Fill rate, defined your way
Line fill, order fill, or on-time-in-full — built to the definition you actually manage by, then held constant so the number means one thing across the business.
Wholesale & distribution
Power BI dashboards for wholesale distributors
Fill rate, inventory turns, backorder aging, and margin by SKU and by customer — modelled from the ERP you already run, so the numbers hold up when a rebate or a freight charge lands.
Representative dashboard — sample data
The distribution problem
Thin margins, and a report that arrives too late to defend them
Distribution runs on percentage points. A few points of margin erosion across thousands of order lines is invisible in a monthly profit-and-loss statement and obvious in a properly built dashboard. The data exists in the ERP; what is usually missing is a model that puts price, cost, rebate, freight, and return in the same place at the same grain.
The same is true of service. Everyone knows roughly whether orders are shipping complete. Far fewer distributors can say which customers, which vendors, and which product lines are responsible for the shortfall, or what it is costing them in expedited freight and lost reorders.
Reports we build for distributors
- Fill rate & service level
- Inventory turns
- Margin by SKU
- Margin by customer
- Backorder aging
- Vendor lead time
Try us risk-free for 4 hours
Buy a block of prepaid Flex hours and, if you're unhappy within the first 4 hours, we refund you in full — no questions asked. Hours are deducted only for work you've reviewed and approved, and they never expire.
What we build
The views that protect margin and service
Each of these exists somewhere in your ERP as a query. The value is having them in one model, at one grain, refreshed without anyone exporting anything.
Inventory turns and dead stock
Turns by category and branch beside days on hand, last movement, and carrying value. The point is not which stock is old but which is tying up recoverable cash.
Margin at the grain that matters
Gross margin by SKU, customer, rep, and branch after rebates, freight, and returns — the adjustments that quietly separate reported margin from real margin.
Backorder aging with a cost attached
What is on backorder, how long it has been waiting, and which customers are affected — ordered by revenue at risk rather than by line count.
Vendor performance you can negotiate with
Promised versus actual lead time by vendor and item, with fill shortfalls traced back to source. Supplier reviews go differently when the numbers are on screen.
Customer health, early
Order frequency and basket changes flagged before a lapsed account shows up in the revenue figures a quarter later, with each rep seeing their own book.
Why doesn't the ERP report already answer this?
ERP reporting is built to be correct at a point in time, for one question, on request. Distribution management needs the opposite: several dimensions at once, trended, with adjustments applied consistently. Asking an ERP to show margin by customer and SKU after rebates, over eighteen months, by branch, is where most of them run out of road and someone starts exporting to a spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet then becomes the real reporting system — unversioned, owned by one person, and quietly wrong in ways nobody can audit. Replacing it with a model is less about new information than about making the existing information trustworthy and repeatable.
Which metrics matter, and where do they come from?
The table sets out the metrics distributors ask us for and the reason each one is awkward to produce natively. No figures are invented — everything in a finished dashboard comes from your own systems.
| Metric | Source data | Why the native report falls short |
|---|---|---|
| Fill rate / service level | Order lines, shipments, promise dates | Definition varies by report; rarely trended by customer and vendor together |
| Inventory turns | Stock on hand, cost of goods sold, movement history | Point-in-time snapshots make rolling turns hard to compare |
| Dead & slow-moving stock | Movement dates, on-hand value | Aging usually uses a single cut-off rather than movement behaviour |
| Margin by SKU and customer | Order lines, landed cost, rebates, freight, returns | Adjustments sit outside the order line and are applied inconsistently |
| Backorder aging | Open orders, allocation, incoming purchase orders | Lists exist; revenue at risk and wait time rarely appear together |
| Vendor lead time | Purchase orders, receipts | Promised versus actual is a manual comparison in most systems |
| Customer order patterns | Order history by account | Declining frequency is invisible until revenue drops |
How do you connect to our ERP?
Through a supported database, a documented API, or scheduled exports, depending on your system. Where the ERP runs on your own network, an on-premises data gateway lets the Power BI service reach it securely — our gateway setup guide covers the configuration, and Microsoft's on-premises data gateway documentation (opens in new tab) covers the platform side.
If your ERP is one we cover specifically, the NetSuite, Business Central, Sage 100, SAP Business One, and Sage Intacct pages describe those builds, and where the data already sits in a database our SQL Server dashboard development page covers the direct route. Distributors on Epicor Kinetic will find the same detail on our Epicor Power BI dashboard page. Distributors running Oracle JD Edwards should start with our JD Edwards Power BI dashboard page, which covers reading F4211 sales order detail and the item master with Julian dates converted and UDCs decoded. Distributors on Epicor’s Prophet 21 should start with our Prophet 21 Power BI dashboard page, which covers the SQL Server and API access routes for P21. If the freight side of the business runs on CargoWise, our CargoWise Power BI dashboard page covers job profitability, accrual versus actual on open jobs, and lane margin. Distributors running Odoo should start with our Odoo Power BI dashboard page, which covers inventory turns from stock movement history and item margin costed from valuation layers rather than the current cost field.
