Businesses are doing more sales through their eCommerce websites than their stores in most categories. Few countries have apps that deliver daily essentials like milk and eggs for breakfast and prints of photographs and documents. Online stores increase the overall sales of a company as the ease of ordering from the comfort of home is appreciated by consumers as long as they are getting quality products at reasonable prices. For every sale, as soon as an order is placed, a process runs in the background until the product is delivered. This process is now automated by most businesses through Order-to-Cash (O2C) Software.
An order-to-cash process tracks the customer’s orders from start to finish and handles all the steps involved in fulfillment. Accepting the order, raising the invoice, packing, and shipping the items till the last mile are different steps of this process. The process also involves real-time tracking and this data is shared with the customer so that they know the exact status. This process if not automated can lead to many errors that will cause a logistics nightmare. Listed are the benefits that a business enjoys with O2C software:
- Streamlined Order Processing
Orders are processed without any mistakes at the entry-level. For instance, if the customer enters the wrong card details, the order is not processed and alerts the mistake. A parallel credit check of the customer is carried out before moving order fulfillment and inventory ledgers are checked to prevent stockout. Based on the data the order is fulfilled through optimized allocation to different warehouses from where the order is shipped.
- Improved Fulfillments
Most errors in eCommerce happen because of similar names or address mismatches. With O2C software, the stages of picking, packing, shipping, delivery, and tracking are all coordinated without errors. Each order is matched with the order ID or code before sending it for shipping. Integration with delivery partners and shipping carriers to avoid logistics snags on a real-time basis is one of the biggest advantages. The customer receives status updates thereby engaging them progressively.
- Accurate Data Processing
Order processing needs to both raise and honor invoices. Automated O2C captures the data accurately to raise invoices for customers and pays vendors like carrier companies based on details like price, quantity, discounts, charges, and taxes.
- Financial Visibility & Control
The software can be integrated with the existing ERP and AI tools to display dashboards with detailed reports on sales, revenue, orders under process, and returns. Based on the KPIs, decisions that improve the growth curve are taken by the management. Forecasting becomes easier with predictability allowing room and space to act beforehand.
Conclusion:
Consumers these days have many review platforms where they write about their experience in dealing with a brand. If your business does not strive to get better ratings through efficient order fulfillment, then all the efforts like having the best quality product, experienced marketing teams, spending on campaigns and advertising will be futile. Good quality products are matched with exceptional service through O2C software implementation.