Inventory and import costing
Know what your container actually cost.
FlowBooks spreads freight, duty and clearing across the goods — in the currency you bought them in — so every margin you look at is the real one.
30 days free. No credit card. Prices include GST.
Built from real containers and real supplier invoices. · Keep your books in Xero or MYOB.
Landed cost
Container MSKU1234567
Ningbo → Sydney · arrived 28 Oct
| Cost | Owed to | Amount | Shared by | Comes to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ocean freight Bill FR-88 | Ningbo Star Line | CNY 18,400.00 1 USD = 7.10 CNY | By CBM | USD 2,591.55 |
Customs duty Entry 44122 | Customs | USD 1,840.00 | By value | USD 1,840.00 |
Clearing and portEstimate Awaiting final bill | Harbour Clearing Co. | USD 610.00 | By value | USD 610.00 |
What each item now costs
- Floor tile 600×6004.10→USD 4.86
- LED panel 40 W11.80→USD 13.44
- Steel bracket, heavy2.35→USD 2.91
Why traders switch
Three things a spreadsheet cannot do.
The container arrives; the real cost arrives later
Freight, duty and clearing turn up as separate bills, weeks apart. By then the goods have already been sold at a price someone guessed.
You buy in one currency and sell in another
A spreadsheet per container, an exchange rate typed twice, and no clear answer to what a single item in the warehouse actually cost you.
Your accountant wants figures you can stand behind
Stock value, gross profit, what each supplier is owed — every number traceable back to the bill it came from.
How it works
Three screens that do the hard part.
Record what you bought and what it cost to get here. FlowBooks works out the rest and keeps it straight across every currency.
01
Put every cost on the container it belongs to
Freight in one currency, duty in another, a clearing bill that lands three weeks later. Each is shared across the goods by weight, volume or value — whichever is fair — and the exchange rate is the one you actually paid.
- Several purchase orders and suppliers on one shipment
- Estimated bills marked as estimates until the real one arrives
- A late bill revalues the stock still on hand, and says so
Landed cost
Container MSKU1234567
Ningbo → Sydney · arrived 28 Oct
| Cost | Owed to | Amount | Shared by | Comes to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Ocean freight Bill FR-88 | Ningbo Star Line | CNY 18,400.00 1 USD = 7.10 CNY | By CBM | USD 2,591.55 |
Customs duty Entry 44122 | Customs | USD 1,840.00 | By value | USD 1,840.00 |
Clearing and portEstimate Awaiting final bill | Harbour Clearing Co. | USD 610.00 | By value | USD 610.00 |
What each item now costs
- Floor tile 600×6004.10→USD 4.86
- LED panel 40 W11.80→USD 13.44
- Steel bracket, heavy2.35→USD 2.91
02
Hold stock in the currency you bought it in
Goods bought in US dollars stay costed in US dollars. Nothing is quietly converted at a rate from a day that has nothing to do with the purchase, so a cost you look at in March is the cost you paid in October.
- Moving weighted average, per item, store-wide
- Every trading currency, with the rate typed per transaction
- Stock value shown per currency, never added together
Stock value
What the warehouse is worth
Main warehouse · today
USD
142 items · 18,640 on hand
USD 86,420.15
CNY
38 items · 4,210 on hand
CNY 61,300.00
AUD
19 items · 930 on hand
AUD 12,845.60
Each currency stands on its own. FlowBooks never adds them into one figure, because that number would depend on the day you asked.
03
Answer the questions your accountant asks
Gross profit at landed cost, what each supplier is owed and since when, what customers owe you, stock value on any past day. Every figure opens to the documents behind it.
- Profit by item, customer or month, at real landed cost
- Supplier and customer ageing, with PDFs
- CSV exports shaped for Xero and MYOB
Profit
Where the money is made
1 Jul – 31 Oct · AUD
| Item | Sold | Revenue | Cost | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Floor tile 600×600 | 1,240 | 24,180 | 16,120 | 33.3% |
| LED panel 40 W | 310 | 13,640 | 9,145 | 33.0% |
| Steel bracket, heavy | 2,050 | 11,275 | 8,240 | 26.9% |
Costed at what the goods landed at, so the margin holds up when a late freight bill arrives.
