What Kila is and how it fits your business

Kila is the system a business runs on once it has outgrown the daftari: the till, stock, buying, customers on credit, M-Pesa and the books, for one branch or many. Kila is Swahili for “every”: every item, every shilling and every branch accounted for, so you can see the truth about the business without standing in every shop.

What Kila does

Kila is made of parts, and each business uses the ones it needs. These are the parts most businesses start with:

Part	What it covers
Point of sale	Tills, shifts, checkout, receipts, returns and quotations.
Stock	Every movement in and out, balances, adjustments, transfers and stock counts.
Purchasing	Suppliers, requisitions, quotations, purchase orders, receiving and supplier invoices.
Customers	Customer records, statements, price lists and history.
Credit	Customer credit accounts, limits, terms and debt ageing.
Books	Chart of accounts, double-entry ledger, periods and statements.
Reconciliation	Matching M-Pesa and bank statements, and looking into what does not match.

A sale on the till takes the goods off the stock and records the money, with its VAT, at the same time. Nobody has to copy it into a book at the end of the day.

How Kila fits your business

When you sign up, Kila’s first question is How do you mostly get paid? Your answer decides the screen your business works from and the kinds of business you choose from next.

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Your answer	For businesses such as
Scan and sell at the counter	Hardware, supermarkets and minimarts, electronics, pharmacies, agrovets, boutiques, wines and spirits, furniture, auto parts, cosmetics, bookshops, bakeries, butcheries, fresh produce, fuel stations, online retailers and general retail.
Orders, price lists, credit, delivery	Wholesalers and distributors: FMCG, beverages, pharmaceuticals, construction materials, farm inputs and route distribution.
Tables or tabs, menu, kitchen	Restaurants and cafes, takeaways, bars and lounges.
Rooms, reservations, the guest bill	Hotels, lodges and guest houses.
The diary of bookings	Salons and barbershops, spas, events venues.
Members, check-in, classes and renewals	Gyms and fitness studios.
Job cards: estimate, work, collection	Laundries, cleaners, garages, repairs, contractors, installers and caterers.
Quotes, time, invoices, retainers	Consultants, accounting firms, law firms, agencies, IT services and property managers.
Patient visits, consultation, dispensing	Clinics, dental and optical practices, laboratories and home care.
Production orders, recipes and parts lists, batches	Food production, manufacturing, assembly, farms and livestock.
Students, fees, terms	Schools, training centres, tutoring and daycare.
Trips, deliveries, vehicles, hire	Couriers, transport, warehousing and vehicle or equipment hire.

If your business does several of these, or none of them, choose Several of these or None of these. Kila then sets it up as General: “A curated start: add what you need.”

Rules some businesses must follow

Under Does your business also…, tick what else your business does. Each one switches on the controls the law and good practice expect: Sells alcohol adds the licence, age checks and licensed trading hours, and Dispenses medicines (a pharmacy counter) adds drug schedules, prescriptions, pharmacist sign-off, batches and expiry. The others cover farm chemicals, fresh food, patient records, fuel pumps and goods sold by weight.

Some kinds of business come with them: a restaurant starts with food safety, so that box is ticked and cannot be cleared.

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An owner can change them later: see how Kila fits your kind of business.

Kila speaks your business’s words

Kila uses the words your business uses. A shop has customers, products, sales and receipts, Kila’s standard words. A clinic has patients and bills, a salon has clients and visits, a hotel has guests and stays, a school has students and fee invoices, and a wholesaler has orders, invoices and depots. This Help Centre does the same once you choose your business.

Plans and your free trial

Every new business starts with a 14-day free trial, with no card needed. Plans are paid monthly, plus VAT:

Plan	A month	Branches	Users	Tills	Active products	Sales per month
Starter	KES 2,500	2	5	3	1,000	3,000
Business	KES 7,500	6	30	12	10,000	15,000
Growth	KES 14,500	12	50	24	50,000	60,000
Enterprise	Through sales	From 25	From 100	From 50	From 200,000	From 500,000

Starter is chosen to start with. Bigger plans add more parts: Business adds loyalty, staff, attendance and payroll, and Growth adds warehouses, delivery, layaway and an online store. See Switch on more features and change your plan.

Your workspace

Each business gets its own address, chosen when you sign up: <your business>.kilabiashara.co.ke. You and your team sign in there, each person with their own email and password, so Kila always knows who did what.

From sign-up to your first day

1. Sign up. Answer a few questions and Kila prepares your workspace, with your first branch and till.
2. Set up. The set-up checklist lists what to do next and ticks each step off as you do it.
3. Add your team. Each person gets their own sign-in and the roles that fit their job.
4. Add products and stock. One by one or from a spreadsheet, then what is on your shelves today.
5. Get ready to sell. How you take money, and the till’s printer, drawer and scanner.
6. Sell and close. Make your first sale, close the shift and read the day.

Related

• Sign up your business: create your workspace.
• Your set-up checklist: the twelve steps for a shop.
• Shops: how Kila works for a business that sells over a counter.
• General: when no one kind of business fits.

Next: Sign up your business.