Strensall Merchants / BG-Demo – Onboarding
Callcompleted
Strensall Merchants · 15 May 2025 10:00
Ashok Patel reported a credit test on one branch that mostly matches the ledger, with one unexplained gap. He asked for a second admin and a cautious rollout, and noted usage is narrow so far.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Ashok Patel reported a credit test on one branch that mostly matches the ledger, with one unexplained gap. He asked for a second admin and a cautious rollout, and noted usage is narrow so far.
What happened: Hamza Akhtar and Ashok reviewed the credit load on one test branch. Balances match the ledger apart from a handful of accounts, mostly late credit notes, and one larger gap Hamza will check against unapplied cash.
Customer view: Ashok said he is happy to go slowly, and that a wrong merge on credit is worse than a missing merge. On usage he cautioned that a lot of it is the same few people being curious.
Commercial: Hamza restated Enterprise with a hundred and sixty licensed users at a hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred a year, and Ashok accepted it, saying finance and the group director signed it off. Freshness is credited on Enterprise, and Ashok will watch the 07:00 refresh himself.
Watch: Ashok is the only admin and named that as a risk. He wants a second admin, and single sign-on needs a call with IT.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Credit test, admin cover
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Ashok to send the larger-difference account and re-run credit after the late postings.
- Hamza to book a single sign-on call between Ashok's IT team and a BG-Demo technical colleague.
- Ashok to name a second admin and draft the mailbox list.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Ashok is the only admin, so absence would leave no cover.
- Usage is narrow so far, concentrated in a few curious people.
- One credit account shows a larger difference that late credit notes do not explain.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Enterprise single sign-on and SCIM can follow once IT has spoken to a technical colleague.
- Waves by region, starting with the key-account team, can widen who asks questions.
Transcript
Hamza AkhtarMorning, Ashok. Can you hear me all right?
Ashok PatelMorning, Hamza. Yes, loud and clear. Can you see my screen yet or shall I wait?- Hamza AkhtarNot yet, no. Give it a second. Ah, there it is. Is that the admin console?
- Ashok PatelIt is. Sorry, I've got three windows open, which is not a good sign for ten o'clock on a Thursday.
- Hamza AkhtarHa, no, that's about normal for onboarding. How's the week been? Did the rain ever stop up there?
- Ashok PatelNot really. It's the sort of weather where the yards go quiet and everyone in the branches suddenly has time to ask me questions about reports. So, busy.
- Hamza AkhtarWell, that's useful for us, actually. People asking questions is what we want. Right, shall we crack on? I've got an agenda, but it's a loose one. Mostly I want to know where you've got to, and then we'll settle the connectors, who owns what, and how you want to roll out across the branches.
- Ashok PatelSounds good. I like to open with what I've changed since last time, if that's all right, so you're not working from an old picture.
- Hamza AkhtarPlease. That's exactly what I was hoping for.
- Ashok PatelSo, three things. First, I created a proper service account for B-Viz inside our Snowflake setup, rather than using my own login, because I didn't want the loads tied to a person. Second, I've tidied the trade account table. We had duplicates where a customer traded at more than one branch and each branch had keyed them slightly differently. Third, I switched on the credit source, but only for one branch, as a test.
- Hamza AkhtarGood. Which branch did you pick?
- Ashok PatelOne of the mid-sized ones in the Midlands. Busy enough to have real trade accounts with real balances, small enough that if it went wrong I could roll it back without anyone noticing. I'll test it on one branch first, always.
- Hamza AkhtarThat's the right instinct. And did it load cleanly?
- Ashok PatelMostly. The balances match the ledger, which was the thing I cared about. But there's a mismatch on a handful of accounts, and I'd like to understand it before I go wider. Let me share the screen properly. Can you see the query results now?
- Hamza AkhtarYes, I can. Two columns, ledger balance and the B-Viz figure. Most are identical. And those highlighted ones?
- Ashok PatelThose are the ones that differ. Which account number is that, I keep asking myself. And the answer is, they're all accounts where there's a credit note posted late in the day, after the extract has run. So the ledger has it and the load doesn't, until the next night.
- Hamza AkhtarRight, so it's timing rather than a wrong mapping.
- Ashok PatelThat's my reading. But the data says otherwise on one of them, so I'm not going to claim it's all timing yet. There's one account where the difference is larger and it doesn't fit the late credit note idea.
- Hamza AkhtarOkay. Can you send me that one after the call? Just the account reference and the two figures, and I'll look at how the credit connector treats unapplied cash. I suspect that might be it, but I'd rather check than guess.
- Ashok PatelYes, I'll send a screenshot. Short message, nothing fancy.
- Hamza AkhtarPerfect. That's how I like them. So, to give you the wider picture. You're on Enterprise, a hundred and sixty licensed users, and the contract is a hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred a year. The order form is what we're building to. Does that match what you've got on your side?
