trakki
Field sales software: what is actually out there
By Manuel Ober · · 6 min read
Four kinds that often get mixed up
“Field sales software” is not one product but four different things, and they solve different problems. Buy the wrong kind and you pay for functions you never open while missing the one you needed.
| Kind | Solves | Rough cost |
|---|---|---|
| Team CRM | reports, metrics, handovers | €25–150 per user/month |
| Route optimiser | order of stops, drive time | €50–90 /month |
| Excel | whatever you work out yourself | €0 |
| Planning app for one person | your own week | €0–10 /month |
Team CRM: management software for field sales
Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, HubSpot, Odoo, plus the industry systems in pharma. They are the standard when a company steers ten or a hundred field sales reps.
What they do well: collect reports, show revenue per customer, manage territories, hand a territory over when somebody leaves, produce analyses for sales management.
What they do badly: plan one person's week. The due-date logic is usually a list, not a map. Real drive times for a whole day are not something they know. And the rep puts data in without the entry helping him the next morning.
The catch for individuals: a CRM belongs to the company. If you are self-employed, or you change territory, you lose your data along with it.
Route planners: software for route planning in field sales
portatour is the best known name in German-speaking field sales — an Austrian product, less familiar in English-speaking markets — and alongside it come optimisers out of logistics, such as tour planners for delivery rounds, and trade software with a routing module.
What they do well: turn many addresses into a short order of stops. At fifty stops a day that is mathematics nobody does in their head, and there they are worth their money.
What they do badly: field sales rarely has fifty stops, it has six. With six stops the optimal order is rarely the problem — the question is which six, and that is decided by the due date, not by the distance.
The price is around €90 a month, so over a thousand euros a year for one person.
Excel: underrated and honest
A customer list with grade, call cycle and last visit, plus a formula for the due date — that is field sales planning that works, and it costs nothing.
What Excel does well: calculate, sort, filter, print. If you know what you want, in two hours you build yourself a tool that fits your territory exactly.
Where Excel stops: it shows no map, knows no drive times and does not recalculate when somebody cancels. And keeping it up by hand is the point where most lists fall asleep after four months.
There is a ready-made template to try in the guide Route planning in field sales: Excel template, and a second one for call reports in the guide Call reports in field sales.
Planning apps for one person
The fourth kind is the youngest and the thinnest. What is meant are tools that do not steer a company and do not calculate delivery rounds, but plan one person's week: who is due, where they are, how long I really drive.
That covers simple customer lists with a map view, a few note apps with a location function, and trakki.
Customer records: where the list lives
Every one of these kinds manages customers, but in very different places, and that is the question to ask before the price.
- In the company system. The customer records belong to the company. If you move on, or your contract ends, they stay there. For employees that is normal, for the self-employed it is a risk.
- With the vendor. The list sits on a server run by a third party. Convenient, as long as the vendor exists and the price is right.
- On your own device. The list is with you, backed up by you, and nobody else's business. In exchange there is no hotline to restore it.
If you work with the names and addresses of real business partners, answer that question before you buy, not afterwards.
What sales managers need
Sales leaders are looking for something different from the rep in the car, and mixing the two up is the reason most rollouts end unhappily.
A sales manager needs comparability: calls per territory, coverage of the A customers, development over quarters, a handover that works when somebody leaves. A CRM is built for that, and without a CRM it becomes manual work.
A field sales rep needs help deciding what to do tomorrow morning. A CRM is not built for that.
That is why two tools sit side by side in many teams: the management system collects what the company needs, and everybody plans their own week. All that matters is that the bridge between them is an export and not retyping.
How to find the right kind
Three questions are enough.
- Who should see the data? Only you, or your sales manager as well? If the company too, you need a CRM, or at least the ability to export.
- How many stops do you have a day? Over twenty is an optimisation problem and a case for a route optimiser. Under ten is a selection problem.
- What costs you the most time today? The thinking in the morning, the typing in the evening, or the driving in between? Buy against the biggest item, not against the loudest salesperson.
What “free” means in this corner
Free software for field sales comes in three forms, and they are very different.
- Genuinely free: Excel templates, open map programs, Google Maps with several destinations. No catch, but no support either.
- Free with a limit: a trial period, or a version with twenty customers. Usable for trying out, not for a real territory.
- Free because you are the payment: funded by advertising or by data. With a customer list holding the names and addresses of business partners, that is the most expensive version, even when there is no price on it.
How trakki does it
trakki belongs to the fourth kind. It plans no company and optimises no delivery rounds, it answers the question a field sales rep has on Sunday evening: who is due, where are they, and what really fits into one day.
The customer list stays on the device, there is no account and no server. Whatever has to go into the company CRM goes there as Excel. Trying it costs nothing, to the home page.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need anything besides the company CRM?
Often yes, and that is no contradiction. The CRM is the bookkeeping of sales, the weekly planning is a hand tool. Many field sales reps therefore keep their own list alongside the CRM — the only question is whether that list is a note in the car or something that calculates with you.
Is portatour too expensive for one person?
At around a thousand euros a year it has to pay for itself. Anyone driving fifteen stops a day and more gets that back in fuel and time. Anyone calling on six customers a day is paying for an optimisation he manages himself.
Can I do field sales planning entirely with Google Maps?
For the driving yes, for the planning no. Google Maps knows the next stretch of road, but not who is due, when the pharmacy closes for lunch and how long the whole day takes. Where exactly the line lies is in the guide Route planning with Google Maps.