Solutions / FMCG Distribution
Your van team is carrying cash and stock you can't see.
Soluvide builds a delivery-confirmation and reconciliation system for UAE and GCC FMCG and beverage distributors running field van-sales teams. It captures an un-skippable confirmation at every handover, matches dispatched stock and cash collected against confirmed deliveries, and flags mismatches to a supervisor the same day — so leakage and short-deliveries surface in hours, not weeks later at month-end reconciliation.
01 / The problem
A day in the field, tracked on paper and trust.
A van loads at the depot before dawn. The load sheet says what went on board — cases, crates, mixed SKUs — and from that moment the stock, and by mid-morning a growing pile of cash, are in the hands of one driver moving stop after stop across a full route. Deliveries get made, short-deliveries get promised, returns get taken back, and cash gets collected. The record of all of it is a sheet filled in by hand, against memory, somewhere between stops.
At the end of the route the van comes back and someone reconciles that sheet against what the ERP expected to happen. But the sheet is the driver's account of the day, not an independent one. If a case went missing, if a customer paid for a full case and was billed for a partial one, if cash came up short — the paperwork still balances, because the paperwork is written by the same person the numbers depend on.
The gaps don't show up that evening. They surface weeks later, at month-end reconciliation, as a variance nobody can now explain — the delivery was three weeks ago, the customer remembers it differently, and the driver has run many more routes since. By the time the number is visible, the trail is cold and the money is gone.
Multiply one uncertain van by a fleet, across branches, every working day, and the leakage isn't a rounding error — it is a standing cost of doing business that leadership has quietly priced in, because nobody can see where it happens. The problem was never that people are dishonest. It is that the last mile has no independent record, so honesty and error look identical on paper.
02 / Why the obvious fixes fail
You've probably already tried these.
The ERP that stops at the van
Your ERP knows exactly what left the warehouse and what got invoiced. It has no eyes on the stretch in between — the handover at the customer's door. The most valuable, least controlled part of the day is the one part your system of record never sees, so its numbers are only ever as good as the sheet someone types back in.
Reconciling at month-end
Checking the books weeks after the fact tells you a variance exists; it can't tell you which delivery, which stop, or which day produced it. By then the evidence is memory and the cash is spent. After-the-fact reconciliation is an autopsy — useful for the record, useless for stopping the loss while it's still happening.
Adding supervisors
Putting a checker on the van, or more supervisors over the routes, adds cost to every route without adding a record to any of them. Trust-based controls fail the same way — a step a tired driver can skip at the last stop of a long day will get skipped. You scale the wage bill and the routes still go dark.
03 / How the system works
An un-skippable record on every handover.
Dispatch capture
The system starts from what your ERP already knows: the stock and cash-on-delivery load assigned to each van and route for the day. That dispatch record is the baseline every later step is measured against — no re-keying, no second inventory to maintain.
Confirmation at handover
At each stop the delivery is confirmed at the point of handover — a per-delivery OTP sent to the customer, or a signed confirmation captured on the driver's handset. It's built to be hard to bypass: the delivery isn't complete in the system until the confirmation exists, so the record is created by the transaction, not reconstructed from memory afterward.
Reconciliation engine
A reconciliation layer continuously matches three things that used to only meet at month-end: stock dispatched, deliveries confirmed, and cash collected. Where they agree, the route is clean and nobody is bothered. Where they don't, the mismatch is isolated to a single stop and a single moment.
Same-day exception surfacing
Mismatches are pushed to a supervisor the same day, not held for month-end — a short delivery, an unconfirmed drop, a cash figure that doesn't tie out. By design the system surfaces exceptions rather than blocking the route: the field team keeps moving, and the flag lands with the person who can act on it while the day is still fresh.
Audit log & ERP sync
Every handover is written to an audit log, attributable to a person, a stop, and a time — one durable record of who confirmed what, when. Reconciled, settled figures sync back to your ERP, so your system of record finally reflects what actually happened in the field, not just what was expected to.
04 / What's in scope — and what isn't
Clear lines, agreed up front.
In scope
- A per-delivery confirmation captured at the point of handover — OTP or signed
- A reconciliation engine matching dispatched stock, confirmed deliveries, and cash collected
- A same-day exception dashboard that flags mismatches to a supervisor
- An audit log where every handover is attributable to a person and a time
- Sync with your ERP for dispatch, settlement, and reconciled figures
- A bilingual (Arabic / English) field- and customer-facing flow
Out of scope
- Replacing your ERP or warehouse management system
- Policing or accusing individuals — it surfaces facts, not blame
- Removing your supervisors from the process
- GPS or telematics tracking of vehicles and drivers
05 / Integration surface
Named systems, not “connects to anything.”
We confirm exactly which of your systems connect during scoping. The custody-control layer commonly touches:
Timeline & scope
Live in weeks, quoted before we start.
Most custody-control builds go live in about three to six weeks. What moves it inside that range is the number of routes and branches, how confirmation is captured at the door, and which ERP it reconciles against. We map the work in a short discovery call and send a fixed-fee proposal — scope, timeline, and deliverables — before any build begins. No hourly billing, no surprises.
06 / Questions operations managers ask
Straight answers.
How does the delivery confirmation actually work?
At each stop the delivery is confirmed at the point of handover — either a one-time code (OTP) sent to the customer and entered on the spot, or a signed confirmation captured on the driver's handset. The delivery is not marked complete in the system until that confirmation exists, which is what makes it hard to skip or backfill later.
What happens when there's no mobile signal on the route?
The field flow is built offline-first. Confirmations are captured on the handset even with no coverage — common in basements, cold rooms, and remote routes — and queued locally on the device. When it is back on a network, the queued confirmations sync and reconcile. A dead zone delays the sync; it doesn't lose the record.
Does this replace our ERP?
No. Your ERP stays your system of record for stock and settlement. This sits alongside it, covers the last mile the ERP can't see, and syncs the reconciled result back into it. It replaces the paper sheet and the trust-based reconciliation, not your ERP.
Does it accuse our field staff of theft?
No — and that's a deliberate design choice. The system surfaces facts: this delivery was confirmed, this one wasn't, these figures don't tie out. It attributes a handover to a person and a time; it doesn't assign blame or allege intent. Most exceptions turn out to be honest error, and treating them that way is what keeps field teams using the system instead of working around it.
Is it bilingual — Arabic and English?
Yes. The field-facing flow and the customer-facing confirmation messages work in Arabic and English, which matters when your drivers, your customers, and your supervisors don't all read the same language.
How long does it take to go live?
Most builds go live in about three to six weeks, depending on the number of routes and branches, how confirmation is captured at the door, and which ERP it reconciles against. We scope the work first and send a fixed-fee proposal before starting.
Who owns the system once it's built?
You do. It runs on your infrastructure and accounts, it's documented, and it's handed to your team — no black box and no dependency on us to keep it running.
Start
Put an independent record on every handover.
Tell us how cash and stock move through your field team today. We'll map the custody-control system and send a fixed-fee proposal within 24 hours.