ERP for distribution & trading. Order to cash for distributors, with credit, stock and VAT watched daily.
Order to cash for distributors: credit checked before the order ships, the right lot out first, and the money chased by how late it is.
From December 2026How does Kinnow help a distributor in the UAE or Saudi Arabia? Credit is checked before the order ships, not after. The earliest-expiry lot leaves the warehouse first, the tax invoice carries the TRN (tax registration number) and the VAT, and overdue customers get a reminder whose tone follows the days overdue. The UAE and Saudi Arabia edition starts from December 2026; this page describes what is built and what is not. Nothing is filed, paid or posted without a person.
Your business in one paragraph
A distributor buys from a principal, often imported through Jebel Ali or Dammam, and sells on credit to supermarkets, groceries, restaurants, contractors and trade counters. The margin is thin, so the money is made or lost in four places: how much credit goes out, how fast it comes back, which lot leaves the warehouse, and whether the VAT on imports and purchases is accounted for correctly. Reps visit outlets and take orders by phone and WhatsApp; the warehouse works from pick slips; the accountant reconciles at month-end. The same customer exists as a name in four places. Some groups trade through a mainland company and a free-zone company (one set up in a special business area) side by side.
Credit that lives in someone's head
A customer crosses the limit and the order still goes, because the check is a person remembering.
Receivables that age past 90 days
Reps chase the next order, not the last payment, and old invoices drift towards a write-off.
Imports and stock nobody can see
Goods in transit, near-expiry lines and slow movers tie up working capital until the stock count.
Bring your three biggest customers and we will show the credit check on their ledgers.
How your month runs on Kinnow
This is the order-to-collection loop, with the buying loop that feeds it. Amounts are in dirhams for UAE companies and riyals for Saudi companies.
| # | Step | Who | Application | Where a person signs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rep visits the outlet; the enquiry is entered and becomes a quotation | Sales rep | Sell, Field | Quotation approved before it converts |
| 2 | The order goes through the credit check: limit, overdue invoices, any hold placed by hand | Credit controller | Sell | Credit hold cleared by a person with the right; reason recorded |
| 3 | Approval ladder by order value (auto, sub-manager, manager, MD) | Sales manager, MD | Sell | Each tier signs its band |
| 4 | Stock allocated; pick list built with the earliest-expiry lot first | Warehouse supervisor | Stock & Ship | Pick confirmed; a lot other than the one suggested is flagged |
| 5 | Dispatch: delivery order, trip and delivery proof | Dispatch clerk, driver | Stock & Ship | Dispatch confirmed by a person |
| 6 | Invoice approved. The tax invoice carries your TRN, the customer's TRN where registered, and the VAT per line | Accounts executive | Account, Comply | Invoice approval |
| 7 | Driver or rep confirms delivery; the delivery order closes | Driver, rep | Field, Stock & Ship | Delivery confirmed |
| 8 | Collections: reminders by days overdue; receipts and post-dated cheques allocated to invoices | Collections executive | Account, Sell | Reminders above the amount you set go to a person |
| 9 | Replenish: reorder recommendations against open purchase orders; match bill, receipt and order | Procurement officer | Buy | Purchase orders above the limit need approval; the reviewer checks the reverse-charge set-up (where you account for the VAT yourself on a foreign supplier's invoice) when the supplier is outside the UAE |
| 10 | Month-end: VAT return data (groundwork completed before launch), close, payroll for reps and drivers | Finance head, tax adviser | Comply, Account, People | Return and close signed by a person |
The ready-made setup for your industry
The ready-made setup for distribution and trading (we call it an industry pack) exists in the app: 7 limits, 4 sign-off routes (who approves, in what order), 8 report codes, 10 starter questions for Ask Kinnow, 9 agents and 20 step-by-step routines. For UAE companies a country setup sits on top of it with 7 further limits, 3 VAT report codes and 13 starter questions. The figures are starting values held in your company currency; you set them to what a reviewer in your business wants to see.
| Limit (industry setup) | Effect | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| Customer credit limit above 1,000,000 | Needs approval | Credit is the distribution business; this is a lending decision |
| Sales order above 500,000 | Needs approval | A large order against existing exposure is where a receivable goes bad |
| Purchase order above 1,000,000 | Needs approval | Commits working capital to one principal |
| Manual journal above 500,000 | Needs approval | Moves the books without a source document |
| Lead entered above 2,000,000 | Warning | It moves the forecast the moment it is typed |
| Campaign budget above 200,000 | Warning | Brand spend sits outside the trading margin |
| Trade campaign with no audience | Warning | It reaches nobody and still spends the budget |
| Limit (UAE country setup) | Effect | Why it is there |
|---|---|---|
| VAT return with a large net payable | Needs approval | Filing is irreversible and the money leaves |
| Invoice above 500,000 | Needs approval | An invoice raised on a wrong assumption is credited and reissued, not edited |
| Purchase order above 500,000 | Needs approval | A supplier outside the UAE is self-accounted under reverse charge; the supplier must be set up correctly first |
| Stock write-off above 100,000 | Needs approval | Stock in a designated zone is outside UAE VAT while it sits there, so a write-off is a tax question too |
The UAE country setup also asks for approval on manual journals and on large payroll runs. The routines in the distribution setup include Order to collection, Replenishing the warehouse, Campaign to first order, Dispatch to delivery, Customer return to credit, Invoice correction by credit note and Stock transfer between warehouses. Reach (campaigns) is switched on by default.
Ask us to run your last month's overdue list through the Collections agent.
