Special Pricing Agreement Automation: The Remedy to Your SPA Headaches

Special Pricing Agreements (SPAs) have seen explosive growth in the electrical distribution industry over the last decade and their use shows no signs of slowing. Providing access to a wide range of market channels, SPAs enable price tailoring to maximize competitive edge.

These agreements also come with significant challenges. Requiring considerable commitment of resources, the SPA process produces high administrative overhead, increased human error, foregone credits, and the diversion of sales reps from key revenue-generating tasks. Consequently, while increasing market reach and profit, SPAs also create a hefty financial impact related to operational inefficiency.

Many electrical distributors already know the benefits of invoice and sales order automation, but few have recognized the value of automating the SPA process. Instantly converting faxed and emailed SPAs into structured pricing files in your ERP system, SPA automation alleviates many of the drawbacks associated with these valuable agreements:

 So Long Manual Entry

Customer service reps have their title for a reason. Their job is to ensure customers are happy. But they can’t fulfil that role if they spend half their day keying in pages of SPAs into your ERP system. SPA automation and automated order entry software solutions take this laborious responsibility off their hands. Rapidly capturing and transforming SPA data into pricing files in your system, automation processes these agreements within minutes rather than hours. In the process, your CSRs can focus on what they do best – delivering exceptional customer service and building lasting, profitable relationships.

Farewell Costly Errors

SPA line rejections and discrepancy claims can cost your business thousands, devastating your bottom line. SPA automation extracts every detail from these documents right down to every item in a product group, with 100% accuracy, regardless of the format, before directing it into your ERP system. As a result, you not only protect your profit but also avoid the time-consuming task of correcting errors and chasing rebates.

Say Goodbye to Mandatory EDI

While a valuable automation technology, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) requires considerable time, money and a high level of collaboration with manufacturing partners to implement. With an SPA automation solution, all parties can continue to do business their way, while still reaping the benefits of automation for their processes.

Special Pricing Agreements are now a crucial component of the electrical distributor’s sales strategy. Combined with automation technology to reduce their profit and resource drain, SPAs deliver the key price competition and access to lucrative markets needed to thrive in today’s competitive economic climate.