Knowing your supplier.

This next post is about knowing your supplier and how they work, if you familiarise yourself on how your suppliers work then it speeds up the processes of:-

a) Buying goods (when you have to pay)

b) Credits

c) Booking Deliveries

d) Ordering in stock

e) Pricing Jobs

f) Ordering in special items

Now you maybe asking how do i find out this information, well it's as simple as asking your supplier, once you have this information it means that you can make the decision on who to use for certain items, but i will break the list down on what this information will benefit you on and how it will help you save money and time.

Buying Goods:- For this cash accounts aren't really relevant as you pay as you go but credit accounts there usually attached to a 30-60 day credit agreement booking the goods at the right time could be the difference of paying for goods at the end of the month or the month after, you may not be to bothered when you pay but if you book goods on the last working day of the month you will be paying roughly 30 days earlier than if you booked them on the first day of the month after. If your waiting for a customer to pay or snagging is taking a little longer than expected then this could help you. If your account is on stop how can you start the next job or even finish the current one?

Credits:- I will be posting another page on this subject as there are many details to this but just to give you a little information make sure you know your suppliers return policy, an expensive item that can't be returned is a big lump of cash that you can't spend or use.

Booking Deliveries:- Very important to be organised on booking deliveries as asking at 16:00 for a deliver the next morning is going to be very unlikely no matter how hard you push your supplier for it, ask the question, if you booked your delivery 3 days ago for a morning drop and an unorganised builder comes in screaming and shouting for a drop the next morning and your delivery gets pushed back to the afternoon you wouldn't be particularly happy would you? so state the importance of your delivery when booking your slot, again booking deliveries is a broad subject and will have another post for this subject.

Ordering in stock:- This subject will also need another post but to give you a little information check your lead times on items, if your asking for a price then always follow up with the question "do you have it all in stock?" there's no point in organising a start date for a job if your supplier only has 70% of the goods you need.

Pricing jobs:- This goes back to the first post and who you deal with as a contact, there's nothing worse than trying to quote for a job and your contact is slow at coming back to you with prices and availability, to combat this the best option is to go into the branch and sit with your contact as they price the job it may take 1/2 an hour to do but which would you prefer, waiting a few days for them to come back to you or spending a short amount of time and walking off with a hard copy in your hand and being able to price a job confidently knowing what your items will cost.

Ordering in special items:- A minefield in no uncertain terms, be very careful on who you choose for this, just because your supplier is classed as a stockist doesn't mean they will get a good price on the item you need, you could be paying well over the odds because you didn't do your homework, a helpful tip is if the item you need is from a certain supplier and your merchant stocks alot of other items that they do then chances are they will be getting a good price, if they don't stock any of there goods then chances are they won't get a great price, of course there are exceptions to this rule but always put the enquiry forward to all your suppliers.