A pharma wholesaler operated on tight regulated margins. Volume looked healthy; finance kept finding quarter-end surprises on lines everyone assumed were core earners.
The situation
Category managers tracked compliance and availability first. Margin analysis arrived late — built manually from invoice lines, supplier rebates, and returns. By then purchasing had already renewed annual commitments.
What ERP data showed — but didn't say
The ERP stored true invoice costs, discounts, and credit notes per line. Dashboards showed gross margin by category, not drift at SKU level when mix shifted toward discount tiers.
Turning history into an action list
Flowra analyzed four years of invoice-level history and flagged:
- 30 high-volume SKUs with negative margin drift despite stable catalog pricing
- Clients whose basket mix systematically pulled those lines
- Reorder holds until commercial terms were renegotiated
Finance and purchasing shared one ranked list — not separate spreadsheets.
Results
- €48,000 quarterly margin recovered after repricing and mix corrections
- Annual supplier renewals deferred on 12 underperforming lines
- Category reviews shortened because evidence traveled with each SKU flag