complete management over customer and route controls, a detailed daily and weekly route stop, ordering, integration, and invoicing.
Direct store delivery software is a crucial service for a perishable foods business. In order to stay relevant in this competitive field, you have to have the most efficient delivery system possible. That’s where Harvest Food Solutions comes in. Give us a call today to find out how our systems can help your business.