Guides on ERPNext, inventory and accounting, written for Kenyan SMEs.

GETTING STARTED · 6 MIN READ

5 signs your business has outgrown spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are a fine way to start a business. They stop being fine at a fairly predictable point — usually when more than one person needs to update the same numbers, or when the business has more than one location. Here's how to tell you've reached that point.

1. Two versions of the same file exist

If your stock sheet or sales tracker has ever been named "final," "final_v2" or "final_use_this_one," that's not a filing problem — it's a sign that more than one person needs live, shared access to the same data, which spreadsheets aren't built for.

2. Month-end takes longer than it should

If closing the books involves manually copying numbers between a stock sheet, a sales sheet and an accounting sheet, every one of those copy steps is a place errors get introduced — and a place staff time gets spent doing work a system should do automatically.

3. You can't answer "how much stock do we actually have" without walking to the store

A system that updates stock the moment a sale or purchase is recorded means that question can be answered from a desk, at any branch, at any time.

4. Someone leaving the business takes knowledge with them

If pricing logic, supplier terms or approval steps live in one person's head — or one person's personal spreadsheet formulas — the business is exposed every time that person is on leave, sick, or moves on.

5. You've started avoiding certain reports because they take too long to build

If nobody has looked at gross margin by product line in three months because building that report from spreadsheets takes half a day, decisions are being made with less information than the business actually has available.

None of these mean the business is badly run — they mean the tools have stopped matching the size of the operation. That's a normal, fixable transition, and it's exactly what an ERP system like ERPNext is built to solve.

INVENTORY · 6 MIN READ

Inventory management in ERPNext: stock levels, reorder points and batches

Stock accuracy problems almost always trace back to one of three settings being left at their defaults. Here's what each one actually controls.

Reorder level and reorder quantity

These two numbers, set per item and per warehouse, tell ERPNext when to flag that an item needs restocking, and roughly how much to order. Set too low, and you run out before anyone notices. Set generically across every item, and you tie up cash in slow-moving stock. These should be reviewed per item based on how fast it actually moves — not left at a single default across the whole catalogue.

Batch and serial tracking

Batch tracking groups stock by production run or intake date — essential for anything with an expiry date, or where you need to trace a defect back to a specific batch. Serial tracking follows individual units, useful for equipment or high-value items. Turning either on for items that don't need it adds unnecessary data entry; leaving it off for items that do need it removes your ability to trace problems later.

Valuation method

ERPNext supports several stock valuation methods, including moving average and FIFO. The choice affects your cost of goods sold and, therefore, your reported margins — this is a decision to make with your accountant, before go-live, not something to change casually afterwards.

Stock reconciliation, done properly

Before go-live, a physical stock count should be entered as a stock reconciliation to establish accurate opening quantities. After go-live, periodic counts — monthly or quarterly depending on the business — keep the system honest against what's actually on the shelf.

Get these four right, and the stock figures on screen will match what's physically in the store — which is the entire point of tracking inventory in the first place.

INFRASTRUCTURE · 5 MIN READ

Cloud-hosted vs self-hosted ERPNext: which one fits your business?

Both options run the same software — the difference is where it lives and who's responsible for keeping it running. The right choice usually comes down to three questions.

How reliable is your internet connection?

Cloud hosting means your system is accessed over the internet from wherever you are — convenient for multi-branch businesses, but it means an internet outage at your premises stops staff from working. Self-hosting on a local server keeps the system running on your local network even if the internet drops, though remote access then needs to be configured separately.

Do you have in-house IT capacity?

Self-hosting gives you full control over the server, but that server needs monitoring, backups and security patching — either by in-house IT staff or a support contract. Cloud hosting shifts most of that responsibility to the hosting provider, at a monthly cost.

Are there specific data residency requirements?

Some businesses — particularly in regulated sectors — need company data to stay within Kenya or within their own premises. That points toward self-hosting or a Kenya-based cloud provider, rather than an international default.

Our general recommendation

For most small and medium businesses with a handful of staff and a reasonably reliable internet connection, cloud hosting is the lower-effort starting point — it removes the need to manage server hardware. Larger operations, or those with strict data residency needs, are usually better served by a self-hosted or locally-hosted setup with a proper backup and support arrangement in place. Either way, this is a decision worth making deliberately during the discovery phase, not defaulting into.