Excel trackers in every office, quotes re-typed from factory offers and supplier invoices matched by hand, until FreshID moved every customer project onto ELWIS: one record from inquiry to payment, shared by Germany and Hong Kong, with AI that drafts quotes and matches invoices.
The problem
Each office ran its own project tracker in Excel, Hong Kong quoted in Business Central with five fixed price tiers, and factory offers were re-typed line by line. A German project and its Hong Kong twin were kept aligned by hand through an "Origin ID", payments were reconciled manually against DATEV, and supplier invoices were matched to orders on the order-confirmation number, often with the cost centre missing. Nobody could say in one place where a project stood, what a customer still owed, or what an order really earned.
01
Where is this project right now: quoting, in production or already on the ship?
02
Has Hong Kong seen the latest change to this order?
03
How much has this customer paid, and what does the factoring partner still owe us?
04
What is our real margin once all supplier and freight invoices are in?
What FreshID needed before a single screen was designed: one project, one record, from the first customer email to the last payment.
One project chain
Inquiry to payment under one project ID.
Offices in sync
Germany and Hong Kong on paired records.
Enter data once
HubSpot, DATEV, Candis and SharePoint.
Credit control
Every order checked against the insured limit.
Self-service quoting
Unlimited tiers and live margin.
Production visibility
Approvals, stages and ship dates.
Automated cashflow
Prepayment, proforma and factoring.
Key features
Ten features that replaced the trackers, re-typing and manual matching, ordered by how much time they give back.
LIFECYCLE
Every customer project runs as one chain (inquiry, quote, sample, sales order, shipment, invoice and payment) linked by a single project ID. Each next step is created from the previous one with one click, replacing the single-sheet Excel trackers each office kept.
OFFICES
Sending an inquiry to Hong Kong creates a paired record for each office. Orders and shipments stay in sync automatically, and completing or cancelling a record in one office updates the other. Each entity keeps its own numbering, currency and tax, and no cancelled row is coloured black in a spreadsheet any more.
QUOTING · AI
Sellers build quotes from the item master or straight from a factory offer, add as many price tiers as they need and see the contribution margin per tier live. AI turns uploaded factory offers into quote lines, carton sizes, CBM and weights are captured per line, one-off costs such as moulds sit on separate lines, and the quote prints as a PDF in the agreed layout.
PRODUCTION
The sales order holds the status, approvals for product, packaging and shipping marks, the production stage from artwork to QC, and the ready dates. Colour-coded deadlines show which orders are slipping.
FINANCE
When an order is approved, the payment plan is generated automatically: standard, prepayment with proforma, factored 90/10 or a combination. Received payments update paid and open amounts instantly, and every customer page shows sales, margin, open balance and how much of the insured credit limit is already used.
LOGISTICS
Shipments record ports, ETD/ETA, transport mode and forwarder, with volume and weights summed from the lines. One button creates a draft purchase order per supplier.
COLLABORATION
Tasks and notes roll up per project across every stage and both offices. Each user has a personal task matrix and a calendar, and the team is alerted when an inquiry is close to an order.
REPORTING · AI
Planned and final margin per order, with month-end accruals and stock values calculated when supplier invoices arrive too early or too late, fed by AI-matched supplier invoices.
INTEGRATIONS
Contacts and deals sync to HubSpot, where order and invoice stages drive the sales commission scheme. Accounting data goes to DATEV, supplier invoices arrive from Candis, and every project links to its SharePoint folder.
The solution
We mapped how FreshID quotes, produces, ships, invoices and gets paid across offices, then modelled exactly that in ELWIS.
Page Builder
Pipelines, quote grids, production boards and finance dashboards arranged by drag and drop, without front-end code.
Configurable Type System
Inquiries, quotes, orders, purchase orders, shipments, invoices and payments as artifact types with their own attributes and links.
Client-owned governance
FreshID's admins own roles, statuses, workflows and permissions, so changes do not need a developer.
Before / After
A side-by-side view of what changed for sellers, merchandisers and finance.
Area
Before
After ELWIS
Building a quote
45 min re-typing factory offers into five fixed tiers
Unlimited tiers with live margin, done in 15 minutes (67% faster)
Germany and Hong Kong alignment
~20 min re-entry per project; cancellations coloured black in Excel
Paired records stay in sync automatically, with no re-entry
Splitting a deposit across partial shipments
Partial orders created by hand (0100001-A, -B) and the deposit re-split manually
Partial shipments on one order; deposit reallocated automatically
Customer's open balance
~30 min across Business Central, DATEV and Excel
Visible on the customer page in under a minute (95% faster)
Payment plan per order
~20 min; deposits re-split by hand
Generated on approval in about 2 minutes (90% faster)
Month-end margin and accruals
3 days in Excel
Done in half a day (83% faster)
How it works
The application guides the team through every stage of a customer project.
1
Log the inquiry
A Nuremberg seller logs the request and sends it to Hong Kong in one click.
2
Quote with AI
The factory offer is uploaded; AI drafts lines and tiers, and the margin updates live.
3
Approve the order
The credit limit is checked; the payment plan and proforma invoice are created.
4
Track production
Hong Kong records approvals and stages; Nuremberg sees every change.
5
Ship and invoice
The shipment is created from the order; the invoice goes to the customer or the factoring partner.
6
Match and get paid
AI matches supplier invoices, payments are booked and deal stages flow to HubSpot.
Delivered in phases (data model in December 2024, go-live and migration of the office trackers in 2025, HubSpot integration in 2026) for sellers, merchandisers, finance and management in four offices.
4
offices · Nuremberg, Berlin, London and Hong Kong
~40
screens · sales, production, logistics and finance (estimate)
~35
users · sellers, merchandisers, finance and management (estimate)
~1,200
legacy projects migrated from the Nuremberg tracker
Security & access control
Role-based permissions
Each role sees only what it needs; only management changes order dates, currency or credit blocks.
Full audit trail
Every create, change and AI suggestion logged with user and timestamp.
Locked records after approval
Corrections through versioned documents and credit memos, never silent edits.
Secured hosting & integrations
Daily backups and authenticated API access for HubSpot and accounting.
“
Every project now has one record from inquiry to payment, and Nuremberg and Hong Kong finally see the same thing.
Head of Sales Operations, FreshID
Conclusion
One record for every customer project across offices and currencies, on a platform FreshID can adapt itself and extend with AI.
PLANNED NEXT
Credit Memos
One-Click Order Setup
HubSpot Commission Sync
DATEV Payment Import
01
One record per project
Every inquiry, quote, order, shipment and invoice hangs off one project ID.
02
No double entry between offices
Nuremberg and Hong Kong work on synchronised records instead of re-typing.
03
Quotes in minutes, not hours
AI turns factory offers into quote lines with live margin per tier.
04
Cashflow visible in real time
Payment plans, prepayments and factoring generated automatically.
05
Margin under control
AI-matched supplier invoices and automatic accruals replace the Excel matching exercise.
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