LBM Software Features

The right mix of on-demand tools to boost your efficiency and improve your bottom line.

Ponderosa Software’s Sales Portal and web-based Configure, Price and Quote (CPQ) tool helps building materials distributors and dealers respond immediately to customer inquiries—and provide a level of service that drives sales and reduces order-to-delivery time.

At home, in the office, or at a job site, you can design products, submit quotes and place orders 24/7.  The CPQ tool, accessible from any Internet-connected laptop or tablet, features an online Product Configurator that presents selection criteria for entry door systems, interior doors, windows units other products as high-resolution images.  By displaying only logical choices for components based on the previous selection, Ponderosa speeds customer approvals by preventing sales reps from selecting incorrect components.

The Sales Portal also includes a convenient My Account’ Customer Self-Service module that lets your customers access previous orders, check order status, view A/R balances, invoices, statements, purchase orders, adjustments, payments, and frequently purchased products for re-order—24/7.

Ponderosa POS is a powerful, flexible retail management solutiondesigned to let retailers integrate POS to back office, improve visibility and margins and efficiently run their business. Ponderosa POS software gives you the ability to manage your retail systems on a real-time basis with the speed, agility and functionality retailers need to streamline retail processes, access and analyze critical information, handle unpredictable consumer spending behavior and manage your business more profitably.

Ponderosa provides complete control at the register for cash, checks, and all major credit cards including,  new chip-based payment cards. You get real-time transaction posting, deposit and quote tracking, scheduled deliveries, credit issues and payment processing on account and, most important of all, rapid checkouts – all from one simple menu.

Drive your sales with more precision and at a lower cost. Ponderosa’s powerful contact management capabilities maximize sales efficiency by providing a central launch pad for your sales team. Convenient, well-thought-out tools provide your reps with simple, on-demand access to the critical information they need to make the most profitable decisions and close more business.

Ponderosa provides a suite of new tools to help track contacts, prospects, sales opportunities, quotes and orders, even enter new orders, at the click of a button. A comprehensive Order Guide provides a detailed view of each customer’s purchasing patterns. This data can be analyzed to spot changes in customer activity that can be adversely affecting revenue. The software also provides a quick view of each customer’s credit information, A/R detail, open orders and complete invoice history.

Ponderosa’s Mobile Sales Desk is an on-demand business app that improves customer service and helps close more sales. Using your smart phone, Mobile Sales Desk establishes a secure link to the Ponderosa Software running in the host server for immediate access to the information you need to respond to a customer question or request. What better way of demonstrating that you take a genuine interest in their business?

At the touch of the screen, you can call up detailed customer contact information, product information, promotions and on-hand inventory counts, month-to-date (MTD) sales and gross profit (GP) and each day’s total sales, including a list of sales invoices and amount, total estimated GP % and delivery routes. A convenient Sales Management Dashboard to display each rep’s month-to-date (MTD) sales, sales versus goal, MTD achievement percentage, MTD gross profit (GP) and A/R balance.

For sales managers Ponderosa provides a high-level view of open and closed sales opportunities. You can quickly determine salesperson goal achievement and statistical analysis and see how each rep is performing this week, this month, over the same period as previous year or other comparative metrics. Built-in Activity Analysis features provide classic sales pipeline information such as sales conversion rates, close probability and other informational charts.

Ponderosa’s easy-to-use order entry and quote management tools will help you protect your margins in times of rising lumber prices and tight supplies.

View product prices and costs, committed and on-order inventory, lot number, receipt date, inventory location, brand, grade, box number, and other detailed lot-level data – all from a single screen.

Ponderosa lets you assign different prices for different types of customers. You can also assign different prices for wholesale, retail or online sales.

Ponderosa provides a complete management tool for your customer and vendor management that tracks the history of customer and vendor purchase and sales trends, down to the individual load, and shipment detail. You can easily spot customer and vendor demographic information, record contact histories so every phone call, email, and fax is documented and accessible to your entire staff and view customer buying trends to help your sales people find buyers for available inventory. In addition, Ponderosa lets you easily track vendor performance and grade variance histories when buying/tallying loads for verification of performance to grade, length, width and thickness percentage requests.


