Questions people ask about StokSource

What is StokSource?

StokSource is one platform for buying goods, holding them and knowing what they cost. It covers the line from a purchase request, through quotations and a purchase order, to goods arriving on a shelf, an invoice matched and approved, and the figures handed to your accounting package.

It is sold as three modules you can subscribe to independently: StokTrack for inventory, SourceTrack for procurement, and CostTrack for recipe and food cost control. They share one item list and one audit trail, so nothing is entered twice.

Who is it built for?

Companies that buy and hold physical goods across more than one location — hospitality groups, restaurants and hotels, facilities and events companies, trading and contracting firms. The cost control module is built specifically for kitchens.

It is built around Gulf practice: Arabic alongside English on every screen and document, commercial registration and trade licence as standard supplier documents, and prices in your own currency.

What does each module actually do?

You can start with one and add another later. Nothing about the first has to be redone.

Do I have to take all three?

No. Each module stands on its own, and the bill is simply the modules you hold — there is no separate platform fee.

They are better together. A goods receipt in procurement posts stock in inventory. An item that runs low raises a purchase request back in procurement. Receipts, transfers and counts in inventory flow into the cost ledger. Holding two or more also takes 15% off your whole bill.

Is it available in Arabic?

Yes. The entire application, both user manuals and the supplier portal are in English and Arabic, with full right-to-left layout in Arabic. Each person picks their own language; it is not a company-wide setting.

Printed and PDF documents — purchase orders, quotations, transfer lists, reports — follow the language of whoever prints them.

Do we need to install anything?

No. StokSource runs in a web browser at app.stoksource.com, including on a phone or tablet. Barcode scanning on the Stock Logger screen works with an ordinary USB or Bluetooth scanner, which types the code as if it were a keyboard.

The only optional local piece is a small sync agent for older on-premise point-of-sale systems that cannot send sales over the internet.

How do the modules pass work to each other?

Through one item list and one set of documents, not an integration you configure.

• A goods receipt in procurement posts the stock in inventory.
• An item that falls to its reorder level raises a purchase request back in procurement.
• Receipts, transfers and stock counts in inventory arrive in the cost ledger as movements.
• A recipe's sales deplete the same stock your warehouse counts.

If you hold only one module, none of this is missing — the module simply works on its own.

How do I start? Is there a trial?

Sign up at app.stoksource.com, verify your email with a six-digit code, and choose the modules you want. The trial runs 14 days and takes no card details.

At the end of the trial you add a card to continue. Nothing is charged before then, and nothing is charged automatically when the trial ends.

What is the sensible order to set things up?

• Locations first — every store, warehouse or kitchen you hold stock in.
• Then items, with their unit, category and, where you have them, cost and reorder level.
• Then people: users, their roles, and which locations each one may work in.
• Then suppliers, and invite them to the portal.
• For cost control, last of all: units and conversions, then recipes — they depend on the items existing.

You do not have to be complete on day one. Items can be imported in bulk later, and a supplier can be added the moment you need to raise an order for them.

Can we bring in our existing item list and suppliers?

Yes. Items import from Excel or CSV and match on SKU, so re-importing a corrected file updates rather than duplicates. Suppliers import the same way. Each import screen offers a sample file showing the exact columns it reads.

Photos are attached separately from the item page, not inside the spreadsheet.

How long does it take to be useful?

Inventory is useful the day your items and locations are in — stock by location, barcodes and movement history start working immediately.

Procurement is useful as soon as your suppliers accept their portal invitations, which is usually the slowest part and worth starting early. Cost control needs recipes and one stock count before it can tell you a variance: the manual's own rule is "no count, no actual, no variance".

How do I invite a supplier?

From the supplier's page: the invitation is an emailed link you can also copy and send yourself. They set their own password and land in your workspace.

The invite button disappears once someone from that company has joined, so you cannot accidentally onboard a supplier twice.

How do I add people and decide what they can do?

Add the user, give them a role, and assign the locations they work in. The role decides which actions they get; the locations decide where those actions apply.

Leaving the locations empty means everywhere, which is normally what you want for head office and never what you want for a branch storekeeper.

What do the plans cost?

Two or more modules take 15% off the entire bill. Holding both StokTrack and SourceTrack also gives you the larger of the two allowances in each dimension rather than the sum.

What if we outgrow the users or locations on our plan?

Buy capacity packs instead of jumping a tier: 10 more users, 2 more admins, or 10 more locations, each $5 a month. Storage is not sold separately — it comes with the plan.

Sub-locations are free. A warehouse’s rows, shelves or rooms can be set up as sub-locations inside it, and only main locations count toward your plan.

Your storage is a single pool for the company, set by the largest allowance among your plans, not one pool per module.

