Selling, picking, and closing the books shouldn’t be three jobs that meet once a month. Here a quote holds the stock. The warehouse picks it, packs it, and sends it. The tax invoice already matches — and so does the VAT201 you copy into eFiling.
sales / orders
| Reference | Customer | Items | Status | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SO-1042 | Northridge Wholesale | 4 lines | Picked | R 24 150 |
| SO-1041 | M. Naidoo | 1 line | Packed | R 12 990 |
| SO-1039 | Harbour Logistics | 2 lines | Loaded | R 31 400 |
| SO-1037 | Walk-in | 2 lines | Delivered | R 3 780 |
00/How a sale moves
That is slower at the till on day one. It is cheaper in a dispute six months later, when someone asks what left the building and what was invoiced.
01/What posts
A pick on the floor, a take at the till, and a line on the invoice are the same numbers. Month-end is a read, not a reconstruction.
Locations, transfers, stocktakes, landed cost from the purchase order. Pick, pack, load, deliver on a phone — the warehouse console is the same quantities as the desk.
Till with cash-up. Layby. Quotes that become sales orders with stock held. Trade customers log in on your hostname and place orders that land as drafts.
| 1100 | Debtors control | 24 150 | |
| 4000 | Sales | 21 000 | |
| 2200 | VAT output | 3 150 | |
| 2300 | Customer deposits | 5 000 | |
| 1000 | Bank | 5 000 |
Invoices, bills, credit notes, bank import, aged AR/AP. The VAT201 is a draft you copy into eFiling. We do not file it.
02/Isolation
The usual cheaper design is one Postgres and a company_id on every table. A missed WHERE clause then returns someone else’s debtor list. Each company here is CREATE DATABASE plus a hostname. Provisioning takes tens of seconds. Deploy has to migrate every ready database. Both of those are accepted costs.
03/Company model
Permissions are keys on the login, not a shared password in a drawer. Trade customers use a separate cookie on the same hostname. Staff tokens and customer tokens are not interchangeable.
| Login | Can | Cannot |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Users, locations, CSV import, settings, full books. | Nothing hidden. This is the login created at signup. |
| Warehouse | Pick, pack, load, deliver, transfer, stocktake. | Price lists, posting invoices, other companies’ hosts. |
| Till / sales | Quotes, sales orders, cash-up, layby, walk-in customers. | Cost, if the permission is off. Books close and VAT201. |
| Books | Invoices, bills, credit notes, bank import, VAT201 draft. | Skipping warehouse states to ‘make the invoice match’. |
| Trade customer | Catalogue at their prices. Draft sales orders on your hostname. | Staff screens, cost, other customers, your books. |
| Document | Number | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Quote | QT- | No stock hold, no GL. |
| Sales order | SO- | Hold at a location. ATP drops. |
| Pick / pack / deliver | — | Warehouse quantity. Shorts recorded. |
| Customer deposit | — | GL 2300 Customer deposits. |
| Tax invoice | INV- | 1100 Debtors, 4000 Sales, 2200 VAT output. |
| Credit note | CN- | Reverses tax and, where configured, stock. |
| VAT201 | draft | A read of the ledger. You copy it into eFiling. |
Chart of accounts is seeded for the owner. You can add accounts. You cannot delete ones the documents still post to. Opening balances and Cin7/Xero-shaped CSVs are in settings after the first login — there is no live two-way sync on day one.
04/Defaults
Documents are written as if the company is already a VAT vendor. A currency dropdown on a US product still thinks in dollars and then converts.
Home currency. Cents where the document needs them; rand rounding where SARS does.
VAT on the line of the quote, the till slip, and the credit note. Not a year-end adjustment.
A draft return, boxes filled from the ledger, for you to copy into eFiling. We do not submit it.
Invoices and statements on the channel the order often already used. SMTP still works.
The company that owns the workspace is the responsible party. We are the operator. Hosting is in the United States; that is stated on the signup form, not only in a footer. We will sign a written operator agreement on request. On a breach we notify the company so it can notify the Regulator.
05/Onboarding
A signup that immediately provisions compute is how you get empty spam companies. We wait for the verify click. Then: a role, a database, migrations, one owner. No default till passwords, no sample locations.
Legal name, optional trading name, the hostname you want, owner email and password. Two acknowledgements: you may bind the company, and you have read that hosting is outside South Africa.
One link, 24 hours, single use. Until you click it there is no database and no workspace. Resend is capped.
Owner login only. Import SKUs or start from zero. Cin7 and Xero shaped CSVs are in settings.
06/Also in the workspace
You invite a customer. They see your catalogue at their prices on your address — not a generic storefront. Orders arrive as draft sales orders for someone with permission to confirm. If they should not see cost, they do not.
Questions against this company’s books: laybys past 90 days, SKUs under minimum, debtors over 60. Caps apply; it is not an unbounded chat bill. If the model key is unset, the UI says so instead of failing quietly.
07/Not this product
These are stops we already know. If your case is one of them, wait or use something else — we will not stretch the product to cover it this year.
Agencies, consultancies, and pure dropship without a location will spend their time on empty warehouses. Use something thinner.
shop.yourco.co.za is on the registry later. v1 is slug.stockroom.example. If that is a board blocker, wait.
We operate the software. Your company remains the responsible party under POPIA. We will not take that hat.
No card on the form. No Google login. One email can exist in two company databases because users are per database; public signup does not manage that for you.
08/Questions
If a sentence would be true of any back-office product, it is not on this list.
No. Each company is a Postgres database and a hostname. Requests that cannot be resolved to a company return 404. A cookie from another hostname does not open yours.
Yes. Permissions are keys on the login. Warehouse, till, and books are separate. Trade customers use a different cookie on the same host; staff and customer tokens are not interchangeable.
GL 2300 Customer deposits. The remainder tax invoice later moves the balance. The VAT201 draft sees both when they belong on it.
Nothing while we onboard the first companies. When a price exists it will be per company, in rand, with at least 60 days’ notice to workspaces already running. There is no card on the signup form.
Managed infrastructure in the United States. Under POPIA the company is the responsible party and we act as operator. Cross-border transfer is disclosed before signup. We notify you of a breach so you can notify the Regulator.
CSV templates in owner settings after you are in — SKUs, customers, suppliers, opening balances. There is no live two-way sync on day one. If you need that before you move, wait; do not import twice.
Next
yourcompany.stockroom.example — no card. If the slug is taken you will find out before submit. Questions: hello@stockroom.example.