Case Study
No off-the-shelf tool could handle their workflow, so we built one from scratch.
How ChairStuff, a BC-based medical supply company, replaced disconnected workflows with a custom CRM & ERP that gave their team real-time visibility and room to grow.
~70%
Reduction in order processing time
~20 hrs/wk
Saved on manual data entry
100%
Real-time inventory visibility (up from 0%)
~40%
Reduction in order fulfillment errors
The Problem
A specialized business trapped in generic tools
ChairStuff supplies catheters, bowel products, drainage bags, and related medical supplies to people living with disabilities across British Columbia and beyond. Their customers depend on timely, accurate fulfillment — often for products that are deeply personal and medically essential.
But behind the scenes, the operation ran on spreadsheets and email. Customer records were scattered — injury types, allergies, insurance details, pay structures, and product preferences lived in different files or in people's heads. When a customer called to reorder, the team had to manually piece together their history before they could even start processing.
Orders were worse. Every sales order involved copying item details by hand, looking up fee codes, cross-referencing insurance requirements, and selecting the right print template for the right payer. The team had tried off-the-shelf CRM and inventory tools. None of them could handle the complexity that comes with medical supply distribution.
Customer records fragmented across spreadsheets: injury types, insurance details, product history, and pay structures all lived in different places
Order processing required manual fee code lookups, payer-specific formatting, and no clean way to handle backorders or partial shipments
Warehouse crew worked from printouts with no real-time view of what was ready to pick, ship, or backordered
Generic software couldn't accommodate insurance billing logic, vendor unit conversions, or the SKU complexity of medical supply distribution
The Solution
A custom CRM & ERP built around the way they actually work
Rather than forcing ChairStuff into another tool that wasn't built for them, we designed and built a fully custom system: a unified CRM and ERP tailored to the specific rhythms of medical supply distribution. Every module was shaped by how the team actually works, not by what a generic platform assumed they needed.
Customer Management
Complete customer profiles with custom fields for injury type, allergies, primary and secondary insurance providers, pay type and payer position, claim numbers, case managers, policy IDs, and direct-bill flags. Any team member can pull up a customer and know exactly who they are, how they pay, and what they need, without digging through files.
Sales Orders & Fulfillment
A full order workflow with item fee codes, fee code subtotals, and the ability to copy line items from pre-approved product lists or past order history. The system handles backorder creation, backorder splitting (ship what's in stock, hold what isn't), inventory restock notifications for backordered items, and automatic selection of the correct print template based on the insurance company being billed.
Warehouse Operations
A dedicated app for the warehouse crew showing orders ready to be picked and shipped. The team can create partial or full backorders on the fly and mark orders as shipped, which automatically generates invoices downstream. No more printouts, no more verbal handoffs.
Invoicing & Billing
Invoice records with claim status tracking (no coverage, awaiting submission, submitted, approved), shipping vendor and tracking details, and scheduled ship dates. Billing addresses auto-generate based on the customer's pay type. If the order is billed to an insurance provider, the system selects the correct address and print template automatically.
Purchasing & Receiving
Purchase order management with support for vendor-specific pack sizes, base unit of measure definitions, and automatic conversion of purchased quantities into inventory units. The receiving app logs incoming shipments against POs with real-time visibility into received vs. remaining quantities. No more manual reconciliation.
Inventory & Operations Dashboard
Real-time inventory data including reserved, on-PO, available, on-order, on-backorder, and quantity-on-hand — with reorder points, preferred restock levels, low-stock notifications, and automated reorder triggers. A QOH change log tracks every inventory movement. The operations dashboard surfaces key performance metrics including average order-to-ship time and average backorder-to-ship time, calculated automatically from tracked date milestones across each order's lifecycle.
Delivery
Discovery to deployment, without disrupting the business
The project followed a phased approach: deep discovery into ChairStuff's daily workflows, iterative design with the team's direct input, modular development with early access to core features, and a managed rollout that ensured the team was confident before going live.
The Results
An operation that finally runs like it should
The impact was immediate. Order processing that once required manual fee code lookups, payer cross-referencing, and spreadsheet data entry now flows through a single system — reducing estimated processing time by roughly 70% and cutting order fulfillment errors by approximately 40%. The warehouse team went from working off printouts to a real-time pick-and-ship app. Backorders that used to require manual tracking and coordination now trigger automatic notifications when stock arrives.
Across the team, the shift eliminated roughly 20 hours of manual data entry every week. For the first time, leadership has real-time visibility into the metrics that drive their business: inventory levels across every status, order-to-ship cycle times, and backorder resolution speed. Decisions that used to require hours of spreadsheet archaeology now take seconds.
For a company whose customers depend on timely delivery of essential medical supplies, operational reliability isn't a nice-to-have — it's a responsibility. The new system brought that reliability into focus.
“The Norvel team has been instrumental in our efforts to streamline operations through software. As a mid-size business, we were unable to find an out-of-the-box solution that met our specific requirements. We began customizing a CRM to meet our unique business needs and have been very pleased with the results. We continue to work with them to improve our operational efficiency and customer relationship management. I would not hesitate to recommend them to other businesses looking to do the same.”
Related Insights
Custom Software vs. Off-the-Shelf: When Does It Make Sense for Distributors?
Generic software works fine until it doesn't. Here's how to know when the workarounds have gotten expensive enough to justify building something custom.
The Real Cost of Disconnected Systems in Distribution and Fulfillment
When your CRM, inventory, and order management don't talk to each other, the hidden costs compound daily. Here's how to quantify the drag — and what connected looks like.
What to Expect from a Custom Software Engagement (And How to Not Get Burned)
Most bad custom software projects fail in discovery, not development. Here's what a good engagement looks like from first call to go-live — and the red flags to watch for.
Running into the same problems ChairStuff had?
If your team is duct-taping spreadsheets together and losing hours to manual work, let's talk about what a purpose-built system could look like for your operation.
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