How is it billed, and in what currency?

By card, monthly, through MyFatoorah. Prices are quoted in US dollars and cards are charged in Qatari riyals at a fixed rate of 3.64. There is no annual contract.

Your billing period is a rolling 30 days from the day you subscribe, not a calendar month. Billing history and receipts are on the same page as your plan.

What happens when I upgrade or downgrade?

An upgrade applies immediately and is prorated for the days left in the period. A downgrade takes effect at the next renewal, so you keep what you paid for until then; there is no mid-cycle refund.

The price you subscribe at is locked to your subscription. A later change to our published prices does not re-bill you.

What happens if a payment fails, or the trial ends without a card?

Access to the paid modules stops until the payment succeeds, and we retry the card once a day. Your data is not touched — it is waiting when the payment goes through.

One exception worth knowing. A trial that ended 30 days ago and never paid anything is treated as abandoned: we email a deletion date 14 days out, and on that date the workspace and its files are deleted. Anyone who has ever paid, holds a card, or is mid-dunning is never touched by this.

Can I cancel?

Yes, on the billing page, and you keep access to the cancelled module until the end of the period you have paid for. There is no cancellation fee and no notice period.

Cancelling one module leaves the others running.

Is anything limited to a particular plan?

Most things are not: barcodes, photos, transfers, multi-location, reports, the audit log, permissions and in-app discussion are on every plan.

• Approvals and advanced reports in procurement: Professional and above.
• Accounting export and live accounting sync: SourceTrack Enterprise.
• Supplier Community (discovering suppliers outside your own list): SourceTrack Enterprise.
• Email notifications: a $2/month add-on alongside StokTrack.

The chart of accounts and invoice coding are deliberately on every tier — coding an invoice is part of the daily workflow, not an upsell.

Do suppliers count towards our user limit?

No. Supplier portal accounts are free and unlimited in number. What the SourceTrack plans count is how many supplier companies are on your list — 50 on Starter, 100 on Professional, unlimited on Enterprise.

Your own staff count towards the user allowance, and a plan is for the whole company rather than per seat.

How does stock by location work?

Every item carries a total and a breakdown per location. Each location is either an In Store type, where goods count as held, or an Out type, where they count as issued — so sending an item to a site marks it out without anyone having to remember to change its status.

A location can also hold sub-locations — a warehouse’s rows, shelves or rooms. The breakdown then shows exactly where the stock sits, as “Main Warehouse › Row A”, and choosing the warehouse in a filter or report includes its rows.

The Items list shows the total and the location split, with a red Low badge at or below an item's reorder level.

How do transfers between locations work?

As a two-step handshake, never a single click. The sending location dispatches, the units sit in a virtual In-Transit area so they belong to neither side, and the receiving location confirms what actually arrived — with the real quantity, which may be short.

A rejection or a short receipt returns the units to the sender. A transfer never changes the company total, only where the goods are. Sending and receiving are separate permissions, so the same person need not be both ends.

Tick several items on the Items list and you get a printable Transfer List — a branded delivery note with Delivered by, Received by, signature and date lines.

Putting stock away inside one warehouse is not a transfer. Between a main location and its sub-locations, Move on the item page does it in one step — no approval and no In-Transit, with both sides in the movement history.

Can we split a warehouse into rows or shelves?

Yes, with sub-locations. On the Locations page, click + Sub-location on a main location, or edit an existing location and choose the main location it sits inside. There is one level: a sub-location has no sub-locations of its own.

• Free — sub-locations do not count toward your plan’s location limit.
• Visible only to the people assigned to their main location.
• Stock moves between the warehouse and its rows in one step, with no approval.
• Purchasing receives into the main location, and Cost Control works with main locations only — stock anywhere in the warehouse shares one average cost.

Store Managers can add, rename and delete the sub-locations of their own warehouse; adding a main location stays with the admin, because it changes what the company pays for.

Can we print barcodes, and scan them?

Yes. Every item has a printable Code 128 barcode label. The Stock Logger screen takes a scan — or a typed SKU — and records the movement; the destination location decides whether that is stock in or stock out.

SKUs are generated automatically if you do not supply your own.

How do stock counts work?

Open a count over a location, for all items or a chosen set. The system freezes what the books say, you enter what you actually counted, and the variance column shows green for over and red for short. Posting sets each counted line and keeps the sheet with who posted it and when.

A blank line is not a zero. Leaving a line empty means "not counted" and the item is left alone. To record nothing on the shelf, enter 0.

Only one count can be open per location at a time.

Can one item have sizes or colours?

Yes — sub-items. An item can carry variants whose quantities roll up into the item's total, so you see both the total on hand and the split by variant.

