The customer chooses from one tile on a display board. What they are buying is forty boxes on a pallet three kilometres away, going out on a lorry next Tuesday — and nothing about that sale is finished when they leave the showroom.
Two buildings, one stock figure, and a sale that is agreed in one place and fulfilled in the other. Every gap between the two is a customer waiting for a lorry that is not coming.
None of this is a pricing problem or a discount problem. It is a document problem: the sale, the issue and the bill were three separate pieces of paper that were never the same document.
The fix is unglamorous. Make the sale an order, issue against it from the location that actually holds the goods, and let the invoice be built from what shipped.
The showroom raises a sales order against the customer. What is on the board is a sample; what is being sold is warehouse stock, and the order is what ties the two together.
Stock is multi-warehouse, so the showroom can see what the warehouse actually holds and what is on a purchase order and not yet landed — before committing a date to a contractor.
The delivery is raised against the order and posts out of the location that genuinely holds the stock. Nothing leaves the showroom’s figure because the goods were never there.
Six boxes short is six boxes still on the order, not a discrepancy discovered at invoicing. What is outstanding is visible to whoever the contractor phones.
The invoice is built from the delivery. Damaged boxes returned raise a credit note that restores stock and reverses the revenue, the cost and its share of VAT.
No card, no setup call. Bring an order that shipped short and see how it looks when the delivery drives the invoice.
The stock question and the receivables question are the two that decide whether a tile business is actually making money, and they are closely related.
Both are locations of the same item rather than two lists, so the figure the showroom quotes from is the figure the warehouse ships from. Transfers between them post on both sides.
A display board tile is best held as its own item, so a sample that will never be sold does not sit in your saleable figure.
Set an item up in the unit you sell and price in — boxes, pieces or square metres. Each item carries its own unit of measure on the item master.
One thing to be straight about: there is no automatic conversion rule between boxes and square metres on a single item, so pick the unit you trade in. It is covered properly in the questions below.
A contractor is a receivables account. Every delivery against it lands on the same ledger and one monthly statement covers the lot, instead of a folder of delivery copies.
Receivables aging is reported by bucket, and post-dated cheques are tracked through to clearance.
Stock is valued at a moving weighted-average cost, and imported tile lands with freight, duty and clearing spread across the shipment.
On a product bought by the container and sold by the box, that is the difference between margin and guesswork.
Not a generic retail tool with a currency switch bolted on the side.
Invoices, credit notes and purchases carry VAT as you raise them, with the totals your return needs already summed. See VAT accounting software and what e-invoicing will require.
A delivery note is a posting document rather than a printout, issued from the location that actually holds the stock, with whatever is short left open on the order.
Basic covers a single branch from AED 115 a month. Multi-branch stock and transfers start on Professional at AED 215, which covers three — see pricing.
The showroom, the warehouse, the lorry and the ledger are one platform. That is what makes “where is the rest of my order” a question anyone in the business can answer in a few seconds.
See the full feature listTile, adhesive, grout, trims and tools sit in the same inventory, across the showroom and every store.
Orders, goods receipts and supplier bills in any currency, so a container updates stock and what you owe in one movement.
Chart of accounts, journals, AR and AP, post-dated cheques, bank reconciliation and an audit trail — the ledger is here.
A stock adjustment or a large order over a value you set can be routed for sign-off before it posts.
If most of the business is trade supply with cost centres behind it, that is closer to building materials trading.
Decorative lines alongside tile work the same way — see paint shop software.
Still unsure? Send us a message — a person replies, usually the same day.
No. There is no conversion rule that holds both units on one item and converts between them, so you set the item up in the unit you sell and price in. Most shops trade in boxes and put the coverage in the item description. If you genuinely need to quote in square metres and issue in boxes on the same item, raise it with us before you commit, because it is a real limitation rather than a preference.
Yes, and this is the point of running both as locations of one item. The showroom raises the order, and the delivery is issued from the location that actually holds the stock, so it posts where the goods really were.
Whatever did not go out stays open on the sales order with a running balance, so the shortfall is visible to whoever the contractor phones rather than being discovered when the invoice is queried. The invoice is built from what shipped.
A credit note against the original invoice restores the quantity to stock and reverses the revenue, the cost of sale and its share of VAT together.
Yes. Contractor accounts sit in receivables with aging reported by bucket and monthly statements out of the same ledger the invoices posted to. Post-dated cheques are tracked through to clearing.
Yes, by holding the sample as its own item. It is worth doing — a board tile that will never be sold should not be sitting in the figure the showroom quotes from.
No. Stock is tracked by item and quantity rather than by batch, so if you need to guarantee a customer that a top-up order is from the same firing, that is a manual process. It is a genuine gap in this trade and worth raising before you commit.
Yes. Multi-branch stock, users and reporting sit on one set of books, with transfers posting on both sides. Multi-branch starts on the Professional plan, which covers 1 branches.
Yes. VAT is calculated on quotations, invoices, credit notes and purchases as you raise them, in AED, with the totals your return needs already summed and your TRN on the tax invoice.
Bring one showroom sale that shipped short and see it run end to end — order, delivery from the warehouse, credit note, invoice, statement. Fourteen days free, no card, export any time.