Pre-sell expected product by staging inventory transfers between storage facilities. You get instant visibility of product transfers at the receiving location.

Assign landing costs to a single item on a purchase order. Assign fees such as customs charges or duties to one item on a purchase order without affecting the landed cost of the other items purchased on the same order. When used in conjunction with the header-level POMC on a single purchase order, the new POMC tool lets you spread some charges over the cost of all the items on a purchase order and assign certain costs to individual items on the same PO.

The Ponderosa Warehouse Management System (WMS) is a real-time inventory control solution that helps LBM dealers improve efficiency and accuracy in their warehousing operations, reduce inventory levels and costs, and gain a competitive edge. Ponderosa uses wireless, hand held RF (radio frequency) mobile PCs and bar code scanners to track inventory from the time raw materials arrive to the shipping of finished goods. The system captures inventory information at the receiving dock and then utilizes this data to help you optimize all facets of your warehousing operations.

Ponderosa’s combination of bar code identification, RF data collection technology, and specialized warehousing software tools help you lower inventory levels, increase accuracy, reduce receiving, staging, picking and replenishment time, improve order fulfillment and customer satisfaction, maximize warehouse workflow, material movement and space utilization, minimize stocking, picking, packing and shipping errors, increase employee accuracy, productivity and efficiency and simplify cycle counting and full physical inventories.

Ponderosa lets you efficiently manage inventory in multiple locations. As you enter purchase and sales transactions, you can choose the warehouse location that will receive or fulfill the order. Inventory reports allow you to view information about your total inventory on hand, or just the inventory level at a specific location. Create shipping and receiving documents directly from sales orders to improve accuracy and reduce costs. Track branch transfers and identify optimum stocking locations. Ponderosa software simplifies sales order tasks by consolidating customer ship-to address, delivery date and pricing information. The software automatically commits and relieves inventory while passing direct orders to manufacturers.

Reduce stock outages, back orders and costly re-deliveries due to errors and make sure you always have the right stock at the right time. Ponderosa lets you better control inventory costs by providing up-to-the-minute information on every item in your inventory. Set and maintain target materials inventory stock levels, analyze usage trends and check vendor performance. With Ponderosa’s inventory replenishment capability, you can ensure that you have enough product on hand to fill anticipated orders, while keeping excess stock to a minimum. Average lead time, historical or seasonal-based sales, and number of days’ supply to stock are used to dynamically set reorder point and preferred stock level for each item.

Track inventory where it is in production or storage with Ponderosa’s centralized, multi-yard processing. Integrated handhelds and bar code scanners help you quickly and accurately transfer product from one yard to another and through each manufacturing stage. Use handhelds for all tally functions (count, length and width of each board within a bundle, pallet or other unit of measure), including green chain, kiln dried, block and full-pack as well as physical inventory movements, kiln loading/unloading and regular inventory verification.

Ponderosa can easily generate and print bar-coded labels directly from handhelds, a mobile bar code printer or through the main computer. You can place labels at key production locations for ease of use, efficiency, and lower cost. Bar codes are not necessary to use the Ponderosa inventory system, but they provide additional automation and efficiency enhancements, increase the accuracy of physical inventory verification, bundle movement and processing from status-to-status.

Send crews into the yard with handhelds and scanners to quickly scan bundles to minimize time necessary during inventory verification. While scanning, enter bundle locations and immediately update the physical locations of bundles while eliminating paper processing and manual rework. Scan areas as many times as needed to ensure you scan every bundle and update every location.

With Ponderosa, you can easily manage product routing, job tracking and graphics-based production schedules and perform standard and actual cost comparisons to maximize profitability.

Avoid re-keying errors by importing orders and quotes created with manufacturer software configuration tools directly into the Ponderosa software. Ponderosa supports a wide range of millwork interfaces, including Amsco, Andersen, Cascade, Ellison, Jeld-Wen, Kolbe, Loewen, Marvin, Silver Line, Simonton, Windsor and more.

Easily schedule personnel, track cost of labor and materials, charge back vendors for defective product and maximize customer satisfaction.

Build an order by species, grades and board footage, scanning bundles as you go and generate and print a Bill-of-Lading on the spot.

Accurately forecast future cost of goods and price product based on mill pricing, freight and any specific company allocations.

