Your distributor data is your most important resource. Every day InsideTrack receives data from over 1000 distributors and cleans, organizes, and maps that data and item numbers to a manufacturer – essentially that’s what makes our system tick and tock. No matter the distributor or the segment, whatever can be reported can be pulled into InsideTrack.
When you negotiate a distribution agreement for your operation and put contracts in place, our system takes that data and audits every line, every invoice, every single day. With business intelligence tools such as our Price Range Report, you can format, edit, and get a quick overview of the data that is pulled in. Last year alone, InsideTrack collected 4 million dollars in over charges.
With the many features InsideTrack offers, the Price Range Report should be utilized every day, every time your operation purchases an item.
What is the Price Range Report?
The Price Range Report lets you look at the various prices you’re paying for the same items across different distributors and OPCOs. The report identifies which distributors or OPCOs that may be charging a price that is not in line with other distributors’ prices. You can generate an Excel file that lays out all prices in an easy-to-see format. “Green” prices indicate where you are paying a lower price; “Red” means you are paying higher prices. The goal, of course, is to correct the reds!
With the Price Range Report, you can sort data by descending or ascending, manipulate the information and even print the report out. Let’s say you want to send the report in a PDF to someone on your operations team and ask them to review your top three items – you can!
Besides having the option to personalize your widget, you can group spend to see last week, last month, last quarter, last 6 months or even the last year to date. With our distributor tree, you can run your spend with a specific distributor or a given OPCO within that distributor – you can get a granular or high level overview of the data.
This customer tree feature is unique because within InsideTrack, if you have multiple concepts or multiple brands with numerous locations, InsideTrack can format the data to how you want to view your business.
You can run the Price Range Report to look at different prices being paid for the same products within categories such as meat products category, or even subcategories within each one of these. You can get very specific or just stay at a high level view.
This feature allows you to look at your spend from a given manufacturer across every distributor you buy those manufactured products from.
Once finished, the Price Range Report organizes the data from high to low and shows you what you’re paying for a specific product from different distributors and what you are paying for each. For example: you could be paying $27 with one distributor, and $72 from another distributor for the same product.
You’re probably thinking “this is just another tool, why do I even need to use the Price Range Report?”
Because it quickly identifies errors and helps you manage your operations spend.
Become a Price Range Report Master User
Did we lose you yet? We understand that all this technology talk can be confusing coming from the company who created the tools.
What if we said operators just like you have become Price Range Report masters? Take super user Gordon Klass from Wood Ranch for example. He uses the Price Range Report to ensure his contracts are properly loaded across all distribution channels.
When Gordon uses the Price Range Report, he notices when something is not right – whether its contracted items or non-contracted items.
“I find situations at the beginning of the month where a given contract is not properly loaded in or has not been properly done despite sending it to the point of distribution for them to implement it. We have robust systems internally, but I didn’t need to re-invent the wheel. I’d much rather have something that I can look at as best of breed, that would allow me to consolidate all my direct spend”.
Even the best distributors can and will make mistakes. Many times, Distributors don’t want to give you access to a lot of information. The spend management platform, including the price range report, allow operators to go back over years, months or days. The report configures data in a way that becomes comfortable with its user friendly layout. Operators can utilize the program with great predictability. Operators are able to see from the widget and from other aspects of the program views that give a better view of what their spend is and where it’s going.
When you sit down with your manufactures, you can come to the meeting with more knowledge than expected and a deeper understanding of the data their products are generating.
Let’s review some frequently asked questions:
Do you use this tool to help with menu costing and pricing prior to rolling out the menu or just on the back end to analyze cost actuals?
If you’re relying on data that is seasonal into those, or is not on a fixed contract, you take that data, and that’s only a snapshot. As an operator, you need to look and say, “OK, I signed a deal on 8% of my spend but now I have this a new contract with a lift 4% and 5%. That’s where you can take and use the data in the Price Range Report to overlay with the team that’s doing cost analysis on menus.
Is the price range widget included in what I pay for InsideTrack or is it something I need to look at adding separately?
This is standard software that is included with InsideTrack.
Of all the InsideTrack reports and tools, is the Price Range Report the one that most customers use?
It’s a good report that a lot of InsideTrack customers use to gauge what’s going on with pricing and see what’s going on with their non-contracted items. Once you see the price range for your products and notice things that maybe aren’t in place, then you can begin digging into different reporting capabilities to find out what happened to an item or when did a specific item fall off. You can get to the bottom of the problem.
What is the most popular category you seem to find overcharges?
When it comes to produce, you can see pricing spikes of highs and lows. As you approach protein categories, and you aren’t contracted for a specific period, you’ll see increases and decreases as you follow the market. We’re seeing inflationary pressure already on multiple categories.
Become a InsideTrack Master User
Don’t miss out on our other Master User Group sessions> coming up! REGISTER NOW and save your spot!
