Which Wholesale Accounts Are Most Profitable

Your top 5 accounts by revenue are rarely your top 5 by profitability. Large accounts frequently:

• Negotiate deeper trade discounts (reducing margin %)
• Pay slowly (increasing your financing cost)
• Require more account management time and custom service
• Demand free samples, promotional support, or marketing development funds

When you account for all of these, the account generating £200,000 per year at 12% margin and 60-day payment terms may be worth less to your business than the account generating £80,000 at 32% margin on 14-day payment terms.

Go to Customers → Trade Accounts → Profitability Ranking.

AskBiz calculates account profitability as:

Account Gross Profit = Revenue − COGS − Trade Discount − Selling Costs

Where:

• COGS: pulled from your product cost settings
• Trade discount: the discount % applied to this account's orders
• Selling costs: marketplace fees, delivery costs, and any account-specific costs you have entered

Payment timing is factored into a Working Capital Score — accounts that pay late have a higher implied financing cost, reducing their effective profitability further.

The result is a profitability ranking where each account is shown with gross profit £, gross margin %, and working capital score — giving you a complete picture of each account's value.

In most wholesale businesses, 80% of gross profit comes from 20% of accounts. AskBiz identifies your profit-generating 20% and flags the accounts that consume resources without generating proportionate returns.

Action by quadrant:

| Revenue | Margin | Action |

|---|---|---|

| High | High | Protect and grow — these are your most valuable accounts |

| High | Low | Renegotiate or restructure — volume without margin is a liability |

| Low | High | Grow — increase order frequency and basket size |

| Low | Low | Review — are these accounts worth the service cost? |

Go to Customers → Trade Accounts → Profitability Matrix for the visual 2×2 plot of all accounts.

Account profitability data is a powerful tool in commercial negotiations — both for renegotiating terms with underperforming accounts and for justifying investment in high-value ones.

For low-margin accounts: Use the data to support a conversation about price increases, discount reduction, or minimum order quantities. Show the account their margin contribution and how it compares to your portfolio average — most buyers understand that unviable margins are not sustainable.

For high-value accounts: Use profitability data to justify increased investment — better payment terms, more stock allocation, faster delivery, or dedicated account management. Demonstrating the account's value in £ terms makes the business case internally.