A field sales system that closes the order inside the customer's shop

The rep leaves the depot in the morning; until they get back to the office that evening, orders sit on paper dockets, cash sits in their pocket and the promised return is in their head. Someone then re-types the whole day into the system in the evening, and that is where both the errors and the delays come from. A field sales app collapses that chain into a single step where the order is closed in the customer's shop. Managers see routes, balances and stock as the day happens.

How many separate apps does this need?

  • 01

    Field rep mobile app (iOS + Android)

    Route list, customer visits, offline order entry, van stock, payment receipts, receipt printing from a mobile printer and shelf photos; fully functional even where there is no signal.

  • 02

    Web admin and route planning panel

    Route and visit-frequency planning, customer-specific price and discount matrix, promotion setup, credit limits, an order transfer queue to the ERP and target tracking for the field team.

  • 03

    Dealer / customer self-service ordering app

    A lightweight mobile app where the corner shop, supermarket or HORECA customer places their own order between visits and sees their balance and purchase history.

  • 04

    Warehouse and dispatch screen

    A tablet interface for picking pre-sales orders, building vehicle loading lists, reconciling stock on the van-sales vehicle and counting returns at end of day.

What the app includes

  • Visit start/stop check-in with duration logging
  • Customer-specific price list calculated offline on the device
  • Automatic tiered discount and free-goods line generation
  • Line-by-line van stock deduction and end-of-day vehicle count
  • Receipt and collection slip printing via Bluetooth mobile printer
  • Separate recording of cash, card, cheque and promissory note collections
  • Credit-limit warning at order entry for over-limit customers
  • Shelf photo and competitor price attached to the visit record
  • Separate warehouse movement for returns, damaged and expired goods
  • Visit-frequency day route plan with automatic carry-over of missed calls
  • Separate sync queues for orders, collections and photos
  • On-site e-waybill/e-archive issuing (Turkey's GİB e-document system) with draft numbering when offline

State of the sector

Competitive pressure in field sales comes from two directions. On one side, large distributors hand their reps a tablet and close the order in the shop; the company that can promise next-day delivery gets ahead of the one still waiting for data entry back at the office in the evening. On the other, shop and cafe owners now expect to order from their wholesaler through an app as well. What gets lost without an app is not only speed: pricing errors from paper dockets, forgotten returns, late collections, and no way of knowing whether the route was actually completed. For a newly established regional distributor, that visibility is cheap to build if it is put in place before the team grows past ten people.

Metrics that matter here

  • Effective visit rate (visits producing an order / total visits) — The app records every visit along with its reason code; stops that never produce an order are removed from the route plan or their cause is addressed.
  • Route compliance (share of planned visits actually made) — Plan and actual visits are compared on the same screen; a skipped customer is automatically rolled over to the next day so visit frequency is preserved.
  • Numeric distribution / product availability — You can see which customer has never bought which SKU; the gap becomes a list of products for the rep to pitch on the next visit.
  • Average collection period and overdue balance — Order entry for a customer over their credit limit triggers an on-screen warning, and because payment is collected in the field, payment terms shorten.

Common mistakes in this sector

  • Leaving offline capability to a later phase An app tested on office Wi-Fi freezes in a basement storeroom out in the field. The rep goes back to paper and the system is abandoned. The offline flow and the sync queue belong in the core of the first release, not as a feature bolted on afterwards.
  • Keeping pricing and discount rules on the server only When the device cannot calculate the promotion, the rep types the price in by hand; the order that reaches the ERP doesn't match and accounting spends time on corrections. The rules engine has to run on the mobile side too, and both sides must produce the same result.
  • Turning location tracking into a disciplinary tool Continuous location drains the battery and creates resistance in the team; reps find ways to switch the phone off. Location should be sampled infrequently, limited to the shift and used only for visit verification, with the privacy notice shared with the team from the start.
  • Leaving returns, damages and discount exceptions out of the flow In an app designed only for order entry, returns and expired goods go unrecorded and van stock stops matching. Returns, free goods and damaged items must be defined as separate warehouse movements in the first release.

Regulation and compliance

Documents issued in the field fall under the GIB (Turkish Revenue Administration) rules for e-Fatura (Turkey's mandatory e-invoicing system), e-Arsiv and e-Irsaliye (electronic waybills). In van sales the goods leave the vehicle, so the delivery waybill has to be issued at the moment of handover, which requires a queued, interruption-tolerant connection to the integration provider. For cash collections, payments above the documentation threshold in Turkey's Tax Procedure Law must go through a bank or financial institution; the app shows that threshold as a warning on the collection screen. The rep's location and photo data and the customer's account details fall under KVKK (Turkey's data protection law, aligned with GDPR): a privacy notice, purpose-limited collection, defined retention periods and role-based access must be in place from the outset.

The real challenges in this sector

  • Offline ordering and conflict resolution in shops with no signal

    The shop's storeroom is in a basement; coverage drops in industrial estates. The app has to keep the price list, stock view and customer balance on the device and complete the order locally. What happens when prices change centrally during sync is decided up front by rule: the order line is frozen at the price shown during the visit, while stock is re-validated server-side and any conflicting line is pushed back to the rep.

  • Customer-specific pricing, tiered discounts and free-goods calculations

    The same product goes to a supermarket chain, a corner shop and a cafe at three different prices, with tiered discounts, promotions and free goods layered on top. That calculation has to produce exactly the same result on the device, offline, as it does in the ERP. The rules engine is ported to the mobile side, every promotion defined in the panel is versioned, and the rep's screen keeps an explanation line showing which rule produced each order line.

