The Weekly Sales and Stock Review: A 45-Minute Routine for Distributors

Many distribution businesses review sales on one day, collections on another and stock only when something goes wrong. The result is that decisions are made with partial information: pushing a product the warehouse cannot supply, chasing a customer who has an unresolved delivery issue, or buying more of something that is already slow. A short, structured weekly meeting that brings sales, collections and stock into one conversation fixes much of this.

The principle

One meeting, one set of records, one list of actions. The goal is not reporting but deciding. Each section ends with a question: what do we do differently next week?

The 45-minute agenda

Minutes	Topic	Lead	Question
0–10	Sales and field activity	Sales lead	Where are we against target and why?
10–20	Collections and credit	Accounts	Which balances need action?
20–32	Stock and availability	Warehouse lead	What will run out or expire?
32–40	Dealers and key accounts	Owner or manager	Who needs support or a conversation?
40–45	Actions	Chair	Who does what by when?

Sales and field activity

• Orders against monthly target and daily pace.
• Productive calls and visits compared with plan.
• Flagged visits and how they were resolved.
• Outlets with no order for longer than usual.
• Reasons for no-order visits.

See field sales tracking in Nepal and stopping fake visits.

Collections and credit

• Payments received against the weekly collection plan.
• Aging by party; top overdue balances.
• Orders held for credit.
• Next week's planned collections and who owns each.

Read how to collect payments on time.

Stock and availability

• Products below low-stock levels at each branch.
• Batches nearing expiry and the plan for each.
• Orders waiting for stock.
• Returns received and their disposition.
• Upcoming counts.

See how to prevent stock-outs at retailers and dead and slow-moving stock.

Dealers and key accounts

• Dealer stock counts due or recently completed, with variance.
• Sell-out against dealer targets.
• Open dealer issues or returns.
• Scheme performance.

Rules for the meeting

1. Same time every week.
2. Numbers prepared before, not during.
3. Decisions recorded with owner and date.
4. Review last week's actions first.
5. No new topics without a decision to make.

How to run it in gamitrack

1. Open the dashboard before the meeting for the headline numbers; the owner's morning dashboard routine shows how.
2. Team page and salesperson profiles show visits, attendance and activity; open the Performers ranking for achievement.
3. Alarms and flags list visits needing review; resolve them in the meeting or assign them.
4. Targets show monthly officer progress and dealer quarterly targets.
5. Collections show the weekly plan against actual and the aging per party.
6. Stock views show low-stock, expiry and batches by branch.
7. Dealer stock counts show expected closing against actual.
8. Broadcasts let you send a decision to a region or the whole team right after the meeting.

Whatever your sector, the industries pages describe typical setups; for example FMCG and packaged food and pharma distribution.

A hypothetical example

Imagine Example Distributors (an invented name) running this meeting on Sunday mornings. The sales lead reports that one beat is behind pace and has flagged visits; the manager asks the officer to explain and agrees to accompany them midweek. Accounts notes two overdue balances and assigns owners. The warehouse lead flags a product close to expiry and a fast seller below its buffer. The group decides to promote the near-expiry product on two beats and to bring forward the purchase of the fast seller. Four actions are written down, each with an owner and a day.

Preparation checklist

• Dashboard and reports opened.
• Flagged visits listed.
• Overdue balances listed.
• Low-stock and expiry lists printed or shared.
• Last week's actions ready to review.

Common mistakes

• Turning the meeting into a long monologue.
• Reviewing sales without stock.
• No owners or dates on actions.
• Skipping the review of last week's actions.
• Changing the format every week.

Preparing the numbers in ten minutes

The meeting only works if the data is ready. Build a short preparation routine so nobody spends the meeting looking for figures:

Item	Who	When
Sales and target progress	Sales lead	Morning of the meeting
Flagged visits and attendance issues	Sales lead	Morning of the meeting
Collections and aging list	Accounts	Day before
Low-stock, expiry and batch list	Warehouse lead	Day before
Dealer counts and variances	Area manager	Day before

Turning discussion into actions

Write each action in the form "who will do what by when". For example, "Sales lead will accompany the officer on the lagging beat on Tuesday." At the start of the next meeting, review each action: done, in progress or dropped. Actions that stay open for several weeks need a decision, not another reminder.

Adapting the routine as you grow

A small business can run this in twenty minutes with the owner and one or two leads. A larger business may add regional managers, or split into sales-and-collections and stock-and-dealers sessions. Keep the principle: the same records, the same people, the same set of questions, every week.

What to leave out

Skip long explanations of past events, debates about data quality that can be solved offline, and topics that do not lead to a decision. If a topic needs more time, schedule a separate session with the relevant people.

Summary in one line

One short meeting, one set of records, one list of actions with owners and dates. If every week you look at sales, collections, stock and dealers together, problems surface while they are still small and cheap to fix.

Next step

Hold the first meeting next week with just four numbers per section, and add more only if they lead to decisions. Plans are on the pricing page.