ERP for tech / saas. Subscriptions, SLAs and revenue recognition on the same ledger.
A software product company builds once and sells many times. Kinnow keeps the backlog, releases, customer agreements, support tickets and revenue in one set of books, so renewals, SLAs (the service promises you give customers) and deferred revenue stop living in separate tools. The UK edition opens in early 2027 and the industry setup is completed with early-access customers.
From early 2027How does Kinnow help a software product company in the UK? The ready-made setup for your industry (we call it an industry pack) is Tech Product Development. It runs the backlog, sprints and releases, with test results required before a release ships; customer agreements as service contracts with renewal alerts; support tickets that follow SLA plans and can be passed into the backlog; and revenue recognition from the contract. Kinnow checks VAT invoices and has the groundwork in place, completed before launch, to draft the nine-box VAT return for a person to file. Nothing is billed, filed or paid without a person.
Your company, in one paragraph.
You build once and sell many times. Your money comes from customer agreements, annual or monthly, and from services around them. Your costs are engineers and the cloud bill. Deferred revenue is matched by hand between the billing tool and the books, a missed support promise turns up in an angry email instead of on a dashboard, and the board pack takes a week of exports from five systems. Each invoice carries VAT, and the quarter's return depends on those invoices being right.
Three things keep the founder awake: a renewal that lapsed without anyone deciding it, work started and never released, and a customer who raised the same issue four times before anyone saw the pattern.
How your month runs on Kinnow
Three ready-made routines matter most here: Trial to renewal, Idea to release and Campaign to trial.
| Step | Who | What Kinnow does | Where a person approves |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Campaign to trial | Growth lead | A campaign needs a named audience and is approved before it goes live; sign-ups are contacted within 48 hours. You get reports on campaigns, lead sources and how many people reach each stage of the funnel. | A campaign budget above a value you set needs approval. A campaign with no audience is blocked. |
| 2. Trial to customer agreement | Sales lead | The sales pipeline takes a trial through activation, plan quoted, negotiation and won. A won deal becomes a service contract with value, billing cycle and end date. | A large deal, above a value you set, raises a warning. |
| 3. Invoice and collect | Finance | You raise invoices in Sell on the cycle you choose, and Kinnow checks them for the details a VAT invoice needs. The customer sees them in the customer portal and can raise a query. | A credit limit above a value you set needs approval; a wrong invoice is put right with a credit note, not re-issued. |
| 4. Plan and build | Product owner | Ideas enter the backlog as epics, stories and tasks with estimates and a reference to the requirement. They are given to a sprint and a release, and followed on a board. | A build above a value you set needs the product owner. |
| 5. Test and ship | Engineering lead | A fix cannot be marked resolved without a test report. A release can go out with a known gap only with a sign-off from a named person who is accountable for it. | Release sign-off by the role you name. |
| 6. Support | Support lead | Each ticket has a response time and a fix time from its SLA plan; one outside a plan is blocked. A ticket can be passed into the backlog, where it waits on hold until the fix lands. | The customer confirms before closure. |
| 7. Renew | Customer success | Renewal alerts go out at 60, 30 and 7 days before a contract ends. A score flags customers most likely to leave. | A senior person approves the renewal. |
| 8. Recognise revenue | Controller | Kinnow splits a contract into its separate promises (performance obligations), builds the schedule of when revenue is earned, and a monthly run posts the entry and the deferred balance. | A manager activates each contract. |
| 9. Close and prepare VAT | Accounts head | Twelve month-end checks, seven of which must pass. The groundwork to draft the nine-box VAT return for review is completed before launch; Kinnow does not send it to HMRC. | A person closes the books; a person signs off the VAT return and then files it. |
Bring one release and one renewal; we will follow each from the backlog and the contract through to your books.
What "subscription" means in Kinnow
The page title says subscriptions, so here is exactly what that covers.
A customer agreement is a service contract: value, billing cycle (annual, quarterly or monthly), start and end dates and a renewal alert. Your team raises the invoices through Sell, and the revenue schedule recognises the contract evenly over its term or by milestone.
Built
Service contracts with renewal alerts, invoices on any cycle, a customer portal, payment links from the payment gateway application, and revenue contracts split into their separate promises with a deferred balance.
Not built
A plan catalogue, usage metering, automatic recurring invoice runs, and MRR, ARR or cohort churn dashboards. Do not buy Kinnow expecting a billing engine; expect books that know your contracts.
What the Tech Product Development setup includes
| Safeguard | Setting | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Build commitment (project value) | Above a value you set | Product owner approves |
| Issue resolved without a test report | Always | Blocked |
| Release without full test evidence | Always | Needs release sign-off |
| Campaign without an audience | Always | Blocked |
| Campaign budget | Above a value you set | Approval |
| Ticket outside an SLA plan | Always | Blocked |
| Customer credit limit | Above a value you set | Approval |
| Open deal value | Above a value you set | Warning |
| Manual journal | Above a value you set | Approval |
We set the values with you when you start, in pounds, to what your company wants reviewed.
Seventeen processes come switched on with five lists of who signs off, in order: build, campaign budget, journal, credit limit and release. Eleven starter questions for Ask Kinnow and nine reports come with the industry setup, among them the project list, milestone status, ticket list, campaign list, funnel by stage, lead source performance and requirement traceability.