  • Van stock and issuing e-waybills from the vehicle in van sales

    In van sales the goods are handed over from the vehicle and the document has to be produced in front of the customer. The app deducts van stock line by line, keeps returns and damaged goods in a separate warehouse, queues the e-Irsaliye (electronic waybill) / e-Arsiv call to the integration provider, and when there is no connection prints a receipt from the Bluetooth mobile printer against a draft document number, formalising the document once connectivity returns.

  • Verifying that a visit actually happened

    GPS check-in alone is not enough: mock-location apps, shop coordinates that have drifted on the map and signal bouncing inside a shopping centre all generate false alarms. Verification is built from several sources - location accuracy radius, mock-location flag, time spent at the visit, and whether the shelf photo came from the device camera. A suspect visit is not penalised; it lands on an exceptions list in the panel.

  • Balancing battery life and background sync across a full shift

    The device stays on from eight in the morning until evening; continuous location and instant sync drain the battery by mid-afternoon. Location is captured at visit check-in and check-out plus infrequent interval sampling; orders, payments and photos go into separate queues, with photos uploaded only on Wi-Fi or while the vehicle charger is connected. The critical order queue always takes priority.

Required integrations

  • Customer account, stock, price list and order services in Logo, Mikro, Netsis, Nebim or SAP
  • e-Fatura / e-Arsiv / e-Irsaliye integration provider under GIB (Turkish Revenue Administration) for issuing documents and handling returns in the field
  • Bank virtual POS or iyzico / PayTR / Craftgate (Turkish payment providers) for mobile collections, plus payment links and receipts
  • Bluetooth mobile printers (Zebra, Sunmi, Epson) for receipts, waybills and payment slips
  • Mapping and routing service: address validation, daily visit sequencing and vehicle location history
  • Findeks/KKB credit reports and cheque and promissory note records feeding the balance screen for credit risk

Who this page is for

  • Regional food and beverage distributor with a single warehouse

    Grocer and café routes run on pre-sales. Priority is offline ordering, the customer-specific price matrix and transfer into the existing ERP; van stock and hot selling can wait for a later phase.

  • Newly founded wholesaler selling directly from vehicles

    Because goods leave the van, documents and stock matter from day one. Vehicle stock, the e-waybill integrator, Bluetooth printing and end-of-day reconciliation move into Phase 1; dealer self-service comes later.

  • Manufacturer or importer selling through a dealer network

    Fewer visits, higher value per visit. The weight sits on shelf audits, numeric distribution, campaign tracking and a self-service app so dealers can order between calls.

A phased plan that splits the budget

  1. 1

    Phase 1 — Pre-sales core: route, offline order, collection 7-9 hafta

    Ships the rep app and the web panel: morning sync of customers and price lists, offline order entry, visit logging, cash and card collection, and order transfer into one ERP. With this alone the team can drop paper; the day closes without any later phase.

  2. 2

    Phase 2 — Van sales, vehicle stock and on-site documents 5-7 hafta

    Adds vehicle stock, loading lists, return and damage warehouses, end-of-day reconciliation, plus the e-waybill/e-archive integrator link and Bluetooth printing. It comes second because on-site document issuing has to sit on the order and pricing rules already proven in Phase 1.

  3. 3

    Phase 3 — Dealer self-service, shelf audit and target tracking 4-6 hafta

    Adds the light app where a grocer or café orders between visits, shelf-photo and competitor-price audits, plus numeric distribution and rep target dashboards. It goes last because it only pays off once order and visit data has accumulated.

Typical scope and timeline

A typical first phase covers the rep mobile app (offline ordering, visits, payment collection, van stock), the web admin panel (routes, price and discount matrix, promotions, credit limits) and two-way sync with a single ERP. e-Irsaliye integration, mobile printers, shelf audits and the dealer self-service app are handled in a second phase. Analysis, UI/UX, a field pilot, QA and app store release are included.

Estimated timeline: 12-18 weeks

Off-the-shelf or custom build?

Topic Off-the-shelf Custom build
Pricing and discount rules Packaged tools usually cover tiered discounts, but a scheme where customer group, campaign and free goods interact can only be modelled as far as the package allows. The rule engine is written to your own matrix and the same code runs offline on the device; each order line keeps a note of which rule produced its price.
Connecting to your existing ERP Where a ready connector exists for a common ERP, setup is fast and the vendor maintains it; anything the connector does not cover means waiting. Account codes, units, VAT rates and return items are mapped one by one, and a small sync service is written for versions with no middleware.
Per-user subscription or one-off investment Starting with five reps, a monthly subscription is cheap and low-risk; once the team reaches twenty, the per-user fee becomes a permanent cost line. Development is paid up front, leaving hosting and maintenance; cost does not scale in step with headcount.
Data ownership and moving your field history The vendor handles backups and updates; in return, visit, photo and collection history lives in their schema and export depends on the contract. Database and file storage stay with you, retention and access rules follow your own policy under Turkey's KVKK data law, and the schema is yours if you move.

Sector glossary

Pre-sales
The flow where the rep only collects the order in the shop and goods ship from the warehouse next day. No van stock is held; the document is issued at dispatch, not by the rep.
Van sales (hot selling)
Goods are handed over from the vehicle on the spot. Order, waybill, return and payment all close within the same visit; van stock drops per line and is reconciled by an end-of-day count.
Free goods (bonus quantity)
A discount paid in product rather than money, such as one case free with ten. It appears as a separate zero-price line and still leaves stock at real quantity.
Numeric distribution
The share of customers in a territory that actually stock a given product. In the field it turns into a “this customer has never bought this SKU” list that drives the visit pitch.
Route compliance and call frequency
How often each customer should be called on and how much of that plan actually happened. Missed stops roll to the next day, and the gap is the first sign that field work is slipping.

Frequently asked questions

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