Items with variants cannot be costed by CostTrack; it refuses them rather than averaging across variants that may cost different amounts.

What reports come with inventory?

Stock by location, Low stock, Transfers and Valuation (quantity × unit cost, with category subtotals and a grand total). You pick filters, see the result on screen with a totals row, then take it as CSV, Excel, PDF or straight to the printer.

Printed and PDF reports carry your company name and logo.

What does the dashboard show?

Totals split between In Store and Out, movements over the last 30 days, a distribution by location, category and status, and recent activity.

It is the screen to open on a Monday to see whether anything moved that should not have.

How do I add an item?

Name, category, unit — that is the minimum. Leave the SKU blank and one is generated; type a category that does not exist yet and it is created.

Two fields are worth filling even though they are optional: the unit cost, which feeds the valuation report, and the reorder level, which is what raises the Low badge and the automatic purchase request.

What is on an item's page?

Everything about that item in one place: its photos, a printable barcode, the stock it holds in each location, its full movement history, and its sub-items if it has any.

The actions live there too — set stock, update status, print the barcode, request a transfer or send it to another location.

What is the quickest way to record stock going in or out?

The Stock Logger screen. Scan the barcode or type the SKU, choose the destination, and the movement is recorded. The destination decides the direction: sending to a store location is stock in, sending to an Out location is stock out.

It is built to be used standing up with a scanner, one item after another.

What do the item statuses mean?

In Store and Out are the two that move with your goods, driven by the type of location they sit in. Consumed and Damaged are ends of the line, recorded deliberately so the item leaves your usable stock without being deleted.

Nothing is ever deleted to make the numbers work; the history stays.

What happens if I rename or delete a category?

Renaming updates every item carrying that category, so nothing is stranded under the old name. Deleting removes the category from its items, leaving the items themselves alone.

The same category list feeds the accounting defaults, so renaming there does not break an account mapping.

Who can set stock by hand?

Only people with that permission, and it is the same permission as posting a stock count — because both write a figure into the books that nobody watched arrive.

Everyone else records movements, which leave a trail of what came in and what went out.

What does the full procurement flow look like?

A purchase request is raised, or arrives automatically from a low-stock item. It is sourced as an RFQ to approved suppliers, who quote in the portal. You compare, award, and the quote becomes a purchase order, signed and published to the supplier.

Goods are received against the order, the supplier uploads an invoice, the three-way match checks invoice against order against receipt, the invoice is coded and routed for approval by value, then marked paid and exported to your accounting package.

Can someone request something we already have in stock?

Not by default — the system would rather you transferred it. When the item is in stock somewhere, the request is refused, and only a person holding the waiver permission (the Procurement Manager role by default) can push it through anyway.

This is the single biggest source of avoidable spend in a multi-site company, which is why it is a rule and not a warning.

Can we require a minimum number of quotes?

Yes, in Procurement Settings. Awarding below the minimum is blocked, and only the waiver permission overrides it. The waiver is also what allows direct sourcing — creating purchase orders straight from a request without an RFQ, which exists for the daily market list where three quotes for tomatoes is not realistic.

Every waiver is recorded in the audit log with who used it.

How does the three-way match work, and what if it fails?

It compares the invoice to the purchase order and to what was actually received: prices, quantities, and whether the goods arrived at all. A failure shows line by line what disagrees — invoiced against ordered against received, and invoice price against PO price.

• Approve by exception — a separate permission held by a Finance Manager, not by the accounts payable clerk who coded it. The reason is recorded and the invoice reads "approved by exception of <name>".
• Return to supplier — the reason you type is emailed to them word for word, and the returned invoice stops counting against the order.

Tolerances for price and quantity are set on the Invoice matching page, and start at zero — exact matching. A quantity tolerance lets an invoice charge for more than arrived, so recording the real receipt is usually the better answer.

We buy services with no goods receipt. Does that work?

Yes. An order can be marked as not requiring a goods receipt, and its invoices then run a two-way match against the order alone. Which way an invoice matched is recorded, so a two-way pass is never mistaken for a three-way one.

Invoices with no purchase order at all — rent, utilities, subscriptions, professional fees — are entered directly and go through coding, approval and export like any other.

Can we amend or close a purchase order?

Amending freezes the outgoing version as a numbered revision, raises the revision number and clears the supplier's acknowledgement, so they have to acknowledge the new terms. You cannot amend below what has already been invoiced, and raising the value needs approval authority.

Closing is not cancelling: it ends an order with a reason while keeping its history. An order that is fully received, invoiced and settled closes itself.

Do you support blanket orders?

Yes. A blanket order shows ordered, invoiced to date and remaining, and reads as invoiced from the first draw-down. The remaining value is the ceiling the supplier can invoice against.

