Questions
Questions, answered plainly.
Including the ones with an awkward answer. If yours is not here, ask a person — we are in Nairobi and we reply within 5 hours.
What it is
- What is Records ERP?
- Records ERP is manufacturing and inventory software for manufacturers and distributors in Kenya and East Africa. It records sales and invoices, stock across every store, production and packaging runs with recipes, purchases and expenses, payments, and full accounts — profit and loss, trial balance, balance sheet and account ledgers — in one system, so nothing is entered twice.
- Who is it for?
- Small and medium manufacturers and distributors, usually with more than one location, that have outgrown a spreadsheet, or are running the factory in Excel because their accounting software has never heard of a production run.
- Is it a point of sale for a shop?
- No. A point of sale is a till: one counter, cash in, done. Records ERP runs a business with production, stock in more than one place, customers who buy on credit, and a set of accounts at the end of it. If you run a single shop or a supermarket, you want a POS instead, and we would tell you so.
Will it fit how we work
- Can it handle more than one unit per product?
- Two units for one product. Tell it once how many kilos go in a sack, then buy by the kilo and sell by the sack, and it converts everywhere after that — in stock, in what a unit cost you, and in every report. Two, not a chain of them: a product carries a main unit, a second unit, and the factor between them.
- Can it cost a production run?
- Yes. You record what a recipe consumes, and Records ERP works out what the finished goods cost. If you later correct the price you paid for a raw material, the cost of goods you have already sold is corrected with it — through the production run, and across any transfers between stores.
- What about my sales reps out on the road?
- They invoice and take payments from the phone they already have, and you see it from the office the same day: who sold what, and who still owes. A rep can be held to the records they created, and to a time window you set — a day by default — after which nothing changes without your say-so.
- Does it work on a phone?
- Yes. Records ERP runs in a browser and installs to an Android phone or a Windows laptop as an app, so it opens from the home screen with no address bar. There is nothing to download from an app store.
- What happens when the internet goes down?
- You wait, and then you carry on. Records ERP needs a connection — a phone's bundle is plenty, and it does not need to be a good one. It does not work offline today, which means nothing is half-written while you are away: when the signal comes back you pick up exactly where you left off, with nothing to reconcile.
- Can my staff see everything?
- Only what you allow. A store keeper can be held to their own store, the profit figures can be kept to you alone, and a person can be stopped from changing records somebody else created — or from changing anything at all after a window you set, a day by default. Every change is recorded with who made it and when.
The books, and KRA
- Does it produce a trial balance and a balance sheet?
- Yes — a trial balance, a balance sheet, a profit and loss and a ledger for every account, alongside the VAT summary, the aging report and inventory valuation. They are built from the invoices, payments, bills and stock movements already recorded rather than typed up at month end, and a figure on the trial balance or the balance sheet opens into the account ledger behind it. If the statements ever fail to balance, the report says so across its face rather than showing you a figure that cannot be true.
- What about KRA and eTIMS?
- eTIMS is about the invoice, not the return — an electronic tax invoice has to reach KRA when it is issued, so “your accountant files it later” was never really an answer to this question. Records ERP does not transmit to eTIMS yet. Today you issue through whatever eTIMS route you already use and keep the business's own records here; integration is being built and it is first on the roadmap. Worth knowing: the rules also require stock-in and stock-out records to be kept in the system — purchases in, and sales, transfers, returns and adjustments out — and that is exactly what the movement ledger has recorded from the first day. What applies to your particular business is a question for your own accountant.
- How is it different from QuickBooks or Zoho Books?
- Those are accounting packages, and good ones. They handle invoices, bills and the books, and they do not handle manufacturing — no recipes, no production runs, no stock costed across several stores. With Zoho you would be buying Books, Inventory and Manufacturing separately and joining them up yourself. Records ERP is one system for both halves: the accounts an accountant expects, and the production and stock a factory runs on. There is a fuller side-by-side with QuickBooks on this site, including where QuickBooks is better.
Cost, switching, and getting out
- What does it cost?
- Ksh 96,000 a year, Ksh 9,500 a month, or Ksh 180,000 once with Ksh 35,000 a year for support from the second year. That is for one business, everything included, however many people use it — so putting your reps on phones costs nothing extra. The first 30 days are free, there is no card to start, and we do not charge for setup, which in this market is usually a separate line and often larger than the first year of software. Several companies under one owner is a different shape of problem; talk to us and we will give you a number.
- How long does it take to get going?
- You can sign up and raise your first invoice today; it is software you open, not a project somebody schedules. Bringing your existing customers, suppliers, products and opening balances across is a spreadsheet and an afternoon. The part that takes real time is deciding how you want your stores, your recipes and your permissions arranged — and that is a conversation, not a build.
- Can I bring my existing customers, products and balances across?
- Yes. You upload a spreadsheet, see your own rows on screen, correct anything highlighted, and bring them in. Customers and suppliers arrive with the balance they owed at changeover; products arrive with their units and prices. If it goes wrong you can undo the whole import in one action.
- Can I get my data out again?
- Yes, whenever you want, without asking anyone. Every sales line, invoice, payment, customer, product, supplier and expense downloads as a spreadsheet, or all of it at once as a single file. Add up a money column in Excel and it matches what Records ERP shows.
- Can my customers see their own account?
- Yes. You send a customer a link — usually over WhatsApp — that opens their statement, invoice or receipt on their phone. They see only their own account with you, and they do not need to create an account or install anything.
Still deciding?
Ask what it costs, ask what it cannot do, or just set it up with one of your own products and see.
- 30-day free trial
- No card needed
- Free setup