The advantages of using VisitBasis Retail Audit Software

Looking for new ways to enhance the effectiveness of retail audits? Opt for VisitBasis retail audit software to completely automate your retail merchandising activities, to streamline retail data workflow and to maximize your field reps productivity. VisitBasis offers companies a comprehensive retail audit solution to provide remote merchandising workforce management and real-time monitoring of field reps anytime, anywhere.

When conducting retail merchandising audits companies often rely on traditional paper-based forms and general-purpose software like MS Word and MS Excel, Google Docs, Notes and etc. They also use traditional ways of communication with merchandisers – paper reports, phone calls, SMS, and email messages. At first glance paper-based retail audits may seem economical and cost-effective, but as a matter of fact it can really be costly in terms of time expenses and low productivity.

Therefore some of the most experienced and sophisticated retailers opt for paperless retail audits to reduce costs and become more efficient both in the field and in the back-office. Let’s consider in what ways companies can improve merchandising performance and field reps productivity switching to paperless retail audits. The automated retail auditing amazingly differs from traditional retail auditing. Today due to the new mobile technologies field reps are able to perform retail audits using just their tablets and smartphones with no need to visit the office to report the results. All the data collected at stores is automatically synced with corporate database and is instantly available for building analytic reports. The new way of retail audits organization provides faster data workflow and reduces time for decision-making, improving the bottom-line. 

VisitBasis Features and Advantages

Traditional Retail Audits	Retail Audit Software
Creating a list of visits to the points-of-sale, filling out paper forms for field reps, or using general-purpose calendar application. The traditional scheduling is a time-consuming and burdensome process for a field team manager	Using retail audit software you can easily organize the schedule of visits for any period of time and improve your field team bottom-line by reducing their time traveling to appointments, planning routes and accessing information Features: Planning visits in bulk or individually Office managers visually assign stores to field reps, using a map Visits can be scheduled by the office or on the mobile device Rescheduling appointments on the go Adding visits during a day by office users or by field reps
Field reps receive the appointment schedule during a visit to the office, or via email, or phone call. Traveling to the office to receive tasks takes time and reduces field reps productivity. After field reps receive the schedule of visits and the list of tasks to be performed at each point of sale they have to find out their routes all by themselves using a map application or a GPS-navigator	All the visits and tasks are instantly displayed in tablets and smartphones of field reps due to automatic synchronization. Field reps can view all the information about every point-of-sale, including contacts, history of visits, map location. Field reps can always optimize their route for the day at a click of a button to make sure they have the shortest path between points-of-sale Features: All visits and tasks are instantly displayed on field reps’ mobile devices Field reps or office managers can optimize customer routes to reduce time traveling to appointments The optimal route is calculated from the current GPS location of the user Customer’s locations on the map Mobile access to corporate database including product catalog with photos and attached files, customer information, prices and etc.
Field reps notify field team managers of the fact of arrival at a point-of-sale by a phone call, SMS, or marking the time of arrival in a paper report	Field reps are being monitored on the map; field team managers can see their routes, the arrival time, and time spent at a point-of-sale Features: See your all field reps on the map in real-time See the travel routes field reps took between visits Visit can be verified live, you can see visits on the map GPS distance to the point-of-sale location All activities are tracked automatically, no need to start/end button. Start of visit, end of visit time Duration taken to perform tasks and travel time
Field reps collect store data completing paper forms, which are then to be transferred to the office for manual data reentry to the corporate database. A more advanced way is filling in a Word or Excel form and e-mailing it to the office	Automated data entry using a tablet or a smartphone. All the data collected at points-of-sale is automatically transferred to corporate database and is available for integration with company’s back-end system, export or analysis Features: Customizable task templates with different types of answers (text, photo, number, multiple choice, electronic signature) Built-in photo reports Real-time data workflow due to automatic synchronization with the office Time-stamped and GPS-confirmed data Real-time data workflow due to automatic synchronization with the office The information can be collected even offline Collect all field data then sync with one click Orders and returns from a point of sale Barcode product search Order history Communication Bar tells you the status of data exchange
Filed team managers try to compile the information across paper forms or Excel spreadsheets, manually entering data to corporate database. After data reentry is finished managers often don’t have time and enthusiasm to analyze big amount of data from points of sales	All the data collected at points-of-sale is instantly available for analysis. Use Google API and BigQuery access to your data to get ultimate custom reports and dashboards in seconds. Apply sophisticated filters to get the exact information you need. The reports can be easily exported to corporate database Features: Ultimate custom reports and dashboards in seconds Get all your data immediately, filter by reg expressions Big Query statistics reports on visits, customers, tasks, and field reps Great variety of filters to sort retail data Daily and weekly statistics reports on field reps’ mobile devices that can be emailed to the office

Start your retail audit automation today with VisitBasis – the only free retail audit software on the market. Just register at www.visitbasis.com, download free VisitBasis Retail Audit App on Google Play or App Store and start performing your own retail audits in a new innovative way.