Features
The whole trading business, in one place.
Purchase orders and containers, stock across warehouses, invoices and deliveries, and the money owed both ways. One set of records, so a figure in a report is the same figure as the document it came from.
How the work flows
Four things, in the order you do them.
An order goes to a supplier, the goods arrive and are costed, they are sold and delivered, and the money comes in. FlowBooks carries each step to the next, so nothing is typed twice.
01
Buy: purchase orders, shipments and what they really cost
Order in the supplier's currency at the rate you agreed. Receive the goods in part or in full. Then put freight, duty and clearing on the container they belong to and let FlowBooks share them across the goods.
- Orders go Draft → Sent → Approved → Partly received → Closed, so you always know which are still out
- Emailed to the supplier as a PDF on your letterhead, and every send is kept with the exact file that went
- The owner approves an order after the supplier confirms it — staff can draft and send without that power
- Goods receipts into any warehouse, part deliveries and short shipments recorded as they happen
- Several orders from several suppliers on one shipment, costs shared by weight, volume or value
- Supplier returns, credits and deposits, each landing on the supplier's account
Purchase order
Ningbo Metalworks Co.
| Item | Ordered | Received | Each | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Floor tile 600×600 | 2,400 | 2,400 | 4.10 | 9,840.00 |
| LED panel 40 W | 600 | 400 | 11.80 | 7,080.00 |
| Steel bracket, heavy | 3,000 | 3,000 | 2.35 | 7,050.00 |
Sent to the supplier as a PDF, approved by the owner once the supplier confirmed, and still open until the last 200 panels arrive.
02
Hold: stock you can trust, across every warehouse
Every movement in and out is kept and costed, so the quantity on the screen is the quantity on the shelf and the value beside it is what you actually paid.
- Products with variants, types, categories, units and your own SKUs — or ours, if you would rather
- As many warehouses as your plan allows; staff see only the ones they are assigned to
- Opening stock, adjustments with a reason, and transfers that are sent from one place and received at the other
- Stock counts on a printed count sheet, with the variances recorded rather than quietly written off
- Reorder points, and one low-stock email each morning instead of an alert for every item
- Costed by moving weighted average, per item, in the currency the item was bought in
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
Sell: orders, invoices and getting the goods there
Sell over the counter or on account, at a price list or a price you set for that customer. The invoice, the delivery and the stock all move together.
- Sales orders for a walk-in or an account customer, confirmed, dispatched, delivered or returned
- Invoices, credit notes and delivery notes as PDFs, emailed from FlowBooks and kept as sent
- Deliveries by any carrier, with the consignment number, the photos, who received them and when
- Several price lists, a price for a particular customer, and a quiet warning when a line is below cost
- Credit limits that warn before the sale, not after — and record that it went through anyway
- Returns and refunds, each one putting the goods and the money back where they belong
- Your own numbering for every document, and GST and tax invoices where the country needs them
Tax invoice
Harbourside Hardware
Due 14 Nov · AUD
| Item | Qty | Each | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Floor tile 600×600 | 120 | 19.50 | 2,340.00 |
| LED panel 40 W | 24 | 44.00 | 1,056.00 |
- Subtotal
- 3,396.00
- GST 10%
- 339.60
- Total
- 3,735.60
- Paid 2 Nov
- −1,500.00
- Still owing
- AUD 2,235.60
Emailed as a PDF with your own logo on it. The part-payment is already on the customer’s account, so the ageing and the reminder both know about it.
04
Settle: what you owe, what you are owed
Two ledgers that agree with the documents behind them — one for suppliers, one for customers — so chasing and paying are both a matter of reading a page rather than rebuilding a spreadsheet.
- Supplier invoices against orders and shipments, with credits and part-payments applied across them
- Customer payments by cash, bank or card, split across invoices, with a receipt out the other side
- Payment reminders for what is overdue, sent when you say so
- Statements for any customer or supplier, as a PDF or a CSV, emailed or printed
- Both ageings — current, 1–30, 31–60 and older — with a PDF for the file
- Exchange gain and loss worked out on both ledgers, because a payment rarely matches the invoice's rate
- Opening balances brought in from the spreadsheet you keep them in today
Receivables ageing
Who owes you, and since when
As at 4 Nov · AUD
| Customer | Current | 1–30 | 31–60 | 60+ | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harbourside Hardware | 2,235.60 | 1,180.00 | — | — | 3,415.60 |
| Northside Traders | 980.00 | — | 640.00 | — | 1,620.00 |
| Riverina Supply | — | 2,400.00 | — | 1,250.00 | 3,650.00 |
Any figure opens the invoices behind it. The page prints as a PDF and downloads as a CSV.
And underneath
The parts you only notice when they are missing.
Staff who see only their part
Eight permissions, set per person: costs and margins, products, stock, orders, receiving, sales, payments, reports. Staff are assigned to warehouses and see those.
A record of who did what
Every create, change and cancellation is logged with the person and the time — including when we open your store to help you with something.
Your paperwork, your name on it
Your logo, your colour and your own footer on every document, with numbering that follows the sequence your business already uses.
Bring in what you already have
Products and variants, suppliers, customers, opening stock and opening balances, from a spreadsheet. It shows what it will do and what it cannot read before anything is saved.
Files where they belong
Supplier invoices, bills, delivery photos and signed paperwork attached to the record they belong to, instead of a folder nobody can search.
Told only what you want to be told
Each person chooses, per kind of event, whether it reaches them in the app, by email, or not at all.
Where it stops
What FlowBooks leaves to other software.
Knowing this before you start is worth more to you than a longer list is to us.
Your books stay in Xero or MYOB
FlowBooks is not accounting software. It runs stock, suppliers, containers and landed cost, and hands your bookkeeper files their software accepts.
No payroll, and no bank feed
Wages and bank reconciliation belong in your accounting software, which already does them well.
No shop till
Counter sales are invoiced and take stock down, but there is no cash drawer, no barcode lane and no card terminal.
No manufacturing
FlowBooks buys, holds and sells goods. Assembling an item out of other items is not something it does.
Not sure whether your business is the right shape for it? Read who it is for.
See it with a container already in it.
The demo store has shipments costed, stock on the shelves and invoices raised. Look around before you type anything of your own.