What Businessflo is
Businessflo is an ERP: one system for a company's money, customers, vendors, stock, production, service and assets. It is international. A country's tax, law or ID (a sales tax, a withholding tax, a tax number) is something the product models in general terms, set up per company.
One installation, many companies
A Businessflo installation holds one or more companies, each a legal entity with its own accounts, numbering, settings and users' rights. Many masters are shared and then released to each company: a customer, a vendor, an item or an account is created once and then switched on, with its company-specific details, in each company that uses it.
The areas
| Area | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Company setup | The company and its structure, users, roles, numbering, approvals, alerts and files |
| General ledger | Chart of accounts, journals, posting rules, journal vouchers, taxes, the month-end close |
| Receivables | Customers, invoices, credit memos, collections and what each customer owes |
| Payables | Vendors, vendor invoices, payments and withholding tax |
| Cash and bank | Banks, cheque clearing, bank movements and reconciliation, budgets |
| Sales | Quotations, sales and return orders, agreements, promotions |
| Purchasing | Requisitions, quotations, purchase orders, imports |
| Inventory | Receiving, issuing, moving, picking, inspecting and costing stock |
| Warehouse | Storage locations, and goods stored for customers |
| Products and manufacturing | Items, prices, bills of material, routings, production and planning |
| Service and maintenance | Service orders, plant and fleet maintenance |
| CRM and expenses | Leads and pipelines, expense claims, subscriptions |
| Real estate and rental | Property sales on instalments, maintenance billing, rentals, freight |
| Assets and projects | Fixed assets and depreciation, projects and their billing |
How the areas hand work to each other
Documents follow each other across areas. A sales order leads to a delivery in Inventory, an invoice in Receivables and a collection in Cash and bank. A purchase order leads to a receipt, a vendor invoice and a payment. Each document that moves money or stock posts to the general ledger when it is saved, through the posting rules set up in General ledger.
The five chains a consultant meets first each have a page: Set up a new company, Order to cash, Procure to pay, Plan to produce and Close the month.
How this book is laid out
- Start here: this page, how a screen works, and lists, boards and reports.
- Setting it up: the order to set up a company.
- Processes: the chains of documents across areas.
- How do I…: one task per page, area by area, with what each area posts and every message its screens show. See How do I….
- Every screen: one page per screen, every field. See Every screen.
- Words and values: the glossary.
Every page says only what the screen configuration and the business rules behind it prove. Where a setting is stored but changes nothing, the page says so.