Seamlessly create POs and invoices for drop ship directly from the manufacturer to your customers.

Specify size, quantity and tally lengths. Inquire, commit and track unit sales or resize and mix units for better customer service.

Create cut lists for special size lumber and re-grade and cull lumber to maximize profit.

Ponderosa includes a host of Scheduler modules designed to reduce overtime costs and enable you to better manage your internal resources. Ponderosa’s Shop Scheduler, Installed Sales Scheduler, Truck Route Scheduler and Production Scheduler are all seamlessly integrated to provide the management tools you need to improve productivity throughout your organization.

Ponderosa centralizes standard and actual costs and applies components, sub-assemblies and finished products price changes quickly. Bill of materials roll-up allows for quick re-pricing and costing

Calculate average daily usage of lumber and building materials components based on your defined parameters, and define a recommended to-buy quantity using the Ponderosa lumber, building materials and millwork software’s Purchase Assist module. Requisition purchasing for commodity items and full reporting help you manage your inventory and improve returns.

With Ponderosa, you can track special-order materials and sales of non-stock special items. Identify pre-defined pricing, discounting and reporting. Link special-order material directly to purchase order and maintain link between purchase order/sales order to reduce input errors with re-entry of items.

Easily create a purchase order from a sales order to save valuable re-entry time and eliminate re-entry errors.

Delivery costs continue to be an area where lumber and building materials distributors recognize real inefficiencies and lost profits. Ponderosa’s business-ready delivery and dispatch module lets you maximize the profitability of every shipment. You can consolidate and manage delivery runs, increase margins on small orders and maximize the gross profit of every truck that leaves your dock. You can simply scan bundle labels or key the label numbers while loading the truck, select customer/destination information and quickly print the bill of lading. Ponderosa also lets you drag-and drop to add, delete or move orders from routes and analyze truck profitability. We’ve even integrated Microsoft’s Map Point® technology for point-to-point directions.

This easy-to-use software helps dealers and two-step distributors increase productivity for their dispatchers and drivers, pinpoint delivery times to improve customer service and reduce vehicle and fuel expenses. Powered by the award winning Elite EXTRA,TM  the first cloud-based dispatch management solution designed for the LBM industry, the Ponderosa Mobile Fleet Manager provides routing, dispatching, managing and tracking tools to transform your dispatch and delivery operations into proactive traffic control center, getting drivers on the road with optimized route sequences, manifests sent right to their tablet or smartphone, jobsite credit card payments and proof of delivery.

Mobile Fleet Manager also tracks drivers through GPS on their mobile devices, giving you complete visibility of your drivers at any given time. This real-time tracking provides accurate ETAs, which you can share with your customer service team, or push to your customers. This has proven to provide an incremental sales lift. Whether scanning, capturing signatures, or communicating with dispatch, those mobile devices empower your drivers to take care of business.

Ponderosa Software supports electronic signature capture capabilities on mobile devices. Improve your dispatch and delivery organization and eliminate the need to file signed delivery tickets!

Ponderosa provides a real-time view of commitments and available delivery resources to those who need to know, helping them more efficiently manage staff and resources involved in the order build process and make more effective delivery decisions. In a simple screen, dispatchers can view the total value of product on the truck as well as the associated costs – per-mileage fuel costs, driver overhead and other expenses – that affect the value and profitability of the delivery. This insight not only saves money, it enables sales reps to commit to customer delivery times with 100% confidence.

These new tools allow dispatchers to quickly determine if a truck is loaded to its capacity, and properly stage outgoing orders to quickly turn around vehicles for second and third delivery runs. What’s more, runs can be easily expanded to show combined order information, and can be scanned to provide updated status on the delivery and the order itself.

Secure and maintain the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) Chain of Custody (CoC) certification by enabling cost-effective compliance with the FSC’s product traceability, storage and handling, invoicing, and record keeping requirements. The Ponderosa software tracks material from the certified source through the entire manufacturing process, and generates a detailed audit of the certified products produced.

