Order management software for hardware wholesalers

How orders typically arrive

• Email (body text and PDF attachments)
• Spreadsheets attached to email
• Phone and texted orders, added by your team in one click as manual entries

Common pain points in this vertical

• A single fastener line runs to hundreds of SKUs — 'screws, a box' has a size, type, drive, head, and finish it didn't state
• Bolt grade and finish matter — a grade 2 where the job needed grade 5, or zinc where it needed stainless, fails on the job
• Units vary line by line — by the box, the pound, the foot, or the each — and the wrong read ships the wrong quantity
• Contractors buy at trade and stores at retail, and a mixed-up tier is margin lost or an awkward correction
• Which SKUs each account's shorthand means lives in one counter veteran's head

Use cases we hear about

• Capture the fastener spec intact. 'A box of #8 x 1-1/4 flat-head deck screws' is matched by size, head, type, and finish, and a bare 'screws, a box' is flagged for a person instead of pulled as one of hundreds of possibilities.
• Match tools by brand and model. A tool order is a brand and a model number, and the model has to be exact — so it's matched to your catalog item, and an incomplete or unrecognized model is flagged for confirmation rather than shipped on a guess.
• Price trade and retail accounts by their own rules. A contractor's order is priced at their trade tier and a store's restock at retail, automatically, with the rule that set each price shown on the line — no tier mix-ups either direction.

Why is a hardware order hard to capture?

In hardware, "screws, a box" isn't an order. What size — #8, #10? What type — wood, sheet-metal, machine? What drive, what head, what finish — zinc, galvanized, stainless? A single fastener line runs to hundreds of SKUs, the catalog runs to tens of thousands, and the buyer is two businesses at once: a contractor who needs the exact part at trade pricing and a retail hardware store restocking shelves at retail. PeasyOrders — order capture built for small and mid-sized US wholesale distributors on QuickBooks Online — reads the written orders, matches each line by its full spec, prices the account at its tier, and flags anything unclear before it's pulled.

How does PeasyOrders capture hardware orders?

Two lanes — and in hardware, both run hot.

Written orders are captured on arrival. A forwarding rule sends your order emails in, and PeasyOrders reads the email body and the PDF and spreadsheet attachments. A contractor's emailed list and a store's multi-category restock become structured drafts: each line matched by size, type, drive, head, grade, and finish, tools matched by model, the account's trade or retail price applied with its rule shown, and anything ambiguous flagged.

Phoned and texted orders get a one-click lane. A lot of hardware ordering is a call to the counter, and PeasyOrders doesn't capture calls, texts, or voicemails. Your team adds those orders in one click as manual entries: same editor, same account pricing, same review and export, with "manual" recorded as the origin. Walk-up counter sales stay in your counter point-of-sale — the manual lane is for the phoned-in and texted orders that would otherwise live on a notepad by the register.

It also doesn't read photos, scans, or handwriting; a PDF needs a text layer to be parsed automatically. An attachment it can't parse stays on the order, worked inside PeasyOrders in a side-by-side view.

What happens when the spec is missing?

"Screws, a box" is flagged: size, type, drive, finish? "1/2 bolts" with no grade or finish is flagged: grade 2, 5, or 8 — zinc or stainless? Each flag waits for a person to resolve it in the draft — the system suggests, the operator validates, and unresolved lines block confirmation. That's what keeps a grade 2 bolt off a job that needed grade 5, and a guessed SKU from becoming a return or dead stock. If only the contractor can settle it — zinc or stainless for an outdoor rail? — your counter can ask by email from the draft, with the reply linked back to the order.

How does trade-versus-retail pricing work?

Hardware pricing is by account: contractors on trade tiers, stores at retail, and negotiated exceptions on top. Each captured line is priced by that account's rules — the rule that set the price shows on the line — and a line PeasyOrders can't price is flagged instead of defaulting to list. On setup, PeasyOrders reads your past QuickBooks Online invoices once and proposes each account's pricing from what you actually charged; you accept, adjust, or discard it before anything applies. QuickBooks Online's API doesn't expose customer-specific pricing to any integration, so PeasyOrders is the pricing engine itself — the trade tier goes to the contractor and retail to the store, automatically and traceably.

Common hardware orders PeasyOrders handles

Does it recognize an account's standing reorder?

Yes. A regular's recurring list resolves to the right fasteners and hardware after a few confirmed orders — PeasyOrders learns each account's shorthand from the corrections your team confirms — and setup reads your past QuickBooks Online invoices once, so each account's buying history is there from day one. The standing reorder becomes a draft anyone can review; it stops depending on the one counter veteran who had it memorized.

What stays with your other systems?

Capture through review is PeasyOrders' half; the rest keeps its home. Reviewed orders export to QuickBooks Online as an Estimate by default (configurable), or to Google Sheets or CSV. Your counter point-of-sale, inventory, will-call, and fulfillment stay in the systems you run for them — fed clean order data with the right specs and account prices instead of a notepad transcription.

What does it cost?

Plans run $99, $199, and $349 per month by confirmed order volume, with a 30-day money-back guarantee — details on the pricing page.

The bottom line

Your contractors and stores will keep ordering in loose phrases against a catalog of tens of thousands of SKUs — trade and retail at once — and they shouldn't have to change. PeasyOrders captures the emailed orders with the full spec matched, gives your team one click for the phoned and texted ones, prices every line at the account's tier, and flags the missing grade before it becomes a return, a failed fastener, or dead stock. If you also run a plumbing counter, see plumbing supply distributors; for the wider picture, see how to automate wholesale order processing.