What does it cost and how long does it take?
Prepaid Flex hours that never expire: Starter 20 hours at $125/hr ($2,500), Growth 40 hours at $115/hr ($4,600), Power 80 hours at $100/hr ($8,000). A sales and margin dashboard from a single, well-structured ERP frequently fits a Starter block. Adding inventory and vendor performance, or reconciling rebates and freight allocations, usually moves it into Growth.
Most tasks ship within 3–5 business days of approval. The sensible sequence is margin first, because it is the report that most often changes a pricing decision within the first month, then service and inventory once the model is trusted.
Who this is for
Owners, operations directors, and finance leaders at wholesale distributors and B2B supply businesses — typically single or multi-branch operations with an ERP in place, thousands of active SKUs, and reporting that currently ends in a spreadsheet. If you sell primarily to consumers rather than trade accounts, retail dashboards is the closer fit, and if you manufacture as well as distribute, see manufacturing and logistics.
Reports we build for distributors
- Fill rate to your own definition
- Inventory turns and dead stock value
- Margin by SKU, customer, rep, and branch
- Backorder aging by revenue at risk
- Vendor promised versus actual lead time
3–5
business days, typical
Prepaid
hours, never expire
You
own everything
Start with margin — it usually pays for the block first. See Flex pricing.
How it works
From ERP extract to a trusted trading view
- 1
Agree the definitions
Which fill rate you manage by, how rebates and freight are treated, what counts as a return. We scope the build in hours once those are settled.
- 2
Model the ERP data
Orders, shipments, inventory, and purchasing modelled at a consistent grain with a proper date table, reconciled against a report you already trust.
- 3
Publish and secure
Reports land in your workspace on a refresh schedule, with row-level security so reps and branch managers see their own numbers.
Representative perspective
Once freight and rebates were applied at the order line, three of our top ten accounts by revenue moved into the bottom half by margin. Pricing conversations changed the same week.Finance director, industrial supplies distributor
Representative perspective
We had four versions of fill rate depending on who ran the report. Agreeing one definition and building it once ended an argument we had been having for years.Operations director, regional wholesaler
See where your margin is actually going
Tell us which ERP you run and how you define fill rate and margin. We'll confirm how it connects and scope the first dashboard in hours.
FAQ
Distribution reporting questions, answered
Any ERP with a supported database, documented API, or scheduled export — which covers the mid-market systems distributors typically run. Where the ERP sits on your own network we configure an on-premises data gateway. We confirm the access method during scoping rather than assuming a connector exists.
Most can show it for a period on request. What they struggle with is trending it, splitting it by SKU and customer at once, and accounting for rebates, freight, and returns consistently. Those adjustments usually live outside the order line and have to be modelled deliberately.
Yes, and the definition matters more than the calculation. Line fill, order fill, and on-time-in-full give different numbers from the same data. We agree which one you manage by, build it that way, and document it so the figure means the same thing in every meeting.
By aging inventory against its own movement history rather than a single cut-off. The useful view combines days on hand, last movement date, and carrying value, so the conversation moves from which items are old to which ones are tying up capital worth recovering.
Yes, using row-level security driven by a mapping table so it survives staff and territory changes. Sales reps see their accounts, branch managers see their branch, and leadership sees everything, all from one report rather than several exported files.
Related work
Distributors that manufacture as well as ship should read manufacturing and logistics dashboards, and those selling direct to consumers will find more in retail and e-commerce. The ERP-specific builds are covered on our NetSuite, Business Central, and Sage Intacct pages, with the database route in SQL Server dashboard development. Smaller distributors running their stock in Fishbowl alongside QuickBooks have their own build on the Fishbowl Inventory Power BI dashboard page. Finance leaders will also want budget vs actual dashboards, and the modelling craft behind all of it is described in data modeling and DAX. To see the shape of a finished build, browse Power BI dashboard examples. Every task is scoped before work begins from your prepaid block of senior-led hours — no project minimums, no change-order surprises, and hours are deducted only for work you approve.
Book a free demo
Get senior Power BI help, on demand
Tell us the task. We scope it, you approve, and a senior consultant delivers — typically in 3–5 business days. Prepaid hours that never expire.
- Prepaid hours from $100/hour — and they never expire
- Senior-led delivery — 20+ years on the Microsoft platform
- Typical 3–5 business day turnaround
- Full refund if you’re unhappy in your first 4 hours
The fastest way to reach us is the form — tell us the task and we'll reply within one business day.