An approved credit note restores headroom on the blanket it credits.

How do goods get from a receipt into inventory?

Receiving records what arrived, line by line, and partial receipts are normal. Handing the goods to inventory is then a deliberate second step: choose the destination warehouse, set unit cost and reorder level, and dispatch it as a numbered shipment.

Nothing posts to stock until someone at the warehouse confirms the receipt — and nothing can post twice.

How are suppliers approved?

Through an approved vendor list with four states: pending, approved, suspended and blacklisted. A purchase order cannot be published, and an invoice cannot be accepted, for a supplier who is not approved. Suspending or blacklisting requires a written reason.

Each supplier page holds their compliance documents, a KYC review with risk rating and sanctions and PEP flags, and a scorecard measuring on-time delivery, invoice accuracy, RFQ response rate and win rate.

The scorecard shows "no data" where there is none, never 0%, and deliberately gives no single overall score — a number that hides which part is bad is worse than four that do not.

Are documents we hold about a supplier visible to them?

No, and the rule runs one way on purpose. What a supplier files is marked as coming from them and both sides can see it. What your team uploads about a supplier is internal and never appears in their portal.

Document expiry is tracked: procurement is notified and the supplier emailed 15 days before a document lapses, and again after.

Where do purchase requests come from?

Two places. Someone raises one — searching the shared item list rather than typing free text — or inventory raises one automatically when an item drops to its reorder level.

A request is editable while it is a draft or submitted. “Source it” turns it into a prefilled RFQ, and cancelling every RFQ puts the request back in the queue rather than losing it.

What is the catalogue for?

It is your item list with supplier prices against it, cheapest first, showing each supplier's approval state. You buy from it rather than starting a fresh negotiation every time.

“Request offers” publishes chosen items to suppliers, who see them flagged as wanted and price them in their portal. Only the items you publish are visible — the rest of your item master is not.

What does an RFQ carry?

A response deadline, the delivery location and required-by date, the payment terms you expect, notes, and attachments such as drawings, spec sheets or a BOQ. Attachments stay editable while the RFQ is live and lock when you award or cancel it.

Only suppliers approved on your vendor list can be invited.

How do we compare quotes?

On a comparison matrix that highlights the cheapest unit price on each line and the lowest total overall, so a supplier who is cheapest on two lines and expensive on the rest is obvious.

Every quote is electronically signed by the supplier, and the quote records who signed it. Awarding converts the winning quote into a purchase order, locked to those prices.

How does a purchase order get to the supplier?

You sign it — your typed name plus the signature image from your profile — and publish it, which sends it to the supplier's portal and emails them. The PDF is branded A4 with your company details, your terms and both signature blocks.

A purchase order cannot be published to a supplier who is not approved on the vendor list.

How do payment terms and due dates work?

Terms are a named day count you set once, and they flow onto the order and then onto the invoice. The due date is worked out when the invoice is created and stored — renegotiating terms later never moves the due date of an invoice already in the system.

What was agreed at the time is what the invoice keeps saying.

Can we buy in more than one currency?

Yes. Activate the currencies you trade in and set a default; quotes, orders and invoices carry their own currency and exchange rate.

Totals are reported per currency and never added together — a single figure mixing riyals and dollars would be meaningless.

What does the daily market list flow look like?

A par sheet per item with what the kitchen has on hand, so the order quantity is simply par minus on hand. Submitting it raises a purchase request titled “Market list” with the date, and freezes the sheet you submitted.

From there it can go straight to per-supplier orders through direct sourcing, which is why the minimum-quotes waiver exists — nobody gets three written quotes for tomatoes at 5am.

Do our suppliers have to pay?

No. Serving a buyer through the portal is free to the supplier, for any buyer, with no limit on orders or invoices. You invite them with a link; they set a password and they are in.

The one paid thing on the supplier side is optional: being listed in the public Supplier Community directory is free for the first year, then $20 a month. Not paying removes only the listing, never their work with you.

What can a supplier do in the portal?

• See and acknowledge purchase orders, or raise a query against one.
• Quote against RFQs, with terms prefilled from their profile, and print the quotation on their own letterhead.
• Upload invoices against a published order, using their own invoice number.
• Keep their company profile, compliance documents and bank remittance details up to date.
• Run their own reports — orders, invoices, bid history, monthly activity and a statement of account aged into 0–30, 31–60, 61–90 and 90+ days.

Can a supplier see our item list or our other suppliers?

No. A supplier sees only the items you deliberately publish for offers, plus the products they add themselves. The rest of your item master, your stock and your other suppliers are not visible.

Prices a supplier gives you are private to you. The same supplier can serve many buyers from one login and nothing crosses between them.

