Wholesale distribution software in Australia: EDI, product data, rebates and B2B ordering

Pronto, Acumatica, Cin7 or NetSuite: where do Australian distributors sit?

Distributors cluster by size: Cin7 and Unleashed at the smaller end, MYOB Acumatica, NetSuite and SAP Business One in the middle, and Pronto Xi across mid market and larger wholesale businesses. Pronto, an Australian vendor, markets Pronto Xi with a wholesale distribution focus. Cin7 lists a customisable B2B portal and EDI alongside its wholesale features. That matters before any custom conversation: you may already be paying for features you haven’t switched on.

ERP tier	Common choices	Where distributors usually hit limits
Smaller product businesses	Cin7 Core, Unleashed, with Xero or MYOB	Complex rebates, multi warehouse, large EDI volumes
Growing mid market	MYOB Acumatica, NetSuite, SAP Business One	Customer specific pricing rules, deduction reconciliation
Larger wholesale	Pronto Xi, SAP	Usually covered, but customisation inside the ERP is slow and costly

The ERP should remain the single record for stock, pricing and the ledger. Custom builds work best as satellites that read and write through the ERP’s API, so an upgrade doesn’t break them. If you’re weighing whether to replace the ERP itself, our build vs buy guide sets out the choices.

How does EDI with major retailers work in practice?

Retailers send purchase orders electronically, expect a despatch advice before the goods arrive, and pay against an electronic invoice, with each step checked against the last. GS1 maintains the two EDI standards used in this exchange, GS1 EANCOM and GS1 XML. Each retailer then sets its own implementation rules through its supplier portal and trading terms, so collect the current documents for every customer before you build.

Most distributors don’t connect to each retailer directly. An EDI provider such as SPS Commerce handles the retailer connections and testing, and your ERP receives orders and sends advices through that provider. The custom work, where it is needed, sits between the provider and the ERP:

1. Map incoming orders to your customer, ship to and product codes, and flag anything that doesn’t match.
2. Create the sales order and pick in the ERP or WMS without rekeying.
3. Produce the despatch advice with SSCCs from the actual cartons and pallets shipped. If a 3PL ships for you, our 3PL software page covers its side.
4. Reconcile order, despatch, receipt and payment, and list every difference as a claim to chase.

For invoices to customers outside retail EDI, the ATO promotes Peppol eInvoicing and explains the ways to register on the Peppol network. It is worth supporting when a customer asks, but it doesn’t replace retailer EDI.

What does the National Product Catalogue ask of a supplier?

The National Product Catalogue is GS1 Australia’s service for sharing product data and images with trading partners, and GS1 runs a dedicated NPC service for food, grocery and liquor retail. For a distributor carrying thousands of lines, the challenge is keeping the catalogue, the ERP and supplier specifications in agreement.

A product data workflow usually needs:

• One master record per product with GTINs at each packaging level (unit, inner, carton)
• Dimensions and weights checked against what the warehouse actually measures
• Images and marketing copy linked to the same record
• An approval step before anything is published to the catalogue
• A change log, because a wrong carton weight flows straight into a retailer’s systems

Where the ERP holds only part of this, a lightweight product information tool that publishes to the NPC and writes back to the ERP is a common build.

How does the Food and Grocery Code shape your records?

If you supply a large grocery business, the code gives you rights that are easier to use when your records show exactly what was agreed and what was deducted. The ACCC says the remade Food and Grocery Code of Conduct became mandatory on 1 April 2025. It applies to retailers and wholesalers whose supermarket or grocery wholesale revenue exceeded $5 billion in the previous financial year; the ACCC currently lists ALDI, Coles, Metcash and Woolworths. Transitional arrangements for older agreements ended on 1 April 2026, so every grocery supply agreement is now covered. From 1 July 2026 the code also prohibits very large retailers, currently Coles and Woolworths, from excessive pricing of grocery products.

