Wholesale & Distribution

Wholesale inventory management that tells you what's available, not just what you received.

You know roughly what's in the warehouse. You think you can fill the order. Then you find out a pallet was staged for another account three days ago and nobody updated the sheet. Simpentory tracks stock from receiving through staging so your counts reflect what's actually there, not what was there last Tuesday.

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Warehouse inventory in Simpentory

Simpentory inventory screen showing Warehouse A stock for a wholesale distributor, with packaging and supply categories, quantities, PAR levels, and reorder status

Available stock and committed stock tracked in separate zones. One number, no confusion.

The spreadsheet says you have it. The warehouse says you don't.

Take a coffee and paper goods distributor running 60 accounts. Orders go out five days a week. Stock moves constantly. A driver stages a case of espresso for Tuesday's route. Someone else counts the warehouse on Monday and writes down a number that includes that case. Wednesday's order gets promised based on Monday's count. Friday, the case isn't there.

The problem isn't careless people. The problem is that the inventory system doesn't distinguish between stock that's available and stock that's already committed to an account. The warehouse count and the staging count are the same number. Distribution inventory management software needs to separate those two things clearly, and most tools built for retail or e-commerce don't work that way.

Committed as available

Stock staged for a delivery route still shows in the warehouse count. Someone promises it to a second account. One of them doesn't get their order.

Receiving without a record

A supplier shipment comes in short. The driver signs for it and puts it away. Nobody records the discrepancy. The PO says 48 units arrived. 40 units are on the shelf.

No movement history

End of month, something is off. Nobody can say when it happened, who moved it, or whether it was an honest count error or something else.

How Simpentory works for wholesale distribution

Three steps, no consultants required.

1

Set up your warehouse zones

Create a storefront for your warehouse operation. Then add zones for each physical area: Receiving Dock, Warehouse A, Warehouse B, Staging Area, Delivery Van. Name them whatever matches how your team already talks about the space.

2

Track stock from receiving through staging

Stock lands in the Receiving Dock zone. After it's counted and verified, move it to the warehouse zone. When it's pulled and staged for a delivery, move it to Staging. Every transfer writes a transaction record. The warehouse count always reflects what's in the warehouse, not what left yesterday.

3

Create and manage supplier purchase orders

Build a PO, add line items and expected quantities, and submit it to your supplier. When the shipment arrives, receive against the PO. Simpentory records exactly what came in versus what was ordered and adds only the accepted units to your inventory counts.

Your warehouse, mapped as zones

Every physical space where inventory lives becomes a zone. Stock moves between zones. Counts stay accurate because the system always knows where things are.

Receiving Dock

Incoming shipments land here first. Count the goods, verify against the purchase order, and receive only what you're accepting. Stock doesn't enter your warehouse counts until it moves out of Receiving.

Warehouse A

Primary storage for active inventory. This is the number your sales and operations team checks when deciding whether an order can be filled. Stock in here is available. Stock that moved to Staging is not.

Staging Area

Orders picked and ready for delivery. Moving stock into Staging removes it from the warehouse count the moment it's committed. No more counting staged pallets as available inventory by accident.

Delivery Fleet / Van

Stock loaded on a truck is still your inventory until it's delivered. Track what each vehicle is carrying as its own zone. When the driver completes a drop, adjust the van zone. You know what left the building and what came back.

Built for how distributors actually operate

No modules to configure. No enterprise pricing. The features a small wholesale distributor needs without the overhead of a system built for companies 20 times your size.

Purchase orders from your suppliers

Create POs with line items and expected quantities. Submit them to move to ordered status. Receive against them when the shipment arrives. Simpentory adds only the accepted units to your inventory and marks short deliveries as partially received. Every step is logged.

Full activity history

Every receipt, transfer, adjustment, and count is written to a permanent log with a timestamp and the team member who made the change. When something doesn't add up at end of month, you can trace exactly what happened and when. No more guessing.

Team access with roles

Add warehouse staff, drivers, and managers with the right level of access. Warehouse staff can count and adjust. Managers can create purchase orders and view full history. You control who can do what without building a custom permissions system.

Multiple warehouse storefronts

If you operate out of more than one facility, each warehouse runs as its own storefront, from $49/month. Your team can access one location or both depending on their role. Inventory doesn't bleed between storefronts. Each location's counts stay separate and accurate.

Common questions from wholesale distributors

If you don't see your question here, reach us at [email protected].

What does committed inventory mean for a wholesale distributor?
Committed inventory is stock that has been promised to a customer on an open order but has not yet shipped. If you have 100 units of an item on the shelf and 30 are committed to pending orders, your available quantity is 70, not 100. Distributors who don't track committed inventory risk promising the same product to two customers. It's the main reason a distributor needs more than just an on-hand count: they need to know what portion of that count is still available to sell.
How do wholesale distributors track inventory across multiple warehouses?
Most distributors track each warehouse as a separate location in their system, with its own inventory records. When a customer order comes in, the distributor checks which warehouse has available stock and fulfills from there. For smaller distributors managing two or three locations, the simplest approach is a single system where each location is tracked separately (like separate zones) so you can see total available inventory across all sites without mixing up which stock is where.
How does Simpentory track committed inventory versus what's actually available?
When you stage stock for an account, you move it into a Staging Area zone. That removes it from your warehouse zone counts immediately. Any team member checking the warehouse sees only what's actually there, not what's already spoken for. Committed stock sits in Staging. Available stock sits in the warehouse. They're separate zones, so the numbers stay honest.
How do purchase orders work when I'm receiving from a supplier?
You create a purchase order in Simpentory, add your line items and expected quantities, then submit it to move it to ordered status. When the shipment arrives at your receiving dock, you open the PO and record what actually came in. Simpentory writes the received quantities to your inventory and logs the transaction. If the delivery is short or contains substitutions, you record the actual quantities and the PO moves to partially received. Nothing gets added to your counts until you confirm it.
Can Simpentory handle multiple warehouse locations?
Yes. Each warehouse is its own storefront, from $49/month per storefront billed annually, or $59 month to month. Zones live inside a storefront, so your receiving dock, warehouse sections, and staging area are all zones inside one storefront. If you operate two separate warehouses, you'd have two storefronts. Your team members can have access to one or both depending on their role.
How do I handle partial deliveries or damaged goods when receiving a shipment?
When you receive against a purchase order, you enter the quantity actually accepted into inventory. Short shipments just get the number that arrived. For damaged goods, you receive only the units you're accepting into stock. The PO shows the ordered quantity alongside the received quantity, so the discrepancy is visible without any manual notes. You can also log an adjustment in the receiving dock zone to record a write-down with an activity note explaining why.

Looking for a different industry? See Food Service, Home Services, the Retail solution, or all solutions.

Stop running your distribution business off a count that's already wrong.

Set up your warehouse zones, load your items, and start tracking stock from receiving through delivery. Takes an hour to get started. from $49/month per storefront.

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