The Ponderosa software provides a complete accounting software solution for your business. Access charts of accounts, balances, tax reporting and other up-to-date financial and accounting data and quickly produce attractive financial reports on demand to gain valuable business insight. Instantly access every G/L amount and transaction, and set-up your accounts and sub-accounts to enhance your decision making, improve processing time and automate routine activities. With Ponderosa, you can provide daily financial management tools, not just a once-a-month report, and create accounting periods, manage bank accounts and cash and automate routines such as check-writing and bank statement reconciliation.

Manage your receivables to maximize cash flow and net profit. Ponderosa lets you promote and track sales, payments, and other activity with your customers. Record communications with customers and prompt credit managers for follow-up to help you get paid on time.

Record vendor transactions, write checks, and track vendor activity. With the Ponderosa lumber, building materials and millwork software, you get better control over payables to your vendors with less time and effort.

Identify all paid checks and reconcile with your bank fast and accurately.

Scan, file, store, and retrieve documents, fast and efficiently. Ponderosa’s DataView Document Management System is designed to help you reduce costs, labor, paper and storage; locate documents instantly, prevent document loss, protect documents with image dating technology and restrict access by providing security. Misplaced or lost files are a thing of the past.

Ponderosa software runs in concert with the industry standard Microsoft® Windows operating system to operate your enterprise in a completely graphical, intuitive and fully integrated environment.

Ponderosa’s click-driven, intuitive data reporting and business intelligence tool is changing the way executives, sales managers and finance access critical information to make the most proactive, profitable decisions. Ponderosa’s comprehensive, state-of-the-art BI solution that lets you view customer, sales, inventory and other key performance indicators (KPI) as intuitive and graphical dashboard objects so you can identify business trends, monitor progress toward business goals and diagnose overall organizational health.

React to changing conditions by remixing and reassembling data into new views and can create new visualizations on the fly. Accessible via table PC or smartphone, you can access key performance indicators (KPI) wherever business takes you.

Access critical information with state-of-the-art drill down and query capabilities. Detailed inventory, lot, customer and vendor histories are readily available to key personnel.

Produce detailed management reports, including SIR (Sales/Inventory Recap), SOBER Inquiry (State of Business Effectivity Report), GMROI (Gross Margin Return on Investment) and more.

Analyze up-to-the- minute corporate data, sales information, inventory status, accounts receivable and profit margins with detailed and customizable sales analysis reports and summaries. Ponderosa is ODBC compliant, making it possible to use Crystal Reports, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access and other third-party applications to review real-time information.

Generate insightful reports and screen views for Gross Profit and Discounts that fall outside of user-specified acceptable business ranges.

Access business data anytime, anywhere through Microsoft applications like Excel, Word or Access as well as other reporting tools. Convert manufactured quotes into orders such as Andersen IQ, 20/20, Marvin MQS and others.

The Ponderosa lumber, building materials and millwork software eliminates the need and expense associated with pre-printed forms by defining each format at printing.

Capture, file and access delivery and purchase order receipts, invoices, orders and other documents.

The Ponderosa software enables you to access critical information with state-of-the-art drill down and query capabilities. Detailed inventory, monthly sales, invoices associated with Accounts Receivables checks, committed materials, open orders and customer/vendor histories, among others are readily available to key personnel.

Ponderosa is fully integrated to support MyFax Internet fax service to send, receive and manage faxes using e-mail and the web. The MyFax solution securely supports an unlimited number of users across your organization and is fully scalable. New users may be added at any time. MyFax supports your mobile workforce, allowing users on the road to access inbound communications and send faxes from their laptops or handheld device. MyFax is also fully integrated with Microsoft® Office 2003 and 2007 which provides greater flexibility and improved productivity by allowing users to fax directly from Microsoft Word, Excel® and PowerPoint® applications.

Permit authorized users to FAX documents directly from their desks. Ponderosa also supports .pdf formatting (Acrobat) and e-mailing of documents and reports.

Dynamically route trucks, assign stops in the appropriate sequence, and ensure drivers have complete and organized delivery manifest. Ponderosa lets you quickly review stops assigned to each driver, the number of stops on a truck, total weight, and case count. Gross profit reports by truck and route are also included.

Full reporting is available within all modules with special emphasis on management status and profitability reporting such as SOBER Inquiry (State of the Business Effectivity Report) sales snapshot and many more.