The whole business
The container is where it starts, not where it stops.
Landed cost is the part nothing else does properly. The rest of the day-to-day — ordering, stock, invoicing, chasing the money — runs here too, on the same records.
Buying
- Purchase orders and approvals
- Shipments and landed cost
- Supplier invoices and credits
Stock
- Several warehouses and transfers
- Counts, adjustments and reorder points
- Every movement, costed
Selling
- Sales orders and invoices
- Deliveries with proof
- Price lists and credit limits
Money
- Payments in and out
- Statements and reminders
- Both ageings, and exchange gain or loss
Works alongside your books
Keep your accounting where it is.
FlowBooks is not accounting software and does not ask you to move. It handles the part Xero and MYOB were never built for — containers, landed cost and stock in several currencies — and hands your bookkeeper a file they already know what to do with.
CSV for Xero and MYOB
Sales and purchases
Screen, CSV and PDF
Your accountant's period summary
Opens to the document behind it
Every figure
Live demo
Look around a real store.
A working FlowBooks with a container already costed, stock on the shelves and invoices raised. No sign-up, nothing to install. It resets every night.
Pricing
One price, everything included.
Every plan does the whole job. What changes is how many warehouses and people you need — never whether the figures are right.
Starter
One warehouse, getting the containers right.
A$49/ month
Includes GST. Two months free paid yearly.
- 1 warehouse
- 2 users
- Import costing on every shipment
- Multi-currency purchasing and stock
- Australian GST and tax invoices
- Unlimited invoices, orders and products
- Every report, and CSV for your bookkeeper
- Email support
Business
Most popularA team, and more than one place to keep stock.
A$99/ month
Includes GST. Two months free paid yearly.
- 3 warehouses
- 6 users
- Import costing on every shipment
- Multi-currency purchasing and stock
- Australian GST and tax invoices
- Unlimited invoices, orders and products
- Every report, and CSV for your bookkeeper
- Email support
Pro
Several sites, and everyone who needs to see them.
A$199/ month
Includes GST. Two months free paid yearly.
- 5 warehouses
- 15 users
- Import costing on every shipment
- Multi-currency purchasing and stock
- Australian GST and tax invoices
- Unlimited invoices, orders and products
- Every report, and CSV for your bookkeeper
- Email support
More than five warehouses, or a bigger team?
Tell us how you trade and we will quote for it. Two businesses means two stores, each on its own plan.
Questions
The things people ask first.
Do I have to move my accounting across?
No, and we would rather you did not. Keep Xero or MYOB for your books. FlowBooks handles stock, suppliers, containers and landed cost, then gives your bookkeeper sales and purchase files in a shape their software accepts.
Does it handle GST and Australian tax invoices?
Yes. A GST-registered store charges GST, prints a compliant tax invoice with your ABN, and produces a BAS worksheet for your trading activity. A business under the threshold turns tax off entirely and never sees a tax field. Figures are worked out from what you record here, so have your accountant or registered tax agent check them before you lodge.
Where is my data stored?
Your data is held in Singapore. Every screen, report and export is limited to your own store, and the data is backed up nightly to separate storage. You can export everything you have put in at any time, in CSV, including after you leave.
I run two businesses. Do I need two subscriptions?
Yes, one store each. Two businesses have two sets of accounts, two tax positions and two numbering sequences, and putting them in one store would produce figures neither your accountant nor a tax office could use. Switching between them takes one click.
Can I bring in the products and suppliers I already have?
Yes. Products, variants, suppliers, customers and opening stock all come in from a spreadsheet. The import shows you what it is about to do, flags what it cannot read, and lets you fix it before anything is saved.
What happens when the trial ends?
Nothing is deleted and you are never locked out. The store becomes read-only, so every record, report and export still works, and it starts accepting new documents again the moment you are on a plan. They are your records.
Find out what your last container really cost.
Thirty days, free, with no card. Put one real shipment through it and see whether the numbers match what you thought.