Rules from the ACCC’s guidance that map directly onto data a distributor can hold:

Code rule	Record that helps
Supply agreements must be in writing, including when suppliers will be paid and when payment may be withheld	Agreement register with key terms and versions
No set off against a supplier’s invoice unless the supplier consented in writing or another listed exception applies	Remittance matching that flags every deduction and its basis
Limits on payments for wastage, generally only where agreed, reasonable and calculated as the agreement says	Wastage claims linked to the agreement clause and the retailer’s calculation
Variations need reasonable written notice of terms and reasons	Change log of every variation notice received

This is general information, not legal advice. The point for software is that a deduction you can’t explain is a deduction you can’t dispute.

How should rebates and promotions be reconciled?

Rebates should be calculated by the system from sales data and trading terms, not estimated in a spreadsheet at year end. Distributors usually sit in the middle of two flows: rebates they earn from their own suppliers on volume or growth, and rebates and promotional funding they give retailers. Both depend on agreements with tiers, date ranges, product groups and conditions.

A rebate engine holds each agreement as rules, accrues the value daily from invoiced sales, shows progress against tiers so sales teams can act before the period ends, and produces claim statements with the transactions behind them. Matching retailer deductions to the promotions they relate to is the same engine run in reverse.

Where does retention of title meet the PPSR?

Retention of title terms only protect you against a customer’s other creditors if the interest is registered on the PPSR in time. The PPSR explains that a purchase money security interest can jump ahead of earlier registrations. Timing depends on whether the goods are the customer’s inventory: for stock held for sale, register before the customer takes possession; for goods that aren’t inventory, the PPSR gives a window of 15 days after possession.

For a distributor, almost every trade customer holds your goods as inventory. So the account opening workflow should create the PPSR registration, or at least a task with a hard stop, before the first order ships. Keeping the registration number on the customer record makes renewals and amendments easy to track.

Do independent retailers need a B2B ordering portal?

Yes, if they still order by phone, email or a sales rep’s notebook. A good portal shows each customer its own price list and promotions, stock availability, order history, invoices and statements, and lets them reorder in a few taps. Check first whether your ERP already includes one; Cin7, for example, lists a B2B portal. A custom portal makes sense when pricing logic is complex, when you sell across brands or entities, or when the built in portal can’t match how your customers buy. Our guide to customer portal development covers the options.

Where does AI help distribution?

Order intake from email and PDF is the clearest win; forecasting helps where history is clean. Many trade customers will never use EDI or a portal, so their orders arrive as emails, attachments and photos of handwritten lists. An extraction model reads them, matches products and prices against the ERP, and drafts orders for review. Our AI document processing service covers how that is tested. Demand forecasting by product and customer can support purchasing, provided promotions and stockouts are flagged in the history so the model doesn’t learn from distorted sales.

What do distribution builds cost?

Indicative AUD market ranges, ex GST, not quotes. They sit within the bands Expeed publishes for Australian custom software: $15,000 to $40,000 for simple tools and $40,000 to $150,000 for mid complexity systems.

Build	Scope	Indicative range
Email and PDF order intake with AI	Inbox monitoring, extraction, product and price matching, draft orders, review screen	$25,000 to $70,000
Rebate and deduction reconciliation	Agreement rules, daily accruals, tier tracking, claim statements, remittance matching	$30,000 to $80,000
B2B ordering portal	Customer pricing, stock, ordering, invoices and statements, ERP integration	$50,000 to $150,000

ERP API quality is the largest cost driver; some ERPs make integration straightforward and others need middleware. Our API integration cost guide explains how that work is priced.

How AWLabs approaches distribution projects

We begin with a Development Consult on the process that costs your team the most hours, usually orders, rebates or deductions. A paid Discovery Audit then reviews your ERP’s API, trading terms and customer requirements, and leads to a fixed price Schedule of Work with three options: The Minimum, The Recommended and The Complete. Senior engineers lead every build, with updates every Tuesday and Friday.

We haven’t delivered a wholesale distribution project, and we’ll say so when your ERP partner can do the job with configuration. Related reading sits under manufacturing.