How to Automate MAM Software Autopart

A motor factor sells availability, not parts

MAM Software Autopart is the business management system automotive parts distributors run on: motor factors, jobbers, warehouse distributors, specialty suppliers and online parts retailers, from a single counter up to a chain of branches. MAM Software is now part of Kerridge Commercial Systems, but in the trade the software is still Autopart.

It is the whole business in one package. Sales and point of sale, stock control, purchase ordering, product and price management and the accounting ledgers all sit in the same system. Autocat carries the catalog and the cross references. A warehouse management module runs goods receipt, putaway, picking and dispatch on handheld scanners. WebPro puts the trade account online.

What a garage actually buys is a promise. A technician has a car on a lift and a customer in the waiting room, and the only question that matters is whether the right part can be in the workshop before the bay is needed for the next job. Autopart is where the counter answers that.

The part you do not stock costs the most time

Most calls are easy. The part is on the shelf, the price is on the screen, it goes on the van.

The rest of the day belongs to the ones that are not. A caliper for a model nobody stocks, so somebody opens the first warehouse distributor's website, then a second, then a third, checking availability and today's price and whether it can be here by two. A backorder eleven days old that needs an ETA the supplier will only show inside its own portal. A price file that landed on Monday and has to be read line by line against what the branch has been charging, because a couple of percent on a fast mover is the margin.

Then the credits. Cores going back, warranty claims logged on a manufacturer's portal, and somebody remembering three weeks later to check whether either was ever paid.

None of it is difficult. All of it is a login, a search box and a number that has to be typed somewhere else.

MAM Software Autopart

An ETA on every open backorder Supplier portals read each morning and the date written against the sales order, so the counter tells a garage the truth on Tuesday.

Price file changes that matter New buy prices compared against current ones, filtered down to the lines the branch actually sells in volume rather than all four thousand.

Cores and warranty credits tracked Returns and claims followed on each manufacturer's portal until a credit appears, because both are usually assumed to be handled by somebody.

Best-buy analysis compares the price files you already loaded

Autopart automates a great deal of the buying, and a distributor should exhaust that before adding anything to it.

Automated re-ordering suggestions work out what to buy from demand and history, with multi-sourcing and best-buy analysis choosing between suppliers and lead time calculations built into the answer. Inter-branch transfers move stock between locations without anyone raising a request. The point of sale screens show live stock availability, promotions and alternative products, which is how a counter offers a substitute rather than losing the sale.

All of that is real, and all of it runs on what Autopart already holds.

There is the wall. Best-buy analysis compares the suppliers whose price files are loaded, at the prices in those files. It has no idea that the warehouse distributor twelve miles away has two on the shelf this afternoon, or that the price moved on Tuesday, or that the backorder finally got a date. Those things live behind a login on each supplier's own site, published to people rather than to systems.

The counter can promise a time instead of guessing at one

By eight in the morning, live availability can be a column on the screen rather than a phone call to each supplier.

Every open backorder checked each morning on the supplier's own portal, with the date written against the sales order, so the counter tells a garage the truth on Tuesday instead of apologizing on Friday. The parts a branch does not stock priced across every supplier account before the purchase order is raised, so the buyer is looking at this morning's cost rather than last month's file.

New price files read against current buy prices, with only the lines that moved on the list, sorted by how much of them the branch actually sells. Cores and warranty claims followed on each manufacturer's portal until a credit appears, because those are the two things everybody assumes somebody else is watching.

Then the wider market. What a competing factor is quoting online for the fast movers. Whether a supersession has replaced a part number still sitting in the racks. Whether a manufacturer has posted a recall or a stop-sale on something the branch is selling this week.

The trade counter should be selling while this runs

Judging which supplier to lean on, and which garage is worth an extra delivery run, is the job. Opening five supplier sites to find out what they say is not, and it is where the morning goes.

WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in as you. It opens the supplier portal, the manufacturer's warranty site or a competitor's page, reads the screen the way a parts buyer would, and puts the answer where the branch can act on it.

It runs on your schedule, and you can watch a run and stop it. Placing a purchase order, releasing a credit hold and quoting a trade account are decisions with money on them, so those wait for a person.

The workflows below are already built, and each one names the sites it opens.