What the UK country setup adds
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| VAT return sign-off | A named person signs the nine-box return before anyone files it |
| Large VAT invoice | Read by a second person before it is raised; a credit note puts it right, not a re-issue |
| Marketing campaign with no audience | Blocked, so a record of consent under the marketing-consent rules (PECR) is kept |
| Manual journal | A second person signs, and the link to digital records is kept |
| Payroll run sign-off | A second person approves the run |
Agents for a software product company
SLA Alert
Flags a ticket that is about to miss its response or fix time.
Churn Sentinel
Gives every active customer a health score each night and flags the ones most at risk of leaving.
Contract Renewal Watch
Checks contracts nearing their end date so a renewal conversation is booked before one lapses.
Project Risk
Scores the risk of delay and of running through the budget, from milestones.
Campaign Strategist
Designed to draft a campaign brief from your goal and your own data, such as gaps in your sales pipeline, customers who have gone quiet and the time of year.
Sell + AccountCollections
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.
AccountAI Invoice Extractor
Reads the text of a supplier invoice and fills in the bill for you, checking that the amounts add up before anything is saved.
KnowAnomaly Detector
Checks nine business figures for unusual movements whenever an administrator or your scheduler starts a scan, and lists them in the Anomaly Feed, most serious first.
A weekly Executive Digest sums up the business for the founder. Every agent is validated with each client before it works on their books, and every output waits for a person.
Ask us which two agents would pay back first in a company your size.
Compliance calendar for a UK software product company
VAT comes first in the UK edition. Kinnow prepares and tracks; people file. Your adviser confirms each date, because dates and rules change.
| Obligation | When it falls | What Kinnow does |
|---|---|---|
| VAT return | One calendar month and seven days after the period ends. You set your HMRC stagger group (the quarter pattern HMRC gave the company: 1, 2 or 3) when you start; Kinnow does not guess it, and monthly filers are supported | Groundwork to build the nine-box VAT return and its file from the sales and purchase records, completed before launch. Boxes 2, 8 and 9 apply to Northern Ireland only, and the draft says so. Kinnow does not send it: a person files through recognised software or HMRC. Your adviser confirms each box before first use |
| VAT invoice | On every invoice | Checks the supplier VAT number, date, running number, customer name, VAT shown in sterling and tax point. Standard 20%, reduced 5% and zero rates are supported, with the reverse charge on cross-border business supplies. VAT rates come from a starter list of items; the full HMRC list is not loaded |
| VAT number check | When a supplier or customer is added | Checks the format and the HMRC check digit, which catches swapped digits |
| Payroll | Monthly | PAYE income tax (tax taken from pay each month), employee and employer National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan plans, worked out in a payroll run a second person approves; Scottish income tax bands supported. Rates are kept for each tax year and checked against HMRC with your adviser before first use |
| Confirmation statement and annual accounts | Confirmation statement every year; accounts nine months after the accounting reference date for a private company | Tracked as jobs with reminders. Kinnow does not prepare or file them at Companies House |
| Corporation tax return | Return 12 months after the period ends; tax payable nine months and one day after | Tracked with reminders. Kinnow does not work out the tax or prepare the return |
| ICO data protection fee | Every year | Tracked with a reminder |
What the founder can ask
| Ask Kinnow | The answer comes from |
|---|---|
| Which releases have slipped their dates? | Project milestone status |
| What are customers raising most often? | Ticket list |
| Where is the funnel losing people? | Funnel by stage |
| Which growth campaigns are live? | Campaign list |
| Which backlog items cite no requirement? | Requirement traceability |
| Show me churn risk by account | Customer health scores |
| Which of my customers are not VAT registered? | VAT sales register |
| When is my next VAT return due? | Compliance calendar |
Each answer shows its source and cost before it runs. Veil, our privacy layer, holds back bank, tax and ID numbers and swaps names for placeholders before an AI call. It covers Ask Kinnow and most agents today; the rest are being added.
See the funnel, the renewals and the next VAT date on one screen.
Questions
Can Kinnow run our subscription billing?
Not as a billing engine. A customer agreement is a service contract with a billing cycle, an end date and renewal alerts, invoices are raised through Sell, and payment links can collect the money. Plans, usage metering and MRR dashboards are not built.
Can it recognise subscription revenue?
Yes. Kinnow splits a revenue contract into its separate promises, builds the schedule of when each is earned, and a monthly run posts the entry and the deferred balance. A manager activates each contract.
Will Kinnow file our VAT return?
No. The groundwork to build the nine-box return and file from your sales and purchase records is completed before launch, and a named person signs it off. A person then files it through recognised software or HMRC. Your adviser confirms each box before first use.
Can it replace our issue tracker?
For light use. Epics, stories, sprints, releases and components are there, with test results required before a fix is marked resolved. Source code and your build-and-release tooling (CI/CD) stay in your DevOps tools.
What happens when an SLA is about to be missed?
Each ticket sits on an SLA plan with a response time and a fix time. Kinnow blocks a ticket that is outside a plan, and an alert flags tickets about to miss their time.
Can my team use it from a phone?
It works in the phone browser. There is no separate mobile app.
How long does set-up take?
About two weeks to first results for one company once the UK edition opens in early 2027: your client and account lists (Masters), contracts and opening balances in the first week, agents switched on and a first close in the second.
Show me Kinnow for tech / saas.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.