About
Built inside an import business.
FlowBooks began as the system one importer needed and could not buy: containers from overseas suppliers, money in three currencies, and costs that arrive long after the goods do.
Where it came from
FlowBooks is built and run by Khawaja Mohsin, who has spent 17 years importing truck and automotive parts from Chinese manufacturers — ordering in US dollars and renminbi, shipping by container, clearing it through customs, and selling it on at home.
That business ran the way most importing businesses run: a spreadsheet for each container, a purchase order typed into an email, exchange rates written down twice, and a figure for what each item cost that nobody could really defend. The freight invoice came a fortnight after the goods. The clearing agent’s bill came after that. By the time the real cost of a shipment was known, half of it had already been sold at a price somebody had guessed at.
The accounting software had no answer, because it was never built for the question. The specialist import systems that were cost many times more and still assumed one supplier per container. So the system got built — properly, and from the inside.
What that changed
Four decisions that came from paperwork, not from a specification.
Stock stays in the currency it was bought in
Goods paid for in US dollars are costed in US dollars. A cost converted at a rate from an unrelated day is a figure that changes while you are looking at it, and there is no way to explain that to an accountant.
One container, several suppliers
Real shipments carry orders from more than one supplier, and the freight has to be shared fairly across all of them — by weight, by volume or by value, depending on what the cost actually followed.
An estimate is marked as an estimate
The clearing bill is rarely there when the goods are. Until it arrives the figure says so, and when the real bill lands it corrects the goods still on hand and tells you which figures moved.
The owner approves the order
Suppliers change quantities and prices between the order and the confirmation. Somebody senior has to agree to what was actually confirmed, so that step exists in the product rather than in a side conversation.
How we work
The promises behind the product.
A business putting its stock figures and its supplier accounts into someone else's software is owed a plain statement of how that software behaves.
Your records are yours
Everything you put in downloads as a CSV whenever you want it, including on the day you decide to leave.
Nobody is locked out
When a trial ends or a plan lapses the store becomes read-only. Every record, report and export still opens; it just stops taking new documents until you are back on a plan.
One business, one store
Two businesses get two stores, two numbering sequences and two sets of accounts, because mixing them produces figures no accountant can use.
A figure says how sure it is
Where a number is built on an estimate or is missing something it cannot know about, FlowBooks says so on the figure rather than in a footnote.
We are not your tax adviser
Tax figures are worked out from what you record here, and every one of them carries a line telling you to have your accountant or registered tax agent check it before you lodge.
Support from the person who built it
Email goes to the developer, not to a queue. If something is wrong with a figure, that is the most important thing either of us does that day.
Where things stand
FlowBooks is new, and it is deliberately narrow: stock, purchasing, containers, sales and the money owed both ways, for businesses that buy from overseas. It is sold in Australia, and the import business it was built for runs on it, which is why the awkward parts — a part-received order, a supplier credit, a bill that arrives after the goods have sold — behave the way they do.
Your data is held in Singapore, and the privacy policy says exactly what is kept and who can see it. There is no sales team to get past: the person who built it answers the email, and will tell you when FlowBooks is the wrong fit rather than sell you a trial that wastes a fortnight.
Questions about whether it suits how you trade are welcome at mohsinijaz13@gmail.com.
Judge it on a real container.
Put one shipment of your own through the trial, with the bills you actually paid, and see whether the figures match what you thought.