Freight is an overhead line
Transport cost lands in a general expense account, so the margin on each order looks better than it is — and worst on the sites furthest away.
Building Materials
Sold by weight. Delivered to site. Costed with the freight.
Cement, steel, aggregates and blocks are sold by the bag, the tonne and the cubic metre, delivered to a site gate rather than an address, and carried on trucks whose cost is a real share of the margin. OrbitWix keeps weight on every line, the site on every order and the freight on the delivery it paid for.
The problem
Where building supply margin disappears.
The price per tonne looks fine. The margin is lost on the truck, at the site and in the paperwork.
Trucks leave half full, or overloaded
Weight is not on the order lines, so loads are planned by eye and a second trip is found out at the yard.
A site is not an address
Plot 14, gate 2, ask for the site engineer. That lives in the driver’s phone rather than on the order.
Deliveries are disputed
The site says 110 bags arrived; the yard says 120 left. Without a signed count on the note, the argument has no end.
Typical workflow
How a site delivery runs.
The order knows its weight before it is planned, and the freight knows its order after it is paid.
A site delivery moves through six stages: confirmed order, load plan, loading, the trip, delivery to site and freight cost allocated to the order.
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01 Order
SO-2026-0203
Confirmed
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02 Load plan
SO-2026-0203
20.4 t
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03 Loading
SO-2026-0203
Loaded
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04 Trip
SO-2026-0203
On the way
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05 Site
SO-2026-0203
Delivered
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06 Freight
SO-2026-0203
Costed
The solution
What OrbitWix puts in place.
Six parts, built around weight, the site and the truck.
Weight and volume on every line
Item weights and unit conversions, so an order knows its tonnage — bags, tonnes and cubic metres together — before it is planned.
Sites as delivery addresses
Each site a delivery address under the contractor, with its own contact and instructions printed on the note.
Load planning by capacity
Orders planned onto trucks by weight against the vehicle’s capacity, so a load is right before it is loaded.
Freight on the order
Trip cost allocated to the deliveries it carried, so margin is reported after freight, not before.
Proof of delivery at the gate
The quantity counted and signed for at the site, recorded on the delivery note it belongs to.
Credit control for contractors
Limits and terms on the contractor, with orders held for approval when they would go over.
Example
One delivery, one site.
An illustration of one order from confirmation to costed delivery. The names are made up; the sequence is the ordinary one.
- Mon 11:00 A contractor orders 120 bags of cement, 2.4 t of 12 mm bar and 8 m³ of sand for Lakeview Villas, plot 14. The order is checked against their credit limit and comes to 20.4 t.
- Tue 14:00 Dispatch plans it onto a 21 t truck. One load, no second trip.
- Wed 07:00 Loaded and out. The delivery note carries the site, gate 2 and the site engineer’s number.
- Wed 10:40 The site engineer counts 120 bags and signs. Proof of delivery is recorded on the note.
- Wed 16:00 The trip’s cost of 260.00 is allocated to the order — 12.75 per tonne — and the order’s margin after freight is 11.8%.
Visibility
Reports you read, and work you stop doing.
Both read the same records the work is done on, so neither needs an export to stay current.
Reports
- Margin after freightBy order, by customer and by site.
- Freight cost per tonneBy route, by vehicle and by carrier.
- Deliveries by siteWhat each site has received, and what is still to go.
- Vehicle utilisationTonnes carried against capacity, trip by trip.
- Contractor receivablesWhat each contractor owes, and since when.
Automation
- An order is held for approval when it would take a contractor over their limit
- Freight cost is allocated across the deliveries on a trip by weight
- A watch on deliveries still open at the end of the day Early access
Items marked early access run on Watcher, which is still being finished.
Recommended apps
Where to start.
Building materials suppliers usually start with selling and delivering, and add Logistics as soon as freight needs to land on the order.
Sales
Orders by weight and volume, sites as delivery addresses.
Dispatch
Loading sheets, delivery notes and proof of delivery at the gate.
Logistics
Load planning by capacity and freight cost allocated to orders.
Finance
Credit control and receivables for contractors.
FAQ
Questions from building materials suppliers.
Can one item be sold in bags and by the tonne?
Yes. An item has a stock unit and conversions — a bag of cement is 50 kg, so 120 bags is 6 tonnes. Orders, notes and invoices each show the unit that makes sense to the reader.
How is freight costed onto an order?
The trip’s cost is recorded once and allocated across the deliveries it carried, by weight. Each order then reports its margin after freight.
Can one contractor have many sites?
Yes. Each site is a delivery address under the contractor, with its own contact. The contractor has one credit limit and one balance; deliveries can be reported site by site.
What about unused material coming back?
A return is recorded against the original delivery, goes back into stock, and is credited against the invoice it came from.
Have a different question? Talk to us.
See your freight on your orders.
Bring a week of delivery notes and the transport invoices that went with them. We will show the margin on each order once the truck is counted.