Everything we build is custom. Below is a live build running an importer's daily operation, the twenty patterns we start from, and the project shapes we take on most often.
Writing-instruments importer / several sales channels / owner-operated
A pen company selling through wholesale, retail and online channels. Sales, inventory, finance and shipping information lived in separate tools, so getting a full picture meant someone assembling it by hand.
Details kept general at the client's request / walkthrough available on a call
Not a menu. Each of these is a job we've built before, and yours will land somewhere between two of them. The pattern is what's proven; the build is yours.
Your dealers send orders however they feel like sending them: a forwarded PDF, four lines of text, a photo of a handwritten sheet. It reads whatever arrives, matches every line to a real SKU, enters the order, and emails back a confirmation with anything it could not match flagged for a person.
Reads sell-through across every channel, subtracts the units already on the water, applies each vendor’s real lead time instead of the one on the price sheet, and drafts the purchase order. You approve it or you don’t.
Watches the forwarder and carrier email nobody has time to read, turns it into live ETAs, and tells you the day a date slips instead of the week the container was due. When something clears customs it writes the receiving doc and sends it to the warehouse.
Checks your listings around the clock for lost Buy Box, undercuts, hijackers and suppressions, then texts you what leaving it alone costs per day.
Flags every SKU that stopped moving, prices out the cash sitting in it, and builds a closeout list you can send to dealers the same afternoon. Runs monthly whether or not anyone remembers to look.
Describe the deal in a message: customer, quantities, terms. You get back a finished quote or contract, formatted the way you send them, logged, and out for signature.
Follows overdue invoices on a schedule, firms up the tone as the days pass, stops the second payment lands, and tells you when a receivable has reached the point where you should make the call yourself.
Your reps and dealers ask it what a SKU costs, what is in stock, what it replaced and which finishes exist, instead of asking the one person who knows everything and is currently on a plane.
On your phone at seven on Monday: what sold, what is running out, what is stuck at the port, and the two decisions that need you this week. Plain sentences, no dashboard to log into.
Recomputes true landed margin per SKU as freight, duty and vendor pricing move, then names the products you are quietly selling at a loss. Most companies find at least one.
A form fill or a call gets a real text back inside a minute, asks the two or three questions that tell you whether it is worth a truck roll, and puts the estimate on the calendar. Most of the leads you lose are lost in the first ten minutes.
Every call that rings out gets a text before the caller reaches the next name on the list. It asks what they need, holds the conversation, and hands you a warm thread instead of a missed call notification.
Works every sent estimate on a schedule you set, changes the message as the days pass, and stops the moment they reply. The jobs you already priced are the cheapest jobs you will ever win.
Confirms every estimate and job the day before, offers a new slot when someone cannot make it, and tells dispatch early enough to fill the hole. No-shows stop being a surprise at eight in the morning.
A text from the field turns into a priced change order with photos attached and an approval link to the homeowner. Signed before the crew moves on, not argued about at final invoice.
Pulls crew photos out of group texts, files them against the right job, sorts before from after, and keeps the set you would need if a homeowner ever disputes the work.
Asks at the moment the customer is happiest, which is the day the job closes and not three weeks later. Routes the unhappy ones to you first so the problem gets fixed off the internet.
Every crew gets tomorrow before they leave tonight: addresses in drive order, scope, gate codes, materials to pick up, and who to call on site. Fewer trips back to the yard.
Tracks where each permit sits, what the deadline is, and when a reinspection has been scheduled, then tells the person who needs to act. Nobody calls the city to find out what happened.
Collects certificates of insurance, W-9s and schedule confirmations from subcontractors, chases the ones who ignore you, and flags a lapsed policy before the sub is standing on a roof.
Six company shapes we see repeatedly, with the build that solves each one and what a project like it runs.
Sells on a marketplace and into regional chains. Purchasing runs off a monthly export, and by the time it's built the fast movers are short and the slow movers have already been reordered.
Orders arrive as emails, PDFs and photographs of handwritten sheets. Two people spend most of Monday and Tuesday keying them in, and the mistakes only show up at invoicing.
Landed cost hasn't been recomputed since freight moved. Several SKUs are selling below true cost and nobody will notice until the year-end close.
Storm season triples the call volume for six weeks. Half the calls ring out, voicemails get returned the next afternoon, and by then the homeowner has signed with whoever answered.
Estimates go out and never get chased. Change orders happen verbally on site and turn into an argument at final invoice, usually with the customer you liked most.
Crews start the day with a round of phone calls about where to go and what to bring. Two trips back to the yard a week is a whole crew-day lost every month.
Three things we turn down often enough to be worth saying out loud.
Big-box retailer EDI is a specialist trade with its own certification cycles. We'll connect to your EDI provider's output, but we won't be your EDI provider. We can point you at one.
We build on top of what you already run. If your ERP or job software genuinely is the problem, that's a different project with a different vendor, and we'd rather tell you than sell around it.
Anything that places an order, issues a credit or sends a contract stops for a person. That's a design decision we make on purpose, not a limitation we're working on removing.
Two minutes in the estimator narrows it down and gives you a real range. Fifteen minutes on the phone usually settles it.
hello@charidan.com