Plumbing merchant EPOS software

The promise problem

The distinctive risk in plumbing and heating is not mispricing. It is the promise. An installer asks for a part you do not stock, somebody says “I’ll get that in for Thursday”, and from that moment the commitment lives on a note by the phone. If the note is lost, or the person who wrote it is off, the installer arrives on Thursday to nothing.

PlanIt EPOS turns that promise into a tracked object. A special order line is raised against the customer, linked to the purchase order that will fulfil it, and followed through delivery to collection. Anyone on the counter can see which customer orders are waiting on which supplier delivery, and which are ready to go.

Special orders end to end

1. The customer asks for a part. It is raised as a special order line against their account, with a note of what it is for.
2. The line appears in purchasing as outstanding customer demand, and is placed onto a purchase order to the supplier.
3. When the delivery arrives it is booked in against that purchase order — including partial deliveries.
4. The customer order is marked ready, and the customer is messaged.
5. On collection, the goods are issued and the sale completes against the account or by card.

At no point is the state of that promise held in somebody’s head. And because the customer order is linked to the purchase order, a supplier delay is visible against every customer it affects rather than discovered one phone call at a time.

Click & collect

Click & collect is the same mechanism with the goods already in stock. The order is taken, the quantity is reserved so it cannot be sold twice, and the order is marked ready. The customer receives a message; the counter sees a clear list of what is waiting, who it belongs to and how long it has been there.

Reservation matters more than it sounds. Without it, a busy Saturday will sell the last two of something that was already promised to somebody else — and you find out when they arrive.

Deposits and part payments

A customer can pay a deposit and settle the balance on collection. The outstanding amount sits on their account, and the invoice reflects what has actually been paid rather than assuming full settlement.

Stock that reflects the racking

Plumbing catalogues are wide and full of near-identical items — the same fitting in six sizes, the same valve in two finishes. That makes accurate stock harder and more valuable at the same time.

Every movement in PlanIt EPOS is a ledger entry: sales, deliveries, transfers, adjustments and returns. Quantities are held per location, so the counter, the back store and the van are each right rather than averaged into one number. Minimum levels on the fast movers raise an alert before the shelf is empty, and every adjustment carries a reason so a discrepancy can be traced instead of argued about.

Trade accounts for installers

The installers who come in every day want an account, and they want their price. PlanIt EPOS resolves pricing in a fixed order — contract price, then trade band, then list — and enforces the credit limit at the point of sale, with recorded overrides where you choose to release goods anyway.

• Terms and credit limits per account
• Aged balance across current, 30, 60 and 90+ days
• Payments allocated against specific invoices
• Statements emailed monthly or on demand
• A customer portal for installers to see their own invoices and statements

Quotations for bathrooms and boiler work

Larger jobs are quoted rather than sold over the counter. A quotation is built at the customer’s pricing, sent as a PDF, and converted to a sales order on acceptance with every line intact. Stock is reserved at that point, and the balance sits against the account until collection or delivery.

Quotes that have not been accepted stay visible with their age, so following one up is a task on a list rather than something you remember in the van.

Buying: from suggestion to goods in

Purchase orders can be raised from two sources at once: outstanding customer orders that need fulfilling, and low-stock suggestions calculated from recent demand and supplier lead times. Both feed the same purchase order, so a single delivery covers the special orders and the replenishment.

Goods are received against the order, partial deliveries included. Stock rises when the goods arrive, outstanding quantities reduce, and costs update from the delivery. Supplier price files import from PDF, Excel or CSV with a review step before any cost or margin moves.

Counter, showroom and offline

Many plumbing merchants run a showroom alongside the trade counter. Both work from the same products and the same customer records: the showroom side leans on quotations, reservations and click & collect, while the counter runs the fast scan-and-tender workflow.

If the broadband drops, the counter carries on. Products, prices and customer records are held on the device, sales queue locally, and everything synchronises automatically when the connection returns — in order, once each.