Are quotations legally signed?

Every quotation is electronically signed: the supplier types their full name to submit, and the quotation records who signed it. Purchase orders carry signature blocks from both sides — your signatory's uploaded signature image and the supplier's typed acknowledgement.

Re-submitting a quote replaces the previous prices and is signed again.

What is the Supplier Community, and the Verified badge?

The Community is a directory of suppliers listed across the whole platform, filterable by country and category — a way to find a supplier you do not already work with. It is part of SourceTrack Enterprise on the buyer side.

Verified means we reviewed documents, not that we recommend anyone. A supplier uploads their commercial registration, trade licence, tax card and authorised signatory ID, and platform reviewers — never a buyer — grant or decline the badge. It is a trust signal, not a replacement for your own approval process, and it cannot be bought.

Can a supplier run their own buying on StokSource?

Yes, and it is one click from the portal. A supplier can create their own workspace, which brings across their company details, logo and signature, and the products they added themselves — never anything belonging to a buyer.

Their selling prices are shown for reference but not written in as costs; they start with a clean cost base. Orders, invoices and quotations do not move across, and nothing in their workspace is ever visible to any buyer.

How does a supplier get an account?

Either they accept a buyer's invitation link, or they sign up themselves with their company and contact details, accept the supplier terms, and confirm a six-digit email code.

A supplier who signs up on their own starts in the community lobby — they can complete their profile and be found, but they see no buyer's work until they accept a connection.

Our supplier sells to several companies on StokSource. Is that a problem?

No, and it is the normal case. One login serves every buyer, with a selector to switch between them. Prices, documents and files with one buyer are never visible to another.

It is why suppliers adopt the portal willingly: it is one account, not a new login per customer.

How does a supplier keep their prices with us up to date?

On their My Items screen. Items you asked for offers on sit at the top, tagged as requested by you; they price them with currency, minimum order quantity and lead time.

A whole price list can be imported from a spreadsheet — a sample file gives the exact columns — where an existing item number attaches a price and a new number creates the item. Offers are deactivated rather than deleted, so price history survives.

What is on a supplier's statement of account?

Everything outstanding as at today, aged into current, 31–60, 61–90 and over 90 days — deliberately ignoring any date range the supplier set on the other reports, because an aged statement for last month is not a statement.

They can print it on their own letterhead or export all their reports as one Excel workbook.

What question does CostTrack answer?

The one every F&B operation argues about: theoretical versus actual. Actual usage is opening stock plus purchases, plus or minus transfers, minus the closing count. Theoretical is what the recipes say the sales should have consumed. Recorded waste, staff meals and comps explain part of the gap; what is left is the net variance.

Two consequences follow. Recipes have to be honest, and you have to count — no count, no actual, and no variance. Figures still show without a count, but they are marked as incomplete rather than presented as fact.

Do we re-enter our items for cost control?

No. Items live in inventory; cost control adds a profile to them — a base unit and a kind: raw, prep, sold, or not stocked. The pattern is always create it once in StokTrack, then bring it under cost control.

An item's base unit locks on its first movement, because changing it afterwards would rewrite the meaning of everything already posted.

How do units and conversions work?

Grams, kilograms, millilitres, litres, pieces, portions, cases and boxes ship with the system. Conversions that physics cannot supply are set per item, because a case of water is 24 and a case of oil might be 12.

If a line uses a unit that cannot be converted to the item's own unit, it is refused at entry and the message says what to use instead — rather than the line quietly costing nothing.

How do yield and waste percentages work?

Yield is what survives preparation: chicken at 70% means a kilo raw plates 700 grams. Waste is expected handling loss, say 2% on a sauce. Both increase what a plate consumes.

A 70% yield does not make chicken cheaper — it means you buy more of it to plate the same dish.

Can a recipe contain another recipe?

Yes. Sub-recipes cost from the bottom up and re-cost themselves when an ingredient price moves. They nest up to twelve levels, and a recipe that reaches itself is rejected rather than looping.

A recipe only depletes stock once it is active; a draft can be costed while you work on it without touching stock.

What if an ingredient has no cost yet?

The recipe is marked incomplete and the missing component is named. It is never treated as free — a zero would quietly understate every plate that uses it.

The same applies to a component whose unit cannot be converted: it is reported, not silently skipped.

How do sales get in from the till?

Three ways: import a CSV export from your point-of-sale, receive sales over a webhook, or run a small sync agent for older on-premise systems. Importing the same file twice is safe — duplicates are refused by the database, not by a guess.

Unmapped till codes are the thing to watch. A product code the system does not recognise still imports as revenue but cannot be costed, which makes every cost percentage look better than reality. The mapping queue lists those codes and the reconciliation tab shows how much revenue is uncosted each day.

