Many wholesalers run on a single piece of paper: the slip handed to the driver. It serves as price, order, proof of delivery and invoice. The day a customer disputes a price, or a delivery is split in two, that single slip can no longer answer anything.
Why four documents rather than one
A wholesale sale goes through four moments: you offer a price, the customer commits, the goods leave, the money is owed. Gaps open between them — the customer orders less than the quote, the depot delivers less than the order. One document per moment means always knowing where each sale stands, and above all which document moves stock: only one.
The example that follows is an illustration. A grocer asks you for 40 cases of cooking oil at 150 DH a case, 6,000 DH in all.
The quote: a price, nothing moves
The quote says: "if you order, this is the price". It is an offer, not a commitment to deliver. It touches neither stock nor the customer's account; ten quotes a day change nothing in the depot.
Its value is that the price is written down. When the grocer comes back saying "you told me 140", the quote settles it. In Gestio, a quote stays editable until it has been turned into an order.
The sales order: picking line by line
The grocer confirms: the quote becomes a sales order, with nothing retyped — lines and prices are carried forward. The sales order says what the customer expects, not yet what has left.
It is the storekeeper's document. They pick line by line, and that is where they find only 25 cases left out of 40. Better to find out in the depot than in front of the customer with the truck doors open.
Stock still does not move: an order is not an exit. In Gestio, each company chooses whether to accept or refuse an order for a product that is completely out of stock.
The delivery note: this is where stock goes down
The delivery note is the only sales document that takes goods out. It is therefore the only one that lowers stock, and it does so once: at the actual delivery.
The storekeeper issues a delivery note for 25 cases: stock loses 25 cases, not 40. If you count in units, it is the units in those 25 cases that go out — the logic of case and unit.
The customer signs the delivery note on receipt. If they later say only 20 cases arrived, their signature on 25 answers for you.
The invoice: what is owed
The invoice says how much the customer owes you. It is made from the delivery note, not the order: you invoice what left, not what was planned. Here, 25 × 150 = 3,750 DH, not 6,000.
The invoice does not move stock again: the delivery note already did. A tool where the invoice also removes the goods counts every case twice. In Gestio, the invoice for a delivery note does not touch stock, and it is what feeds the customer's account. For the mandatory details your invoices must carry, check with your accountant.
Partial deliveries, cancellations and returns
That leaves the 15 missing cases. The sales order is not settled: it stays open for the rest. When restock arrives, a second delivery note for 15 cases is made against the same order, then its invoice for 2,250 DH. Total: 6,000 DH, exactly the quote, in two deliveries.
- Never more than what remains. Gestio refuses a delivery note that exceeds what is left to deliver: you cannot send 20 cases when 15 remained.
- Cancelling a delivery note returns the goods. Delivery did not happen? Cancel the note: the cases go back into stock and the order reopens. An invoiced delivery note, however, cannot be cancelled while the invoice exists.
- Correcting means cancelling and reissuing. Rather than rewriting a delivery note that has already moved stock, cancel it and issue a new one. The trail stays readable.
- A return goes through a credit note. The grocer sends back 2 damaged cases: a 300 DH credit note against their invoice. Gestio sends damaged or expired goods to a separate depot, so they are not resold by mistake.
The same flow on the purchase side
With suppliers, the chain is the same in the other direction: supplier purchase order, goods receipt note, supplier invoice. And the same rule applies: only the goods receipt moves stock, upwards this time, when the goods physically enter the depot.
Cases on order are not cases available: selling them before they arrive is promising what you do not have. And once they are in, you still need to know where they are stored.
What a tool changes
On paper, the flow holds as long as each document is copied into the next without mistakes. One forgotten line, one mistyped price, and it breaks. In Gestio for wholesalers, each document carries the previous one forward without retyping, quantities stay editable for a partial delivery, and stock moves only once, at delivery.