How a Durban medical consumables distributor cut write-offs, lifted fulfilment, and finally understood their cash position.

Expiry dates on paper. Fulfilment gaps. Payments lost in a spreadsheet.

Coastal Med Distributors services over 60 accounts across KwaZulu-Natal — from small private clinics in the Berea to pharmacies on the South Coast. Their product range spans 180+ SKUs, many of which carry expiry dates that require careful rotation and proactive stock management. None of that was happening in any structured way.

Expiry dates were tracked in a shared Excel file that nobody consistently updated. Stock that sat too long was only identified during quarterly stocktakes — by which point write-offs were unavoidable. Monthly write-off costs were consistently running between R30,000 and R40,000, entirely preventable losses from products that had been sitting in the warehouse past their use-by date.

On the order side, fulfilment was a constant challenge. Without live stock visibility, the sales team would confirm orders for products that turned out to be unavailable — leading to partial deliveries, frustrated clinic managers, and the administrative burden of managing backorders manually. Outstanding customer balances across 60+ accounts were tracked in a separate spreadsheet, with no link to the order or delivery history. Chasing payments was a full-time job in itself.

Live stock, instant invoicing, and a cash view that updates in real time.

The Coastal Med team loaded their full product catalogue into 1FinForce in the first week, with reorder thresholds set per SKU based on average monthly usage. For their expiry-sensitive lines, the team built the habit of logging received stock against purchase orders immediately on arrival — so the platform always reflects what is actually in the warehouse and when it needs to move.

Sales orders are now created against live stock. If a product is unavailable, the sales rep knows before confirming the order — not on the day of delivery. Invoices are generated directly from sales orders and sent to clinic accounts at the point of dispatch. The team no longer raises invoices manually or separately from the order process.

Every customer account now has a complete history — orders placed, deliveries made, invoices sent, and amounts outstanding — all visible on a single detail page. The owner reviews outstanding balances each week and the collections process has become structured and consistent. The cash flow module gives a live picture of income, expenses, and available cash that the business has never had access to before.

We were writing off thirty, sometimes forty thousand rand a month in expired stock. That was just accepted as the cost of doing business. Now we get low-stock alerts before things expire and we've almost completely eliminated it. The platform paid for itself in the first month just on that alone — everything else has been a bonus.

Eleven months in.

Write-offs collapsing. Fulfilment climbing.

Illustrative view based on outcomes over 11 months on 1FinForce.

Before and after.

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