What does closing a period involve?

The close lists its blockers before it will run — unposted receipts, uncosted sales, locations nobody counted. Once closed, the period is locked and its figures stop moving.

Permission to reopen a closed period is granted to nobody by default, not even the F&B Manager. It is a deliberate decision, not a checkbox someone finds by accident.

What does menu engineering tell us?

It places every dish in one of four quadrants — Star, Plough-horse, Puzzle, Dog — by popularity and profitability, and ranks them by cash per plate rather than cost percentage.

A 22% dish selling twice a week earns less than a 38% dish selling forty times, and ranking by percentage hides that.

Can the kitchen see supplier prices?

Only if you let them. Kitchen roles get recipes and plate costs without supplier prices, and that separation is enforced on the server, not just hidden in the interface.

The roles that ship with it are F&B Manager, Cost Controller, Chef, Storekeeper and Auditor.

Can a posting be deleted if someone makes a mistake?

No. The cost ledger is append-only: an undo is a reversal, and both entries stay. What happened and what corrected it are both part of the record.

The same holds for opening stock entered wrongly — it is reversed, not edited away.

What are the screens, and what lives where?

• Cost Control — on hand, the ledger, posting a movement, and setup.
• Recipes — recipes, sub-recipes and menu products.
• Purchasing — receipts, purchase orders, requisitions, transfers, production and price history.
• Operations — daily flash, sales, waste, counts and variance.
• Sales Import — importing sales, webhooks, the mapping queue, import history and reconciliation.
• Analysis — menu engineering, savings, purchase analysis, alerts and alert rules.

What order do I set CostTrack up in?

Units of measure and per-item conversions, then locations with their cost settings, then item kinds, then a period, then opening stock, and only then recipes.

The order matters: each step depends on the one before it, and recipes written before the units are right have to be revisited.

Which costing method should we use?

Moving average, unless you have a specific reason not to — it handles irregular deliveries better than FIFO, which is what most kitchens actually receive.

Allowing negative stock is usually worth leaving on at first: a kitchen that cannot post a sale because the paperwork is behind stops using the system.

What are the item kinds, and how do I pick one?

Raw is bought and used as an ingredient. Prep is made in-house and used in something else. Sold is a finished menu product, never held in stock. Not stocked is everything you buy but do not count.

A bottle of water sold as it is, is Raw with “also sold as-is” ticked — not Sold. Sold items are cooked, and a bottle of water is not.

Why does it say no period covers this date?

Because nothing can be posted to a date no accounting period covers — that is what keeps a closed month closed. Create the period, or post to a date inside an open one.

It is also the guard that stops a late delivery quietly landing in a month you have already reported.

What is the difference between a purchase order and a receipt here?

An order is an intention and never moves stock. The receipt does. Until goods are received, nothing about your on-hand or your costs changes.

Freight and duty can be spread across a receipt as landed cost — by value, by quantity, or not at all — and you see the effect before posting.

How do we account for waste, staff meals and comps?

Log them with a reason. Each reason is marked controllable or not, and recorded waste is subtracted from the variance as explained, so what is left is the part nobody can account for.

Only controllable waste is ranked in the potential savings report, because there is no point ranking what nobody could have prevented.

How do requisitions, transfers and production work between kitchens?

A requisition asks; approving it raises a draft transfer, which somebody still has to send. Raising a requisition and approving one are separate permissions.

A transfer posts at both ends through a hidden in-transit location and arrives at the cost it left with; a shortfall on arrival posts as waste at the destination. Production puts all the input cost into the output, and reports any shortfall as a yield variance.

What are alerts, and do we have to clear them?

They raise themselves — a price increase, an item costing more than its recipe says, stock that has not moved — and they clear themselves when the condition passes, hourly or when you press Run checks.

Nothing accumulates as a list of things to tick off; the list is what is true now.

Can we move our recipes in from a spreadsheet?

Yes. Recipes, menu products, items and unit conversions each export and re-import as the same file, so a spreadsheet round trip is a supported way of working rather than a migration trick.

It is also how most kitchens load their first fifty recipes.

How is an invoice coded?

Against your own chart of accounts, which you type in or import from CSV — accounts, tax codes and cost centres. The account is required; a cost centre and tax code are optional, because plenty of companies do not run cost centres and forcing a dummy one on every invoice is worse than a blank.

Coding is per invoice, not per line. What the invoice was coded to is stored as a snapshot alongside the account id, so renaming an account next year never rewrites what an old invoice says it was posted to.

An invoice that reaches you by email can be recorded against its purchase order, with the supplier's PDF attached — it is then matched like any other.

