This series uses Dingli, a Patisco demo account. Every system screen and all the data shown here came from real operations in the system, including the exchanges between buyers and suppliers; they are not mock-ups. The people and dialogue are dramatized, and the illustrations are for illustration only. Screens are shown in the system's Chinese interface; Patisco is also available in English and other languages.
In the story: The third day back in Taiwan, Lukang, Changhua, 2:00 p.m.
Lukang
Yongchang Precision Forging is in an industrial park in Lukang. The forging machines thud away on the factory floor, steady enough to make the teacups tremble in the reception room.
Manager Chen is an old friend. He poured the tea and slid a chart of aluminum ingot prices across to A-Mei.
"A-Mei, have a look at this. Up almost 20% in three months. Starting next month, cranks go up 6%."
A-Mei looked at the chart and remembered what that young salesperson had said in passing at the fair: "Aluminum's going up next year." So that was what the exclamation mark in her notebook meant.
A-Zhe sat beside her and said nothing. He had just one question in his head: the forged crank DL-CR-170, who are we quoting it to, who are we selling it to, and at what price?
How it used to go
This question used to wait until you got back to the office.
A-Zhe would dig through the quote records in Excel, A-Mei through the purchase orders, Hsiu-Chin through the shipping documents. Three people, one afternoon, and they'd piece together a table: which customers had bought cranks, which quotes were still valid, which orders hadn't shipped.
After that came the harder part. How do you tell customers about an increase? Which ones do you absorb and which do you pass on? The terms worked out quietly with Manager Chen in that reception room ("orders already placed stay at the old price; the increase starts next month") existed only in A-Mei's memory. If there was a dispute three months later, nobody could say for sure what had been agreed.
How it goes in Patisco
First, look it up: which orders is this item on?
A-Zhe didn't wait until he got back. On his laptop he opened [Quotation], set the search field to [Item number], and entered DL-CR-170.
What came up was a quotation still within its validity period: Dana in the US, 120 sets of cranks. Expand that row, and the item, quantity, and unit price are all there.
Next he went to [Proforma Invoice (PI)] and [Order (PO)] and searched the same item number. Velostrada's PI-0411 has no cranks, which was a relief. Dingli's purchase orders to Yongchang include one that hasn't shipped yet.
Five minutes, and the table was done.
Then hash it out, and write it down
A-Mei and Manager Chen went back and forth for half an hour. The purchase order already placed ships at the old price. New orders from next month go up 6%. If Dingli orders three months' volume at once, the increase is 4%.
As soon as the meeting ended, A-Mei wrote an internal message in that purchase order's discussion, spelling out all three terms and noting "verbally agreed by Manager Chen in Lukang that day." When Yongchang's new quote came in later, she checked it against those three terms.
"I used to write all this in my notebook," A-Mei said. "Notebooks get lost. This doesn't."
Finally: should Dingli's own prices move too?
Back at the office, Chairman Lin heard them out and took a sip of tea. "Dana's quote, we absorb. For other customers, the distributor price on DL-CR-170 goes up 3%."
A-Zhe opened product DL-CR-170 and raised the base distributor price by 3%. The channel price and bike-shop price are derived from the distributor price by formula, so he ticked this item in the product list, clicked [Recalculate prices by formula…], chose [Overwrite all with formula], checked the preview, and wrote the new prices. Last, he went to the catalog and clicked [Publish changes], and only then did the prices customers see update.
Where does the cost go? The product has a [Secret note] field that only Dingli can see. A-Zhe wrote one line there: "Yongchang: +6% from next month (+4% if ordering three months at once)."
Worth noting: Patisco won't adjust your selling price automatically because a supplier raised theirs. There's no "purchase price" field on a product that feeds into the selling price. Whether to adjust, and by how much, is a person's decision. The system's job is to take that decision, calculate it in one go, and apply it across every price category.
Before vs With Patisco
| Before | With Patisco | |
|---|---|---|
| Who bought this part | Three people, three kinds of files, one afternoon | Search order lists by item number, five minutes |
| Terms worked out with the supplier | In A-Mei's memory and notebook | Written in that purchase order's discussion |
| Adjusting your own price | Three prices each edited by hand | Change the base price; other categories recalculate by formula |
| Where the cost is noted | Another Excel file | The [Secret note] on the product, visible only to you |
A word for the boss: Who absorbs an increase and who gets it passed on is the boss's call. But before you make that call, you need to know which orders this part is sitting on right now.