Problem
Disconnected Systems, Manual Order Chaos
This long-standing battery distributor had outgrown its legacy tech stack. The team relied on QuickBooks Desktop for order entry and reporting, but the platform couldn’t adapt to the company’s evolving needs. They struggled to track customer-specific pricing, unit conversions (battery vs. case), and shipping to multiple locations. On top of that, reporting across distributed customer data was virtually impossible.
Each department was operating in silos—some using HubSpot for CRM, others using Outlook and Missive for task tracking. The sales and order processing workflows were buried in emails and spreadsheets, making it hard to scale or systematize growth. For a lean team juggling distribution logistics and B2B sales, it was clear: a smarter operational foundation was needed.
Q1
Solution
SmartSuite as the Unified Operating Layer
The team partnered with a SmartSuite implementation lead to design a new, centralized system for sales, order processing, inventory coordination, and CRM.
Using SmartSuite’s Linked Records, Conditional Logic, and Calculated Fields, they rebuilt the order entry process from the ground up. Now, line items could be added dynamically with unit-based pricing logic, customer-specific rules, and real-time updates to dashboards. SmartSuite Dashboards were customized to simplify data entry, minimizing clicks and surfacing only what mattered to the user.
Although QuickBooks Desktop had been a staple for decades, the new SmartSuite setup was designed to integrate with external inventory and accounting tools via Make or SmartSuite’s open API, enabling the team to remain lean while expanding capabilities.
Q2
Result
Clarity, Control, and Confidence to Scale
office and three-person warehouse team handled orders, pricing, customer data, and reporting. Manual entry bottlenecks were eliminated, and dashboards now guide staff through order fulfillment with clarity and consistency.
The business can now:
- Track orders with custom fields like ship-to-locations and buying group affiliations
- Run dynamic reports on pricing structures and inventory flows
- Extract order data from PDFs and populate it directly into SmartSuite
- Future-proof operations with integration-ready architecture
"I like being able to build and adjust and modify... It is the future of how software will be," shared the Director of Sales & Operations”
For a business that thrives on agility and relationships, SmartSuite delivered the systematization they needed without sacrificing flexibility.
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