A standard vendor demonstration shows what the product does best. A structured demo day shows what it does for your business. This agenda is built for a trading or distribution company in Dubai and takes about four hours with finance, sales, warehouse and the owner or general manager in the room. Send it to every vendor in advance so that each is judged on the same path.
Preparation (a week before)
- Prepare a small data set: twenty items with prices, five customers (one with credit terms and post-dated cheques), three suppliers.
- Select five real documents from last month: a sale with a part payment, a purchase with freight, a customer return, a supplier bill with VAT and a transfer between warehouses.
- Agree who scores what, using the sheet in the demo scorecard.
The agenda
| Time | Session | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| 0:00 to 0:45 | Quote to cash: quotation, order, delivery, tax invoice, receipt | Clicks per step, price list and discount rules, credit limit warnings, Arabic and English documents |
| 0:45 to 1:30 | Purchase to pay: order, goods receipt, supplier bill, landed cost, payment | Three-way match, foreign currency, freight and duty added to cost; see purchase to pay |
| 1:30 to 2:15 | Stock: receiving with scanner, transfer, count and adjustment, reorder suggestions | Stock by location, batches or serials, movement history, reorder logic; see inventory software |
| 2:15 to 2:45 | Cheques and credit: post-dated cheque register, deposit, return, ageing and statements | Status flow, returned cheque handling, ageing accuracy; see credit control |
| 2:45 to 3:15 | Finance: VAT return, bank reconciliation, period lock, audit trail | Does the VAT return reconcile to the ledger? Who changed what? See VAT return box by box |
| 3:15 to 3:45 | Data test: import your sample items and customers from your spreadsheet | How errors are reported, duplicates, mapping effort |
| 3:45 to 4:00 | Questions on support, hosting, cost and exit | Written answers promised within two days |
Scoring rules that keep it honest
- Each person scores immediately after each session, privately, from one to five.
- Note whether each step was done in the standard product, by configuration or by promised customization.
- Ask the vendor to repeat any step the room did not follow instead of moving on.
Questions only a demo can answer
- What happens when a user makes a mistake: can an invoice be corrected cleanly?
- How long does a new user need to create an invoice unaided?
- Can the owner see cash, receivables and stock value without asking anyone?
After the day
Total the scores, list open questions and ask each vendor for a written response and a fixed-scope quotation based on what was shown. Our page ERP by business type and ERP for trading companies explain what to expect. To book a demo day with us, send your scenarios.