Accounting software for distributors, on one stock-aware ledger
Sales, purchase, nominal and stock ledgers on the same database as your orders and deliveries — MTD VAT to HMRC, multi-company, multi-currency. Cloud or on-premise.
What goes wrong when accounting sits on a separate island.
The same patterns show up in almost every distributor whose ledger lives outside their order-to-cash flow — and at least one of them is yours.
Manual rekeying between systems
Invoices, receipts and credit notes typed once in the field, again in the order system, a third time in the accounts package. Every keystroke drifts the books from the operation.
Month-end is a fire drill
Three to five days reconciling the bank in a spreadsheet, VAT figures cobbled from multiple files, last month’s close never quite signed off. The team works late for numbers that are already stale.
Mismatched ledgers across entities
Inter-company postings keyed twice and drifting either side. FX revaluation done at month-end with stale rates. Group consolidation becomes a quarterly clean-up project, not a routine close.
Late invoicing delays the cash
Driver dockets sit in a tray until someone keys them up. Customers are invoiced days after delivery, dispute what they can, pay later still — every day of delay stretches the time it takes to collect, with cash stuck in a paper pile.
How RouteMagic solves it
One ledger, wired into the operation.
An ERP-grade ledger built for distributors and wholesalers — not retrofitted from a generic accounts package.
Sales & Purchase Ledger (AR / AP)
Accounts receivable and accounts payable sit on one screen — customer and supplier accounts aged, allocated, paid and reconciled, with credit control flags built in. Every invoice and payment posts once, so the sales and purchase ledgers stay in step instead of drifting across three systems.
Browsewildcard search & filter
Cash inputwith allocation
Auto-payBACS & remittance
Nominal Ledger, cashbook & bank reconciliation
The nominal (general) ledger, recurring postings, bank reconciliation and period close live in one place. Statements import or paste in and match in minutes, not days; period and year-end run on one clock, so there’s no exporting to a separate ledger.
Cashbookwith bank rec
Recurringpostings & revaluation
Year-endone-click close
Stock control, batch tracking & valuation
Finance and ops read the same multi-location stock record, valued live. Batch traceability sits on every line, so quantities and price categories always agree.
Batch trackedsupplier ↔ customer
Multi-locationassignments
Price categoriesper customer / region
Order processing, authorisation & document store
Order, delivery and invoice match, then route for authorisation and email from one trail. Scans store against the transaction, so nothing is re-keyed and nothing gets lost.
3-way matchorder/delivery/invoice
Authorisationworkflow per role
Document StorePDFs attached
Making Tax Digital, VAT & multi-jurisdiction
File VAT 100 digitally to HMRC, with Making Tax Digital handled inside the ledger. PVA, Brexit and Northern Ireland are taken in stride — multi-jurisdiction without the workarounds.
MTD VAT 100digital submission
PVA-awareBox 1 / 4 / 7
Multi-entitygroup VAT
Multi-company, multi-currency & live dashboards
Group ledgers and inter-company postings consolidate without spreadsheets. FX revaluation runs in place, and you build the live dashboard the way you want to read it.
Multi-companyshared masters
Multi-currencybase + transaction
Dashboardsdrag-drop, drill-down
Outcomes
What changes once the ledger sits on the operation.
Representative results when distributors move off a spreadsheet-plus-accounts-package stack.
~15 minTo reconcile the bank (was 3–5 days)1 clickTo submit MTD VAT 100 to HMRC0CSV bridges between order and ledger1 hrTo close the monthly books (was days)
Customer spotlight
How Barnies Foods replaced paper invoicing — and got the numbers to make fact-based decisions.
Before RouteMagic, Barnies’ sales representatives wrote each invoice into a paper duplicate book, then the office keyed every line a second time — hours of admin a day, errors and delays the only thing that scaled. Now drivers issue invoices on the handheld at the doorstep, the office sees them instantly, and historical sales feed demand forecasting. The ledger sees every sale, return and payment as it happens.
From FMCG to pharmaceutical wholesale, the leak shows up differently in every distribution sector — multi-channel, multi-entity or regulated SKUs. Find yours to see how Clarity fits.
The ones that come up most often. Book a walkthrough for anything else.
Is RouteMagic Clarity the same as Dataflow Clarity?
Yes. Dataflow Clarity is the accounting platform RouteMagic acquired and now ships as RouteMagic Clarity. Same engine, same modules, same MTD compliance — now natively connected to RouteMagic OMS, WMS, TMS and ePOD so the order-to-ledger loop closes on one platform.
Which ledgers do I have to license?
Clarity is modular. Most groups start with Sales or Purchase Ledger, then add Nominal, Stock, Document Store, MTD and inter-company as the rollout matures. You only pay for the modules you license — dashboards filter to those automatically.
Cloud or on-premise?
Both. Clarity runs on-premise today and cloud when you’re ready — same database, same screens. Most groups stay on-premise during pilot and migrate at year-end.
Does Clarity submit VAT 100 digitally to HMRC?
Yes — full Making Tax Digital (MTD) support. VAT periods are configured on a calendar, the system rolls them forward automatically, and submission is one button after period close. Sandbox connectivity testing is built in.
How does it handle Brexit, PVA and Northern Ireland?
Postponed VAT Accounting (PVA) codes are supported (Box 1 / 4 / 7 mapping). EC Sales / Intrastat are retired for GB exports post-Brexit; Northern Ireland VAT is treated separately per HMRC rules.
Can we run multiple companies and currencies on one platform?
Yes. Multi-company is native — switch the active entity from the toolbar, share masters where you want them, keep them per-entity where you don’t. Base + transaction currency on every record; account revaluation runs at any chosen FX rate, with FX gain / loss posted automatically.
Does it integrate with our existing banking and ERP?
Yes. CSV import for bank statements (or right-click paste); BACS output for automatic payments; document watch-folder for scanned invoices. Open Banking integration is built and pending FCA approval. REST API for downstream systems.
What accounting software is recommended by HMRC for VAT?
HMRC requires Making Tax Digital (MTD)-compatible software for VAT-registered businesses, and Clarity is built for it: VAT 100 is submitted digitally to HMRC straight from the ledger, with sandbox connectivity tested before your first live return. Postponed VAT Accounting (PVA), Brexit codes and Northern Ireland rules are handled in the same place.
What is the best accounting software for distributors and wholesalers?
For a distributor or wholesaler, the best fit is a stock-aware ledger that runs on the same database as orders, deliveries and inventory — so sales post live to accounts receivable, goods received to accounts payable, the bank reconciles in minutes and VAT submits to HMRC, with no CSV bridge to a separate accounts package. That is the job Clarity is purpose-built for, where generic small-business accounting and horizontal billing tools stop at the invoice.
Is there route accounting software for distributors who sell off the van?
Yes. Where invoices are raised at the doorstep, van sales and ePOD capture the sale, cash and signed proof on the handheld, and each one posts straight into the Clarity sales ledger — no driver dockets to re-key. Order-to-cash from order management flows in the same way.
What does a distributor ledger do that a generic accounts package can’t?
A generic accounts package treats stock and the books as separate systems bridged by overnight CSV files. Clarity values stock and posts the books on one database, so finance and operations read the same record. For the warehouse half, it pairs with warehouse management and inventory management; for the vertical fit, see wholesale distribution. Groups migrating from Sage 50 keep their chart of accounts and gain the live order-to-ledger loop.
See it on your own books
Ready to close the loop from order to ledger?
Walk-through on a chart of accounts shaped like yours
30 minutes
We’ll ask about your entities, VAT setup & current accounts package first