Can an item category suggest the account automatically?

Yes. Each item category can carry a default account and tax code, and the coding screen opens on them, naming the category it took them from. Where an invoice spans several categories, it uses the one with the largest value on the document and says what share that covers.

It is a default, never a posting rule: the coder can change anything before submitting, and the system validates whatever is actually submitted.

How does it get into our accounting package?

Two ways, both part of SourceTrack Enterprise. Either export a file, or connect a live sync that pushes each invoice as you approve it.

• File export: a generic double-entry journal CSV that suits Sage and most importers, QuickBooks Desktop IIF, QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zoho Books, Tally XML vouchers and Odoo vendor bills.
• Live sync: connect QuickBooks Online with a sign-in handshake, or Odoo with your server URL, database, login and API key. Approving an invoice queues it and it lands within minutes.

The export screen says which formats have been round-tripped through a real import and which are built to the published template but not yet tested by us. You deserve to know that before you post a period.

What stops a bad invoice reaching the ledger?

Only approved, payment-initiated or paid invoices export at all. The preview runs first and names every invoice that cannot cross and why — not approved, no account coded, no supplier name, a zero total, or VAT and subtotal that do not add up to the total.

VAT always exports on its own line, every journal balances, amounts stay in the document currency with the exchange rate alongside, and nothing crosses twice.

How do credit notes work?

A credit note is raised from the invoice it credits and cannot exceed it. Only an approved credit counts: it restores headroom on a blanket order and exports as the credit document of whichever package you use.

Zoho Books is the exception — it imports credits separately, so they are withheld from the file and the download tells you how many and why.

Who can mark an invoice as paid?

Only someone holding that permission, which is normally finance. The button is not merely disabled for everyone else — it is not there.

Approval routing itself is by value, so a larger invoice climbs to a more senior approver.

Are you ready for VAT in Qatar?

The structure is in place: tax codes with rates in the chart of accounts, a tax code on each invoice, VAT exported as its own line, and a default tax code per item category so the right treatment is suggested rather than remembered.

Rates are yours to set, so when a rate is announced or changed you add or edit a tax code — no upgrade required.

Can we import our chart of accounts?

Yes — accounts, tax codes and cost centres each import from CSV, and each tab offers a template showing the exact columns. The account code is the key, so re-importing a corrected file updates the matching rows rather than duplicating them.

Type must be one of expense, asset, liability, equity or income; anything else is read as expense.

What happens to an account we stop using?

Deactivate it — nothing in the chart is ever deleted, because every invoice ever coded to it points at it. A deactivated account disappears from the coding screen and stays legible on old invoices.

Invoices also keep a snapshot of what the account was called when they were coded, so a later rename never rewrites history.

How do roles work?

Admin, Store Manager, Data Entry and Viewer come as standard, and you can build your own roles from a checkbox matrix — add or edit items, record movements, send transfers, receive transfers, manage locations, view reports, and so on.

Locations come with two permissions: Manage locations, for main locations — the ones your plan counts — and Manage sub-locations, which Store Managers hold by default and which only organises the rows and shelves inside their own main locations.

Changes apply immediately. Permissions are strict: holding a parent feature does not silently grant the things beneath it.

Can we limit people to their own branch?

Yes. Each user is assigned one or more locations, and an empty assignment means everywhere. Someone scoped to a location can see stock across the company but can only edit, move or ship in their own.

People are assigned to main locations, and a main location includes its sub-locations: everyone assigned to a warehouse sees and works in its rows, and nobody else sees them at all.

This is why a request from another branch has to be fulfilled by that branch rather than reached into.

What is recorded in the audit log?

Who did what and when, across both sides of the platform, with a filter that separates your staff from supplier-portal activity. Waivers, approvals by exception, supplier status changes and coding decisions all leave a trail.

Stock has its own permanent movement history: date, item, in or out, location, person and notes.

How is our data separated from other customers?

Each customer's data lives in its own database rather than sharing tables with other companies, and buyers and suppliers sign in through separate doors with separate sessions.

Files — photos, invoice PDFs, supplier documents — are stored under your own workspace and served over HTTPS.

Can we get our data out?

Yes, at any time and without asking us. Items, stock, transfers, valuation, invoices, recipes, menu products and unit conversions all export to CSV, Excel or PDF, and the catalogue exports re-import as the same file so a spreadsheet round trip is a supported way of working.

Suppliers can export their own price list and reports the same way.

How do approvals route?

By value. A coded invoice goes to the approver whose authority covers the amount, and a purchase order amendment that raises the value needs approval authority to match.

The approval, the approver and the time are kept with the document.

Can we stop the kitchen seeing supplier prices?