Agents for Distribution & Trading
Collections
Drafts overdue reminders and steps them up according to how many days a payment is actually late. A person approves each reminder before it goes out.
Credit-risk assessment
Reads a customer's payment history, outstanding trend and order frequency before an order is approved, and recommends approve, conditional or block for the approver.
Reorder Planner
Recommends how much to reorder and when. It skips an item that already has a draft reorder open, and it never raises a PO by itself.
StockFEFO/FIFO selector
A rule built into the pick list: it uses the lot that expires first (FEFO) or the one that came in first (FIFO), as you choose when the list is made, and checks again when the pick is confirmed.
StockSlow-mover Detector
Finds stock that has not moved for a set number of days and ranks it by the money tied up in it, so you can review it.
ReachReactivation / Winback
Finds buyers who have gone quiet, using your ledger, and drafts a message to win them back for a person to send.
Expiry Watchdog
Walks stock lots every night and marks those past expiry, so they stop being offered for sale.
Dead Stock Recovery
For each dead-stock item, works out the value at risk and suggests a transfer to another warehouse, a discount sale or a write-off. A person decides.
Each agent is validated with each client before it works on their books, and every output waits for a person.
Tax and compliance calendar for a distributor (UAE and Saudi Arabia)
Kinnow prepares; a person confirms and files. Due dates are not printed here because the authorities set and change them; Comply carries your calendar. The detail is on the UAE and Saudi Arabia compliance pages.
| Obligation | What Kinnow prepares | Who confirms |
|---|---|---|
| UAE VAT return (VAT-201) | Groundwork to build the return data from sales and purchases in your books, split by emirate, with zero-rated, exempt, reverse-charge and import rows, as a file for upload to the FTA (Federal Tax Authority) portal, completed before launch. Kinnow does not file for you | Accounts executive, tax adviser |
| UAE tax invoice | Checks the mandatory fields (supplier TRN, number, date, line tax) before the invoice goes out; an Arabic layout exists | Accounts executive |
| Imports and reverse charge | The return groundwork has rows for imported goods and reverse-charge purchases, filled from purchase bills marked as imports | Procurement officer, tax adviser |
| Saudi VAT return | Groundwork to prepare the return data from the books, completed before launch. The row layout is confirmed with your tax adviser before first use, and a person submits on the ZATCA (the Saudi tax authority) portal | Accounts executive, tax adviser |
| Wages | UAE: the WPS (wage-protection) salary file for your bank and the end-of-service accrual (the payout owed when staff leave), with pension contributions for UAE and GCC nationals. Saudi payroll is not in the first release | HR head |
What the owner sees
Typed into Ask Kinnow, each answer names its source report and what it cost before it runs.
- Which customers are over their credit limit? (Receivables ageing)
- What did we sell by brand last month? (Sales register)
- Show me pending sales orders by branch. (Pending sales orders)
- Which SKUs are dead stock? What is my warehouse stock worth right now? (Dead stock, Stock valuation)
- What VAT did I charge this quarter? Which supplier invoices are missing a TRN? (UAE VAT registers)
- Which purchases this quarter came from suppliers outside the UAE? (Buy)
- Which outlets have not ordered recently? (Lead pipeline by stage)
Illustration · sample data
| Customer | Outstanding (AED) | Limit (AED) | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Al Noor Trading, Dubai | 182,000 | 150,000 | On hold |
| Gulf Line Supplies, Sharjah | 96,000 | 100,000 | 96% of limit |
| Khalidiya Foods, Abu Dhabi | 31,000 | 80,000 | Within limit |
Numbers that matter
| Number | Report | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Receivables by age band | Receivables ageing | How much is past 60, 90 and 120 days, and with whom |
| Pending orders by branch | Pending sales orders | What is booked and not yet shipped |
| Dead and slow stock value | Dead stock, stock valuation | Capital that is not turning |
| Sales by brand and item group | Sales register, item-group yearly sales | Which principals and lines carry the year |
| VAT by rate for the quarter | UAE VAT rate summary | Standard, zero-rated and exempt sales side by side |
See the receivables ageing on a copy of your own ledger.
Questions
Can Kinnow stop orders to customers over their credit limit?
Yes. A sales order goes through a credit-hold check before dispatch; a party with an active credit hold cannot ship until someone with the right to clear it does, and the reason is recorded. Overdue beyond the stoppage limit (90 days by default, which you can change) puts a customer on stoppage.
Who approves an order, and for how much?
By default an order under 50,000 is approved automatically, up to 500,000 by a sub-manager, up to 2,000,000 by a manager, and above that by the MD, in your company currency. The distribution setup also asks for approval on any order above 500,000 and any credit limit above 1,000,000. All of these are figures you set.
Does Kinnow file my VAT return?
No. For a UAE company the groundwork to build the VAT-201 return data from your own books, with a file for upload, is completed before launch; a person submits it on the FTA portal. Saudi Arabia follows the same pattern, with the row layout confirmed with your adviser first.
Does it issue e-invoices to the authority?
Not in the first release. UAE e-invoicing has only the groundwork in place and Saudi ZATCA e-invoicing is planned after launch. Tax invoices are checked and issued from the approved invoice, with the TRN on every one.
Can we move our customers, price lists and opening stock from our current software?
Yes. Masters and opening balances are imported in the first week, and we go live alongside your current software until the month-end numbers tie.
What if an agent is wrong?
Every agent output waits for a person, shows what it used, and is validated with each client before it works on their books. Reject it and the reason is kept.
How long to set up?
About two weeks to first results for one company; several warehouses or companies go live one at a time.
Show me Kinnow for distribution & trading.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.