The all-in-one ERP for food distributors.
Perishable stock, customer-specific pricing, reps on the road, supplier rebates and multiple branches — Cognit runs the lot on one system, with a built-in online store so your customers order 24/7.
The pains of food distribution — solved by one system
Every challenge below maps to a module that's already built into Cognit and shares the same live data.
Perishable stock that won't wait
Short shelf life means overselling spoils margin and underselling loses sales. You need stock that's right to the moment.
Live inventory drops the instant an order lands — online or entered by your team — so the store can't oversell, and reorder suggestions tell you what to buy before you run out.
Different price for every customer
Every account is on its own deal. Pricing lives in spreadsheets, gets pasted into the website, and quietly drifts out of date.
Set customer-specific and group pricing once. It's used everywhere — staff order entry, the online store, the invoice — so every customer always sees the right price.
Reps and runs to keep straight
Orders come from reps on the road, drivers need their runs, and the office re-keys it all to keep up.
Reps and customers order from the same system, drivers get their own view with assigned routes and orders, and nothing gets re-typed between the road and the office.
Supplier rebates lost in spreadsheets
Claim-backs from suppliers are tracked by hand — and the ones that slip through can be thousands of dollars a month gone.
Define each rebate agreement once and Cognit calculates what you've earned from your purchases automatically, then batches and tracks the claims for you.
Multiple branches, one true picture
Several sites or shops, each with its own stock and sales — and a head office trying to see the whole business at once.
Run every branch on the one platform with a real general ledger underneath, so sales, stock and P&L roll up across the business in real time.
Your customers order while you sleep.
A branded B2B store is built into Cognit. Cafés, restaurants and trade customers log in, see their own pricing, reorder last week's pantry in one tap and place orders 24/7 — and every order flows straight through to your stock, your invoice and your books. No phone tag, no re-keying.
Built-in accounting, or a clean Xero sync
Cognit has a real general ledger underneath everything, so it can run your books on its own. Prefer to keep Xero? Cognit syncs two-way — invoices, credit notes, customers and products — automatically, so month-end stops being a re-typing marathon.
Trusted by NZ food & wholesale distributors
Cognit is already the system running real food and wholesale distribution businesses across New Zealand and Australia — taking online orders, holding perishable stock, claiming rebates and keeping the books. It's built for how you actually trade, by a New Zealand team you can call.
Runs on its own.
Connects to everything.
Cognit is a complete system — you don't need anything else to run your business. But when you want to, it connects: two-way Xero sync is built in, and if a system has an API or a data feed, Cognit can talk to it.
Xero
QuickBooks
Sage
Dynamics 365
Cin7 S Stripe Y Your courier
Xero
QuickBooks
Sage
Dynamics 365
Cin7 S Stripe Y Your courier
MYOB
Reckon
Accredo
NetSuite
Unleashed S Shopify Y Your bank feed
MYOB
Reckon
Accredo
NetSuite
Unleashed S Shopify Y Your bank feed Already on Xero or MYOB? Keep it — Cognit syncs to it automatically.
Food distribution, answered
Is Cognit a good ERP for food distributors in New Zealand? +
Yes. Cognit is an all-in-one cloud ERP proven with food and wholesale distributors across New Zealand and Australia. It handles the things food distribution actually runs on — perishable stock, customer-specific pricing, reps and delivery routes, supplier rebates and claim-backs, and multiple branches — with a built-in B2B online store so your customers can order 24/7. It starts at NZD $499 per month.
Can my customers order online? +
Yes. A complete B2B e-commerce store is built into Cognit — not a bolt-on. Your customers log in to a branded storefront, see their own pricing, reorder from saved pantries and place orders any time of day. Because the store shares the same live stock and pricing as the rest of Cognit, orders flow straight through to picking, invoicing and your books.
Does Cognit handle supplier rebates and claim-backs? +
Yes. You define your supplier rebate agreements once and Cognit calculates what you've earned from your purchases automatically, then batches and tracks the claims. It replaces the manual spreadsheets that quietly cost food distributors thousands of dollars a month in missed claims.
Can Cognit run multiple branches? +
Yes. You can run several branches or sites on the one platform, with a real general ledger underneath so sales, stock and profit roll up across the whole business in real time — while each branch still sees what it needs day to day.
Does Cognit work with Xero? +
Yes. Cognit has built-in two-way Xero integration that syncs invoices, credit notes, customers and products automatically. It also has its own full accounting and general ledger, so you can run your books entirely in Cognit if you prefer — and it can integrate with other systems that have an API or data feed.