Yes, and it is enforced on the server rather than hidden in the screen. Chef-type roles get recipes and plate costs without supplier prices; purchasing reports need a separate price-visibility permission.

It is the usual arrangement in a hotel: the chef owns the recipe, the cost controller owns the price.

What happens when someone leaves the company?

Deactivate their user account; they can no longer sign in, and their locations and role stop applying immediately.

Their name stays on what they did — the audit trail keeps the display name so history still reads properly years later.

…publish this purchase order?

The supplier is not approved on the vendor list — they are pending, suspended or blacklisted. Approve them on their supplier page, or pick another supplier.

The same rule blocks accepting an invoice from an unapproved supplier.

…receive more than the order says?

A delivery larger than the order is refused by default: it is stock and money nobody agreed to. Someone holding “Receive more than was ordered” can record what actually arrived, with a reason kept against the order.

When the overage is genuinely agreed, amend the order to the new quantity and value afterwards, so the order, the receipt and the invoice all say the same thing.

…request an item we clearly need?

Because it is in stock somewhere in the company, and a transfer is cheaper than buying it again. Someone with the waiver permission can push the request through anyway, and the waiver is recorded.

If the stock figure is wrong, the honest fix is a stock count rather than a waiver.

…award this RFQ?

Your company requires a minimum number of quotes and you have fewer. Chase the missing quotes, or have a Procurement Manager waive the rule for this award.

Direct sourcing — orders straight from a request, no RFQ — is gated on the same waiver.

…approve this invoice?

Either the three-way match has not passed, or approving despite a failed match is not yours to do. Approving by exception is a separate permission, normally a finance manager's, and it records who did it and why.

The alternative is to return the invoice to the supplier with a reason, which they receive word for word.

…code an invoice to a particular account?

The account is either deactivated or marked as not usable on a bill. Both are deliberate: a chart can hold accounts that are real but have no business receiving a supplier invoice.

Pick another account, or have someone with chart permission change that account's settings.

…save this recipe line?

The unit on the line cannot be converted to the unit the ingredient is costed in — pieces of a spice bought by the kilo, for instance. The message names both units.

Either use the item's own unit, or add a conversion for that item first, such as one case equals twenty-four pieces.

…change an item's base unit?

It locks once the item has its first movement. Changing it afterwards would rewrite the meaning of every posting already made against it.

Its kind and whether it is sellable stay editable; only the unit is fixed.

…reopen a closed period?

Nobody holds that permission by default — not even the F&B Manager. It is granted deliberately, to a named person, because reopening a period changes figures somebody has already reported.

Closing tells you its blockers first: unposted receipts, uncosted sales, locations nobody counted.

…export an invoice to our accounting package?

The preview names the reason for every invoice it withholds: not approved yet, no account coded, no supplier name, a zero or negative total, or a subtotal and VAT that do not add up to the total.

Nothing unapproved reaches your ledger, and nothing crosses twice.

…move a location inside another one?

Users are assigned to that location directly — the message says how many. Users are assigned to main locations only, so a location with people on it cannot become a sub-location until they are moved: otherwise their assignment would stop counting and they would suddenly see every location.

Open Users, assign each of them to the main location instead — it includes its sub-locations — and try again. A location that has sub-locations of its own cannot move inside another either.

What documents can we print?

Purchase orders and quotations on branded A4 with your company details, terms and both signature blocks; transfer lists as delivery notes with signature lines; barcode labels; and every report as PDF.

Your logo and terms come from the company profile, so they follow every document without anyone pasting them in.

Who gets emailed, and about what?

Suppliers are emailed when an order is published, an invoice is returned with your reason word for word, or a document of theirs is about to expire. Your own people are notified about mentions in discussions, approvals waiting on them, and documents expiring.

Email notifications for inventory are a $2/month add-on; in-app notifications are included.

Is there a manual inside the product?

Yes — a full manual for your staff, a separate one written for suppliers, and one for cost control, all in English and Arabic, with screenshots. They sit in the app rather than in a PDF that goes out of date.

This FAQ is the short version; the manuals are the long one.

How do we get help?

Raise a ticket from inside the app — categories for technical, billing, improvement, account and general questions, with a priority, image attachments and threaded replies. Or email support@stoksource.com.

A supplier's support tickets come to us, never to the buyer they work with.

Do you take feature requests?

Yes, through the same ticket system under Improvement. A good number of what is described in this document started as one.

If something in the product behaves in a way that surprises you, that is worth a ticket too — surprise usually means the product is wrong, not the person.

Where do our terms and signatures come from?

Your purchase order terms and conditions live in the company profile and print on every order. Your logo does the same on orders, reports and transfer lists.

A personal signature image is set by each person under their own profile, and appears when they sign an order.