Ozark Technology Consulting
Order & shipping operations · For product businesses with 5 to 30 people

Your orders shouldn't depend on who's in the office today.

When a product business outgrows the way it has always run orders, the same things break. Nobody can see where orders are. Shipping waits on billing. Pricing lives in one person's head. I fix those problems one at a time, and make sure what happens on the floor shows up correctly in your numbers.

Book a free 30-minute call See what I fix

You talk through how an order moves today. I tell you plainly what I'd fix first.

A normal Tuesday 4 questions, 0 answers
SA
Sales9:12 AM

Did the order for the hardware store go out? They're on the phone.

WH
Warehouse9:40 AM

Six orders ready to pack but no slips. Is billing in today?

BI
Billing10:05 AM

Which price do they get on gloves? The sheet has two different numbers.

YOU
You4:48 PM

How many orders shipped this week, and how many were late?

If this is what your day sounds like, this page is for you.
  • Fixed price, agreed before work starts
  • A written finish line for every project
  • You work with me directly
What I fix

Four problems. Each one has a clear finish line.

Each project takes one of these off your plate. We agree up front what "fixed" means, so you can tell whether I did the job.

Problem 01

"Where is that order?"

The answer is spread across the accounting system, a task board, an inbox and somebody's memory. Finding out means interrupting two people or walking the floor. You hear about a late order from the customer, and you can't say whether this month was better than last.

Fixed means
  • Anyone on your team can find any order's status in seconds, without asking someone.
  • Late orders flag themselves before the customer calls.
  • You see ship times and daily volume without anyone building a report.
Problem 02

"Shipping is waiting on billing again."

Packing slips and paperwork come out of the accounting system, so only the people trusted with the books can print them. When that person is out, at lunch or closing the month, boxes sit. And they get interrupted all day when they're in.

Fixed means
  • Shipping gets its own paperwork the moment an order is ready.
  • No prices on the floor and no warehouse login to your books.
  • Billing stops being the print desk.
Problem 03

"Only one person understands our pricing."

Customer pricing lives in a file one person keeps. Every order means looking up the deal and typing it in by hand. A wrong price costs real money, and the whole arrangement depends on one person never being sick, on vacation or gone.

Fixed means
  • The right customer price lands on the order by itself.
  • A price change is made once, in one place.
  • That person can take a week off and orders still go out right.
Problem 04

"We type every order two or three times."

An order arrives by email, phone or your online store. Someone keys it into the accounting system, then again onto the board, then again for the carrier. Every retype is a chance for a wrong address or quantity, and it gets slower with every order you add.

Fixed means
  • An order is entered once and shows up everywhere it's needed.
  • The retyping mistakes stop at the source.
  • You can take more orders without hiring someone to type them.

Yours isn't on the list? If it sits between an order coming in and a box going out, it is probably the same kind of problem. Bring it to the call.

Operations and the numbers

Every floor problem ends up in your financials.

My work is on the operations side. But I follow each order all the way to cash, because that is where a shipping problem turns into a money problem.

  1. Order

    Priced wrong at entry

    A wrong price or missed terms gives away margin before any work is done, and nobody sees it until the customer statement.

  2. Pick and pack

    Shipped short or wrong

    Every mis-ship comes back as a credit, a reship and freight paid twice. Those costs rarely get traced to their cause.

  3. Ship

    Out the door late

    A late shipment is a late invoice. Days added on the floor are days added to when you get paid.

  4. Invoice

    Shipped but not billed

    When shipping and billing run on separate records, orders leave the building and the invoice goes out late, wrong, or not at all.

  5. Cash and books

    Numbers you can't trust

    Inventory and cost figures that don't match the floor mean a slow month-end and margins nobody fully believes.

What that means for the work: every fix is designed so the accounting side gets cleaner, with the right price, quantity and ship date reaching the books without retyping. I'm not your accountant, and I work alongside whoever is.

How I work

The job is the problem solved.

Not a tool installed or a report delivered. Whatever it takes to reach the finish line we agreed on.

Process first.

Many problems are about how work is handed from one person to the next. I fix the handoff before anyone touches software.

Software where it earns its place.

Sometimes the answer is a change to a system you have, a new report, two systems connected, or a tool replaced. I recommend what solves the problem and do the work.

One problem at a time.

We pick the one that costs you the most and finish it before starting the next, so you see results early.

Your team keeps shipping.

I work around the people doing the job, show them the change before it goes live, and stay until it holds up on a busy day.

How it works

Small steps. You can stop after any of them.

Step 1

Free call

$030 minutes

You walk me through how an order moves from sale to shipped. I tell you whether I can help and what I'd fix first.

Step 2

Ops audit

$1,500fixed

I trace real orders from sale to cash and watch the work being done. You get a written plan: what to fix, in what order, and a fixed price for each. It's yours to keep.

Step 3

Fix one problem

Quotedone fixed price, agreed before I start

One problem from the list, solved to the finish line we agreed. Your team is trained on it before I call it done.

Optional

Ongoing support

Monthlyarranged after a project

For companies that want the next fix every month and someone to call when something breaks, without hiring for it.

Cole Spencer
Who you'd work with

I've scaled these systems from the inside.

I'm Cole Spencer. I'm a staff software engineer at a growing manufacturing company, where I build and scale the systems that carry an order from the moment it's placed to the moment it's shipped and on the books. I've kept those systems working while the company grew fast around them.

So I know the problems on this page first-hand, including the stage where one reliable person is holding it all together. Ozark Technology Consulting is my own practice. You deal with me directly, in plain English, from the first call to the last day.

  • Systems builtOrder intake from an online store, the central order database, label printing, carrier shipping integration, and the connection to the ERP.
  • FocusOrder flow, fulfillment and shipping operations, and how they connect to invoicing, inventory and cash.
  • Best fitProduct businesses with 5 to 30 people and roughly $2M to $20M in sales.
  • Based inArkansas, working with companies across the US.
Questions

Before you book

What do we actually end up with?

The problem solved, to the finish line we wrote down. Getting there might mean a changed process, a new report, two systems connected, a change to software you have, or a recommendation to replace something. You'll know the plan and the price before I start.

Will this mean new software?

Sometimes. If a system is the cause, I'll say so and explain why. If the same result can be had by changing how the work moves, I'll say that instead.

Do you work on the accounting side too?

I work on operations and on the points where operations feed the books: pricing, quantities, ship dates, invoicing triggers, inventory movements. I don't do bookkeeping or tax work. I'm glad to work directly with your bookkeeper, controller or CPA so the fix suits them too.

What if the fix breaks later?

You get plain written notes on how it works, so you are not dependent on me. If you'd like someone on call, ongoing monthly support is available.

Start here

Tell me how an order moves today.

Thirty minutes, free. If I can help, I'll say how and what it would cost. If I can't, I'll say that too.

Book a free 30-minute call

Prefer email? Reach me at cole@ozarktech.org.