- Ashok PatelThat matches what I was told. I don't deal with the commercial side, to be honest. Finance and the group director signed it off. I just know I've got the users and the connectors I need, as far as I can tell.
- Hamza AkhtarThat's fine. I only mention it so we're scoping to the same thing. Now, the idea from the sales conversations, as I understand it, is one trade account seen across every branch. Orders, deliveries, calls and credit, all together. Is that still the headline?
- Ashok PatelIt is. That's the whole reason. At the moment if a builder buys from five of our branches, five people each see a fifth of the relationship. The key-account team can't see what the credit team knows, and the branch manager doesn't know the customer is already on a hold at another branch.
- Hamza AkhtarMm. And ninety-five or so branches, so that's a lot of places for the picture to fragment.
- Ashok PatelYes. Which is why the single trade account identifier matters more than anything else you'll hear from me today. If that's wrong, everything downstream is wrong.
- Hamza AkhtarAgreed. So let me suggest an order for the connectors, and you tell me where I'm wrong. Branch system first, because it holds orders and it's the backbone. Credit second, which you've started. Delivery third. Then calls and email, which are lighter, and probably the ones the key-account team will love.
- Ashok PatelI'd swap delivery and credit, actually. Not because credit is less important, but because the delivery system is the messiest. Different depots record things differently, and some of the older ones still batch overnight. I'd rather have credit stable and trusted, and then go at delivery with a clear head.
- Hamza AkhtarThat's fair. You know the estate better than I do. So credit stays second and delivery stays third, but I'll allow more time for delivery. Let's say we treat it as its own piece of work with its own test branch.
- Ashok PatelYes. And can I ask something about refresh timing? Because of the late credit notes.
- Hamza AkhtarOf course.
- Ashok PatelThe nightly refresh. When is it complete by? Because the branch managers start looking at things first thing, and if it's half loaded at seven, I'll hear about it.
- Hamza AkhtarIt's meant to be complete by seven in the morning, your local time, on business days. That's the standard across every tier, and on Enterprise there's a service credit if freshness is breached, not just availability. So there's a real commitment behind it. But I'd still like to see it hold for a few weeks before we say it's bedded in.
- Ashok PatelGood. I'll watch it myself for the first couple of weeks. I tend to look at the load log before I look at anything else.
- Hamza AkhtarI'd expect nothing less. Right, so, owners. For each connector I'd like one name on your side who can answer questions about the source system. Not necessarily someone who does the technical work, just someone who knows what the fields mean.
- Ashok PatelRight. For the branch system that's me, mostly, with a colleague in IT who looks after the database. For credit it's the head of the trade credit team, who knows the ledger far better than I do. For delivery it's someone in the logistics group, and I'd want to introduce you properly rather than have you cold-email them.
- Hamza AkhtarPlease do. Intros are always better coming from you. And for calls and email?
- Ashok PatelCalls would be the key-account lead. Email, I'm less sure. We'll need to decide whose mailboxes go in. I don't want to switch on every mailbox across the group without thinking, because some of them have things that really shouldn't be indexed.
- Hamza AkhtarQuite right. We'd normally start with a named set of mailboxes, the key-account team and a few senior people, and widen later if it earns its place. You stay in control of what goes in.
- Ashok PatelThat works. I'd also want to be able to take a source out again without losing everything else. I never delete what I can't restore.
- Hamza AkhtarYou can pause a source and it keeps what's already indexed, or you can remove it and the records go with it. I'll show you both in the console so you know which button does what. Shall we do that now while we've got your screen up?
- Ashok PatelYes, go on. Tell me where to click.
- Hamza AkhtarTop right, sources. Then the credit connector you've already switched on. Open it. You'll see a status, last load, and a records count.
- Ashok PatelYep. Last load this morning, a little before seven. Records count is what I'd expect for the one branch.
- Hamza AkhtarGood. Now, the three dots on the right. Pause keeps the data, remove doesn't. And there's a third option, re-run, which I'd lean on a lot in the early weeks.
- Ashok PatelRight, so if I want to chase that mismatch, I could re-run after the credit notes post.
- Hamza AkhtarExactly. That would be a clean way to prove it's timing. Run it once in the evening after the late postings, compare to the ledger, and see whether the differences close up.
- Ashok PatelI'll do that tonight and put the result in my message to you.
- Hamza AkhtarBrilliant. Now, access. You're the admin. Do you want anyone else as an admin, or is it just you for now?
- Ashok PatelI'd like a second one. Someone from my team, so that if I'm on leave or I get run over by a pallet truck, there's cover. One person asking all the questions and doing all the admin is a risk, I know that.
- Hamza AkhtarThat's sensible, and honestly most customers leave it too late. When you've picked who it is, send me the name and I'll sort the permissions.
