Surgical and Medical Supplies Distribution in Nepal: Urgent Orders, Proof and Institutional Credit

Surgical and medical supplies cover a wide range: gloves, syringes, cannulas, dressings, catheters, masks, sutures, diagnostic kits and small equipment. The buyers are hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, pharmacies and institutions. What makes this trade different in Nepal is the combination of three pressures. Orders are often urgent: a ward store runs short and calls at short notice. Delivery must be provable, because hospital stores receive goods formally and disputes are hard to settle without evidence. And institutional buyers tend to pay slowly, with approvals that pass through several desks. This guide is organised around those three pressures. It does not cover regulation; follow the rules that apply to your products and licences.

The urgent call: "do you have it, and where?"

A typical scenario: a hospital purchase officer calls at eleven in the morning for a box of a particular cannula size. If the honest answer takes an hour, because someone must phone the godown, then the branch, then check a register, the hospital calls the next supplier.

To answer in minutes, you need three things in one place:

• Stock per branch. Each godown or depot is a branch in gamitrack with its own balance per SKU, so you can see immediately which location holds the item.
• Batches with expiry. Stock is received into batches with expiry dates, so you know whether the units available are fit to send.
• Transfers as movements. If the item is at another branch, transfer it; the transfer is recorded as a stock movement, so both branches stay accurate.

Then book the order, dispatch it in full and assign a delivery person. Because stock movements are append-only, the history of that urgent order, from transfer to dispatch to delivery, is there if anyone asks later.

Classify stock by how bad a stock-out would be

Not every SKU deserves the same attention. Classify by the consequence of running out.

Class	Examples	Stock rule	Review
Critical consumables	Gloves, syringes, cannulas, common dressings	Never out; low-stock level set in every branch	Weekly, daily in busy periods
Regular items	Common disposables, masks, tapes	Normal reorder levels	Weekly
Specialised items	Specific catheters, sutures, kits	Order against demand; tight expiry watch	Monthly
Equipment	Monitors, small devices	Order to quotation; delivery with proof	Per order

Each item and pack size is its own SKU. Low-stock alerts on critical consumables tell the purchase desk to reorder before a hospital call reveals the gap.

The hospital order, from request to payment

Institutional orders follow a longer path than a pharmacy sale. Map it, and you can see where delays and disputes come from.

1. Request. The hospital store or purchase officer asks for items, often by phone or letter. Record it as an order straight away.
2. Pricing. The order prices from your price lists. Institutions usually have negotiated rates; give each a party override so nobody types prices by hand. VAT applies only to lines marked taxable; confirm with your accountant how your lines are treated under the current IRD rules.
3. Dispatch. Dispatch is all-or-nothing: the full order goes, or it waits. If an item is short, split the order deliberately rather than sending a partial load with no record.
4. Invoice. IRD-format tax invoices, numbered per fiscal year with Bikram Sambat dates, are issued for the order.
5. Delivery. An assigned delivery person delivers and records proof.
6. Receipt and approval. The hospital store receives the goods and passes the bill for payment.
7. Payment. Often weeks later, after internal approvals. Due days run from dispatch, so the clock is visible from day one.

Equipment orders are different

Equipment such as monitors or small devices usually follows a quotation, a purchase decision and a delivery that may need installation or a demonstration. gamitrack has no quotation or service-contract module, so keep the quotation in your usual format, and record the agreed price as a party override or on the order. Use follow-ups to track the decision date and the next contact, and internal notes for warranty or installation arrangements. When the order is placed, it flows through the same dispatch, invoice and proof-of-delivery steps as consumables, so the record is complete.

Proof of delivery at the hospital store

Hospital stores are busy and formal. Without proof, a missing box becomes your loss. Make this the delivery standard:

• The delivery person sees the order, amount due, location and directions in the driver tab.
• At handover, record proof of delivery with GPS, a photo of the goods and the receiver's name, ideally the store keeper, not whoever is at the gate.
• Note any damaged carton in the photo before leaving.
• If the delivery is recorded far from the customer's location, gamitrack flags it as a far delivery for a manager to check.
• Where payment on delivery is agreed, for example with a clinic or pharmacy, the driver collects after delivery.

For more on delivery records, see delivery, dispatch and proof of delivery.

Institutional credit: patience with a system

Hospitals and institutions are usually reliable but slow payers. The risk is not that they never pay; it is that slow balances pile up while you keep supplying, until your own cash runs short.

Practice	How to apply it
Named owner	One person follows up each large institution
Monthly statement	Send the party ledger statement every month, matching the invoices they hold
Aging review	Check every Monday which balances moved into a later bucket
Weekly collection plan	List the payments each person will chase this week; compare planned with actual
Follow-ups	Record each promise ("bill passed, payment next week") as a follow-up with a date

Payments by cash, eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay, bank or cheque are allocated to the oldest invoice first, so the statement you send matches the aging you review. Advances, sometimes paid by smaller clinics, are recorded and applied to later invoices.

Expiry and returns

Medical consumables carry expiry dates, and an expired item delivered to a hospital is a serious problem. Once a month:

• List batches approaching expiry by branch.
• Decide for each: offer to faster-moving accounts, transfer to another branch, return to the supplier under agreed terms, or write off.
• Review returns by reason: wrong item, damaged on arrival, near expiry.

Returns are recorded with a reason and reviewed; approved returns go into a branch with a credit note. For sub-distributors, a shop's return goes to that dealer to accept or reject.

Field visits to hospitals and clinics

Sales representatives work routes of hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. They start the day with GPS, visits are checked against each account's geofence with a photo, and visits outside the geofence, very short or without a photo are flagged for review. Internal notes record who the purchase contact is and how approvals work at that institution; dealers never see them.

The first 30 days

1. Week 1. Enter consumables and equipment as SKUs with batches and expiry dates, and set up one branch per godown.
2. Week 2. Set low-stock levels for critical consumables in every branch.
3. Week 3. Start proof of delivery with receiver name and photo for every institutional delivery.
4. Week 4. Load institutional balances, assign a named owner to each, and hold the first Monday aging review.

Related reading

Medical representatives and pharma field force, institutional B2B sales playbook, collecting payments on time, and the pharma distribution industry page.

Start with critical consumables and proof of delivery for your largest hospital accounts. See pricing for plans, or contact us for a walkthrough.