Building Materials & Hardware Field Sales Software for South African Brands

One app, three sets of screens. Site reps walk live builds, mark off the bill of quantities and register the trades working there. Account managers hold developers, quantity surveyors and merchant head offices on a review cycle. Trade reps run merchant counters and hardware yards, checking range and recording SABS mark status line by line. The screens, the targets and the dashboards all differ by role.

Check-in only registers inside the boundary drawn around that site or branch, and selfie AI confirms who it is. The call screen then takes build stage, progress against the bill of quantities, the site agent’s contact and any rival product standing on site. Where street addressing is inconsistent the outlet sits on a GPS pin instead of an address. On a gravel route in Limpopo or in a township pocket where mobile coverage thins out, the app keeps recording on the handset and syncs once a bar returns.

A project runs from first sighting through bill-of-quantities pricing, specification approval, samples, order, dispatch and delivery to site. Every stage holds its own date, the architect, quantity surveyor or main contractor behind it, whatever rival product is specified, and a rand value. When a date passes with nothing moving, the account manager hears about it. The pipeline reads live by stage, by province and by product class.

Each contractor is registered against a trade, whether bricklayer, plasterer, tiler, plumber, electrician, carpenter or painter, together with what they have bought before, which brand they lean on, and what is stopping them switching. That record drives the loyalty programme, and rewards settle by instant EFT, PayShap or card. Brand teams can then see who is specifying what, by territory and by trade, instead of guessing.

The order is raised at the merchant counter or on a site call, straight against the DMS allocation layer rather than on a pad. The rep sees stock line by line with the running promotion and the credit position beside it. Confirmation goes back to the buyer on WhatsApp or email, and the rand total does not move between quote and invoice. The credit check runs against ledger ageing before anything is released.

Yes. Sell-through arrives by REST API or a scheduled SFTP file, at whichever tier the distributor reports. The platform then lines site calls up against dispatches, merchant routes against reorders, and specified projects against bulk deliveries. Where a route shows a full week of calls and nothing moved, the gap is put in front of the area manager rather than surfacing in a monthly review.

Every account holds its own profile: who to see at head office, which specification team matters, how often the review lands, and where the joint business plan gets touched. How often a rep calls depends on the class of account, from a national merchant group down to a regional wholesaler and on to an independent township hardware yard. It all rolls into a daily MIS that redraws itself the moment a developer or a merchant moves a date.

Every merchant sits on an agreed product master covering cement, tile, paint, plumbingware and electrical accessories, with SABS mark status carried per line. The rep records what is on the shelf and what sample stock is on display. Empty bins, delisted codes and rival product standing in the gap are all logged. Reporting then shows how much of the agreed range is genuinely stocked, by class of account, ready for the joint business plan review.

Brand managers watch merchant offtake by product line, how many live sites are covered, the rand value sitting in the pipeline, range depth, and how many contractors are genuinely engaged. Regional heads get a scorecard per province, from Gauteng and the Western Cape through KwaZulu-Natal to Limpopo. Leadership starts national and drills to a province, then a merchant, then a single rep. Put the question to 1Voice in plain English and no custom report is needed.

Yes, it is built offline-first. On a basement parking level, at a cement depot on a long N1 stretch through Limpopo, or in a township pocket where coverage is patchy, the rep carries on marking attendance, updating the bill of quantities, registering contractors and keying orders with nothing connected. It all queues on the handset with its photographs and timestamps, and writes back the moment a signal returns.