- Ashok PatelWill do. And the single sign-on, that's part of Enterprise, isn't it? Our IT team asked.
- Hamza AkhtarIt is, along with SCIM for provisioning users automatically. Have your IT team started on it?
- Ashok PatelThey've read the documentation and said it looked straightforward. They want a call with someone technical before they touch anything.
- Hamza AkhtarI can do that. Let's put it in for next week. That also means that when the branch managers come on, they log in with their normal credentials and we don't have a hundred and sixty passwords floating about.
- Ashok PatelWhich would be a nightmare. Yes. Do that.
- Hamza AkhtarOkay. Let me talk about rollout, then, because that's where I think we should spend the rest of the time. Roughly how do you want to bring people on? All at once, by region, by team?
- Ashok PatelNot all at once. That would be chaos and I'd be the helpdesk. My thinking is the key-account team first, because they're few, they're articulate, and they'll tell me honestly what's wrong. Then the trade-credit team. Then branches in waves.
- Hamza AkhtarI like that. Small and loud first. And the branch waves, do you want those by region?
- Ashok PatelBy region, yes, with one friendly branch manager in each wave who'll act as the person others ask. I'm not going to roll out to a wave until the previous one has gone quiet.
- Hamza AkhtarQuiet meaning few questions to you, or quiet meaning no tickets?
- Ashok PatelBoth, really. We've only had the one ticket so far and that was something small about a login. I'd like it to stay boring.
- Hamza AkhtarBoring is the goal. And just so you know, usage on your side has picked up nicely already. People are logging in and asking things, which is a good sign this early.
- Ashok PatelI've noticed. Though I wouldn't overstate it. A lot of it is the same few people being curious. The data says the spread is narrow so far.
- Hamza AkhtarFair, and that's the right way to read it. We'll want to widen who's asking, which is partly what the waves are for.
- Ashok PatelAgreed.
- Hamza AkhtarTraining, then. We'll do a session for the key-account team, hands-on, using their own accounts, because nothing lands like seeing your own customer pop up. Would you want to sit in?
- Ashok PatelYes, I'd like to. I want to hear the questions they ask, because that tells me what I need to get right in the data.
- Hamza AkhtarGood. I'll propose a couple of slots and you pick.
- Ashok PatelBefore we finish, can I go back to the trade account identifier? Because I want to make sure we agree what counts as one account.
- Hamza AkhtarPlease, yes. Go on.
- Ashok PatelAt the moment a customer can have a group account number and then a separate account at each branch. I've built a mapping table that points every branch account to one group account. But there are some where I'm genuinely not sure, two builders with similar names, same town. I've marked those as unresolved rather than guessing.
- Hamza AkhtarGood, don't guess. I'd rather B-Viz showed them as separate and let you merge later than merged them wrongly and had someone make a credit decision off the wrong history.
- Ashok PatelThat's exactly my worry. A wrong merge on credit is worse than a missing merge.
- Hamza AkhtarCompletely. So, the plan is the mapping table loads as its own source, and the connectors look to it for the group account. If you update the table, the next nightly picks it up.
- Ashok PatelGood. I'll keep a copy of the previous version each time, so I can go back.
- Hamza AkhtarSensible. Right. I think that's most of what I wanted. Let me recap, and you stop me if I've got anything wrong.
- Ashok PatelGo ahead.
- Hamza AkhtarYou'll send me the odd credit account with the larger difference, and tonight you'll re-run credit after the late postings and tell me whether the gap closes. I'll look at how unapplied cash is handled. You'll name a second admin. I'll book a call between your IT team and one of our technical people about single sign-on. You'll introduce me to the credit and logistics owners. We agree delivery is third and gets its own test branch. And I'll offer training slots for the key-account team.
- Ashok PatelThat's everything. Plus the mailbox list, which I'll draft, and you'll tell me if it's too narrow.
- Hamza AkhtarYes, I forgot that one. Thank you. I'll write all of this up and send it today so there's one list we're both working from.
- Ashok PatelAppreciated. It's easier for me to forward it to the others if it's written down.
- Hamza AkhtarOf course. Anything else on your mind? Anything that's worrying you about this, even vaguely?
- Ashok PatelOnly the delivery data, as I said. And making sure the branches trust it. If the first thing a branch manager sees is a wrong number, they'll stop looking, and then it doesn't matter how good the rest is.
- Hamza AkhtarThat's why we're going slowly and testing on one branch at a time. I'd rather you were cautious than quick. We've got time.
- Ashok PatelGood. Then I'm happy.
- Hamza AkhtarLovely. Thanks, Ashok. Speak soon, and let me know how tonight's run goes.
- Ashok PatelWill do. Thanks, Hamza. Bye for now.
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