Dealer and Distributor Self-Service Portal

The problem with running a channel over email and phone

If you sell through dealers, distributors, stockists or franchise partners, most of your order flow probably lands as WhatsApp messages, PDF purchase orders and phone calls to a sales coordinator. Somebody rekeys those into Zoho CRM or Zoho Inventory. Partners call to ask whether an item is in stock, what their outstanding balance is, whether last quarter's volume scheme was credited, and where their last dispatch is. Every one of those questions consumes an internal person, and every rekeyed order is an opportunity for a wrong SKU, a wrong price tier or a missed credit-limit check.

The obvious fix is to let partners transact directly. The obstacle is that giving every dealer a Zoho CRM or Zoho Inventory seat is expensive, exposes data they should never see, and gives them an interface designed for your sales team rather than for their storekeeper. What you actually want is a narrow, branded, partner-facing surface that writes into the same Zoho data your team already works in.

What ECOSIRE builds

ECOSIRE builds a dealer and distributor portal on the Zoho platform, sitting on top of the Zoho org you already run. Nothing here is a shrink-wrapped product you download: we scope your channel model, quote a fixed price, then build and install it.

Partner identity and access

Partner login is delivered as a Zoho Creator application (or a Sigma widget surface where you prefer partners to stay inside an existing Zoho portal). Each portal user is bound to a Dealer record, which we model either as an Account in Zoho CRM or as a Vendor/Customer in Zoho Inventory and Zoho Books depending on how you invoice. Users inherit a role - owner, buyer, accounts, read-only - that governs which screens and which records they can reach. A partner never sees another partner's pricing, stock allocation or balance, because every fetch is filtered server-side in Deluge against the logged-in user's Dealer ID rather than filtered in the browser.

Ordering against real price lists

The catalogue screen reads Items from Zoho Inventory (or Products from Zoho CRM) and applies the partner's assigned Price List, so a distributor sees distributor landing cost and a retail dealer sees retail. Tiered and slab pricing, minimum order quantities, case-pack multiples and product eligibility by territory are enforced in a Deluge custom function on submit, not just hinted at in the UI. Submitting the cart creates a Sales Order in Zoho Inventory through the REST API with the partner, price list, warehouse and salesperson stamped correctly, and mirrors a linked record into Zoho CRM if your sales team works there.

Stock visibility without exposing your whole warehouse

Partners see availability as you choose to express it: exact available-to-promise per warehouse, a banded indicator (In Stock / Low / On Backorder), or an allocation figure reserved for that partner. We pull from the Zoho Inventory Items and Warehouses APIs and cache the result at a refresh interval you set, so a partner refreshing a catalogue page does not hammer your API limits.

Credit limit and blocked-account handling

Before an order is accepted, a Deluge function checks the partner's outstanding balance and overdue ageing from Zoho Books alongside the credit limit stored on the Dealer record. Orders that breach the limit are either blocked with a clear message or routed into an approval queue for your credit controller, driven by a Zoho CRM Blueprint or an approval process you own. The partner sees the status; your team sees why it stopped.

Schemes, claims and credit notes

Channel schemes are where most manual effort hides. We build a Scheme master (volume slab, sell-out incentive, display allowance, seasonal offer) with validity dates and eligibility rules, and a claim submission screen where the partner uploads supporting proof. Claims land as records for your team to approve; on approval a Zoho Flow automation or Deluge function raises the corresponding Credit Note in Zoho Books against that partner and notifies them. The partner sees a claim ledger showing submitted, approved, rejected with reason, and settled.

Statements, invoices and payments

A statement screen pulls Invoices, Credit Notes, Payments Received and ageing buckets from the Zoho Books organization for that partner only, with PDF download of any individual invoice via the Books API. Where you have a Zoho-supported payment gateway configured, we add a pay-now action against selected invoices so partners can settle without a phone call.

Dispatch and document access

Packages and Shipments from Zoho Inventory surface as a dispatch tracker with carrier reference. Price lists, product catalogues, warranty policies, marketing artwork and technical datasheets are published from Zoho WorkDrive so partners always pull the current version instead of an emailed PDF from last year.

Automation and notifications

Zoho Flow handles the cross-app choreography - order confirmed, order dispatched, claim approved, statement due - firing email or WhatsApp notifications through the channels you already use. Scheduled Deluge functions handle nightly jobs such as ageing recalculation and scheme accrual snapshots.

Who this is for

Manufacturers and brand owners selling through distributors; importers and national distributors serving sub-dealers; FMCG, building materials, auto parts, electricals, pharma and agri-input businesses running a tiered channel; and franchise networks where outlets reorder centrally. If your channel partners never need a full Zoho seat but do need to transact, this is the shape that fits.

How delivery works

1. Scoping call. We walk your channel tiers, price lists, credit rules, scheme types and current Zoho footprint - which of CRM, Books, Inventory, Creator and Flow you run, in which edition and which data centre.

2. Fixed quote. You receive a written scope with screens, objects, integration points, assumptions and exclusions, at a fixed price. The listed price is the starting point for a standard build; scope changes are quoted before any work starts.

3. Build. We develop in a sandbox or a separate Creator environment against a copy of your configuration, with review checkpoints so you see screens early rather than at handover.

4. Install in test. The portal is deployed into your test setup, seeded with a few real dealers, and you run your own order, claim and statement scenarios end to end.

5. Production go-live. Once you sign off, we install into production, migrate partner logins, map price lists and schemes to live data, and stand by through your first live ordering cycle.

6. Support. A post-go-live support window is included for defect fixes and configuration adjustments; ongoing enhancement is quoted separately.

Typical build and delivery time is 2-4 weeks from confirmed scope, depending on the number of scheme types and the depth of Books integration.