For plumbing and heating distributors
Order the fittings before the contractor asks, not the week after
Thousands of fittings, valves and lengths of pipe, each with its own pack, price unit and supplier minimum. Datazimuts reads your ERP’s exports, cleans the item data first, and tells your buyers every morning what to order from each supplier, with the reason behind every quantity.
What goes wrong
Where the buying goes wrong
Out of the common sizes
The ½-inch elbow runs out on a Tuesday, the contractor goes to the counter across town, and the sale doesn’t come back. A min/max set years ago no longer matches what moves.
Cash in the slow sizes
Meanwhile the shelves hold three years of an odd valve and fittings for a line the supplier dropped, still there when the return window closes.
Copper and resin move the price
Copper fittings and PEX change price with the market, and suppliers give a few weeks’ notice. Buy too early and the cash sits; too late and you pay the increase on everything.
What Datazimuts does
A plan every morning, and nothing sent without a yes
The order plan, supplier by supplier
Every morning, what to order from each supplier, rounded to their packs and minimums, with the reason behind every quantity.
The item doctor first
Unit and price-unit errors, duplicates and phantom stock are found before any forecast. An item with a problem gets no order line until a person confirms the fix.
A free health check, in ranges
Dead, excess and returnable stock, rebates within reach and stock to verify, each as a low and a likely figure with its evidence. Never a promise.
Supplier invoices, read and matched
Forward invoices to your own address. Each one is matched to its PO and receipt; a price or quantity that differs is held with its reason and dollars.
Alerts in plain words
Write the rule the way you would say it. You see it as understood, tried on today’s data, before it starts.
Drafts in your ERP, after a yes
Nothing reaches a supplier on its own. A buyer approves, then the POs land in your ERP as drafts, or as files you import yourself.
What moves the numbers
What moves your demand and your costs
Construction starts
New homes and commercial jobs pull rough-in material in waves, months after the permit. The forecast learns each branch’s waves from its own sales, as a range rather than one number.
Renovation and service work
Repairs and renovations keep a steady base under the season, spread over many small orders. Each line’s likely demand comes with its range.
Heating and cooling degree-days
A cold snap or a heat wave moves furnace parts, circulators, condensers and refrigerant within days. The forecast starts from each branch’s own past seasons and plans to a range, so a normal swing is covered.
Copper
Copper moves the price of wire, pipe, fittings and motors, and suppliers pass it on with a few weeks’ notice. Enter an announced increase once: the next plan reads it, and each line it touches says so.
Resin
PVC, PEX and ABS pipe and plastic conduit follow resin prices. An announced increase goes in once, and the next plan reads it.
Quebec’s construction holiday
Two weeks in late July when most job sites stop. Your past summers show the dip, and the forecast starts from them, branch by branch.
A typical year
Steady most of the year and busier from spring to fall with new construction and renovation. Heating parts jump with the first cold weeks, and the construction holiday slows late July in Quebec.
The item doctor
Unit traps caught before any order
An item with an unresolved unit problem gets no order line and no dollar figure until a person confirms the fix.
Fittings priced per 100
Elbows and couplings priced per 100 (C) or per 1,000 (M) in the ERP but counted by the piece: read as a price each, a box looks a hundred times too dear, or too cheap.
Pipe by the length, sold by the foot
Copper pipe bought by the 12-ft or 20-ft length and sold by the foot: when the purchase and sales units disagree, one length turns into twelve.
A box sold as one
A box of 25 couplings invoiced as a single unit, so the sales history says one when 25 left the shelf.
Coude and elbow
The same fitting entered once in French and once in English: each half looks slow, and both get reordered.
Buying ahead
Should you buy ahead of an increase?
Buying before an increase saves on every unit, and costs money to hold until it sells. Move the sliders on a made-up example to see where it stops paying.
Illustration · made-up figures
Buy ahead of an announced price change?
Copper pipe and fittings: about $8,000 bought a week.
+$1.5k–1.6k
Worth a look: even the low figure comes out ahead.
Your ERP
Reads the ERP you already run
Eight ERPs have a ready mapping, and any other can send CSV or Excel exports. Each export guide names the five lists to send and where to find them.
- Common in this trade
- Also read
Free health check
Get your free health check
Tell us who you are and which ERP you run; your trade is already chosen. We write back with the export guide for your ERP and the next steps.