← Back to blog

2026-11-06 · 15 sec video · 6 min read

Every Module, One Ledger: How Your Books Stay in Sync

Sales, deliveries, purchasing, payments, payroll and reconciliation all write to one ledger in Sentribooks. Here's how each module reaches your books.

Why one ledger matters

In most growing distribution businesses, every team has its own record of the truth. Sales has its order list, the warehouse has its stock sheet, and finance has the accounting software, fed by exports, re-typed invoices and month-end journals. Each record is right on its own terms, and they never quite agree.

Sentribooks takes a different approach: every module writes to the same ledger, as the work happens. There is one set of books, and every number in it traces back to the order, delivery, bill or payment that created it.

Sales orders, deliveries and invoices

Sales orders reserve the work, deliveries record what actually left the building, and the invoice follows the delivery. When an invoice is posted, Sentribooks writes the journal entry for it:

• Revenue for the goods and services sold.
• VAT on the sale, ready for your VAT report.
• The amount the customer owes, in accounts receivable.
• Cost of goods sold, calculated first-in, first-out from what you actually paid for that stock.

Sales credit notes reverse the right revenue, VAT and stock entries, so returns never leave a loose end.

Payments and advance payments

Customer payments by cash, bank transfer or cheque are recorded against the invoices they settle, and each method posts to the right account. Cheques can be held as cheques receivable until they're deposited.

When a customer pays in advance, the money is held as a customer advance, a liability rather than revenue, until it's applied to an invoice. Refunds and customer credits post their own entries too.

Purchasing, bills and supplier credits

Purchase orders and supplier bills post to inventory or expenses and to accounts payable. Supplier payments clear what you owe. Purchase credit notes, whether for returned quantities or price reductions, adjust both what you owe and the cost of the stock involved, so your margins stay accurate.

Expenses and payroll

Expenses post as they're recorded, including when they're paid in cash, and can be allocated to the right accounts. Payroll works the same way: payslips create bills for each employee, posted to the right expense accounts, so salaries appear in your profit and loss without separate journal work.

Inventory and the warehouse

Opening stock is valued and posted to the ledger when you set up each item, and each receipt of stock becomes a cost layer. When goods are sold, those layers determine the cost of goods sold, so the stock value on your balance sheet and the stock in your warehouse come from the same records. Inventory reconciliation then compares counted stock with system stock.

Reconciliation, and why the ledger stays locked in

Bank statements are imported and matched to the payments already in your books. Once a transaction is reconciled, it's locked: it can't be edited or deleted without undoing the reconciliation first. VAT works the same way. Once a VAT period is closed, the documents in it can't be changed unless an administrator explicitly allows it.

That's what 'locked-in' means. The ledger isn't just complete, it's protected from quiet changes after the fact.

Reports that read straight from the ledger

Because every module writes to one ledger, the reports are always current: trial balance, general ledger, profit and loss, balance sheet, cost of goods sold and financial health ratios. There's no separate reporting database to refresh, and no month-end catch-up before the numbers are trustworthy.

Try it free for 30 days

See every module write to one ledger in your own company. Start your free 30-day trial at sentribooks.com, or read the full product overview in Introducing Sentribooks.

Video transcript

Read the full transcript

On-screen text: Accounting. Deliveries. Payroll. Reconciliation. Advance Payments. Warehouse. Inventory. Reports. Balance Sheet. Profit & Loss. Inventory Reconciliation. Purchasing. Invoices. Sales Orders.

Every module. One locked-in ledger.

Start your free trial at sentribooks.com.