Business Operations & Custom Software
Distributor Customer Portal Planning Checklist
Before choosing features, decide what your customers need to do and where the information will come from. Work through these questions with your order desk, warehouse and accounts team. Check a question when your team has resolved it—not simply because you want the feature.
Checks and notes stay only in this open page. They are not saved and reset when you refresh or leave. Nothing you enter is submitted or stored by this worksheet. Print to keep a copy. Use general planning notes—not passwords, customer records, confidential pricing or other sensitive information.
Decisions before design.
Assign an owner to each unanswered question. Account-specific pricing, stock accuracy, accounting connections and update frequency depend on supported systems, available permissions and the integrations agreed for your project. A portal is not a substitute for reliable source data.
01
Products & catalog data
Consistent product data determines how customers search, compare and order the correct unit.
02
Customer accounts & buyers
Account structure defines who can place orders and which company information they can access.
03
Pricing & approvals
Pricing rules determine whether the portal can show a price, request a quote or require review.
04
Ordering & backorders
Clear rules prevent an online request from being mistaken for a confirmed, fulfillable order.
05
Pickup, shipping & delivery
Fulfillment options affect checkout questions, staff handoffs and the status shown to customers.
06
Invoices, payments & terms
Payment and credit rules must match the business's existing account process.
07
Existing system connections
Supported connections and agreed update frequency determine what the portal can reliably display.
08
Permissions & private information
Each role needs agreed access boundaries, especially for customer-specific prices and documents.
09
Launch priorities & support
A focused first version is easier to review against real tasks and support after launch.
Start with the first version.
Printable planning summary: use short, non-confidential notes. List concrete tasks, not a wish list of screens. For each launch feature, identify an owner and how the team will confirm it works.