Every other page of this documentation rests on three ideas: where your data lives, who may act on it, and what happens when someone records a sale. This page explains them once, following Illa Hardware as it grows from one shop in Akpakpa to a second one in Abomey-Calavi.

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Where your data lives

When Madame Illa signs up, Exowpee creates two things at once: an organization, which is Illa Hardware as a whole, and a first company, her Akpakpa shop. She becomes the owner of the organization and the administrator of the shop. Some things belong to the organization and serve every company. The catalogue is one of them: “Cement 50 kg” is described once, and both shops sell it. Stock locations are another: the warehouse belongs to the organization, and Illa shares it with the shops that may use it. See Create products and variants and Locations, vehicles and site sharing. Everything else stays with the company that does it: its prices, its orders, its customers, its purchases and its books. The Abomey-Calavi shop can sell cement at a different price from Akpakpa. A person keeps one account even when they work in several companies, and moves from one company to another without signing in again. See Your account and notifications and Run the organization and its companies.

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Who can do what

Rights come in three layers:
  • A permission allows one kind of action, such as recording a customer payment.
  • A role groups the permissions one job needs, such as “cashier”.
  • A profile is what a person receives in a company: one or more roles under one name.
Illa gives Sènami Dossou the cashier profile. Sènami can open her register, cash sales and take repayments, and nothing more. When Sènami needs one more right for a few weeks, Illa gives her an extra permission with an end date instead of building a new profile. An administrator has every permission. Not every employee needs a full account. Bio Gounou receives goods at the warehouse and does nothing else. Illa creates an agent account for him: she picks his profile and his password, Exowpee gives him a username, and he signs in with them to do that one job in that one company. Someone who needs their own account, to be invited by email, to work in several companies or to hold several profiles, joins the team instead. See Define access profiles and roles, Manage agent accounts and Permissions explained.

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What one sale sets in motion

Rodrigue Ahouansou, a seller, prepares an order for Michel Agossou, a mason: 20 bags of cement. Sènami cashes it.
  1. The order is created with its items, prices, taxes and discounts. Nothing else moves yet. If a discount or a credit limit needs it, the order first waits for approval. See Take and approve orders.
  2. The cashier confirms it at her open register, with the payments she receives. See Run a register session.
  3. Stock goes out of the locations chosen for each item, and each withdrawal keeps its cost so that a cancellation can put the goods back.
  4. The money is recorded in the cash, bank or mobile money account of each payment method used.
  5. The books are written: the sale, the taxes and the cost of the goods, without anyone having to post them. See Keep the books day to day.
  6. Credit is recorded when it applies. If Michel is allowed credit and pays only part, the rest is added to what he owes. See Collect customer credit.
  7. The invoice is produced.
Buying works the other way round: a delivery that is confirmed brings goods into stock, and a payment to the supplier settles what the company owes. See Restock from a supplier on credit. At the end of the month, the same books feed the reports and filings.

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Money

Each company works in its own currency, chosen when the company is created, and every amount it records is in that currency. A payment received in another currency is converted, and the rate used is kept with the payment. The CFA franc has no cents, so 200,000 FCFA is exactly 200,000. Developers will find the format of each amount on its reference page and in the glossary.

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Where to go next