The van goes out loaded. What comes back has to add up.
Stock goes out on credit. Cash, MoMo and cheque come back from the field. The gap between the two is where the month is lost.
Darikoda is the operating record between the load-out and the close-out. Credit checked before the stock moves. Every van reconciled and signed at the door. The day closed before the agent goes home. Captured at source.
Darikoda gives Ghana distributors a signed operating record for every van and every drop. Credit checked before stock leaves, close-out reconciled against cash, MoMo and cheque, proof of delivery on every drop, the variance in front of the owner the same day. Captured at source, built offline-first.
In 30 seconds
- Who it is for: FMCG, beverage and consumer-goods distributors in Ghana running vans, promoters and credit customers.
- What it protects: the credit book, the close-out, proof of delivery, the cash that comes back.
- First step: a free 30-minute audit. A one-page leakage map for your operation. You keep it either way.
Best fit: distributors running consignment vans or promoters, credit-account customers and multi-drop routes, where the gap between stock out and cash in decides the month.
Weak fit: a cash-and-carry counter with no field force and no credit book, where there is nothing between the sale and the till to reconcile.
Pick your specialisation
Which are you?
This vertical splits into specialisations. Pick the seat that matches yours. Each view is written for it, not adapted from a generic one.
What makes distribution different.
Fast-moving stock. Thin margin per case. A field force spread across a region you cannot watch. Credit customers who settle late, or not at all. Cash, MoMo and cheque taken at the roadside and carried back by hand. Returns, damages and empties, all of it counted before a thing reconciles.
The order is keyed. The van is loaded. The route runs. Then the reconciliation happens hours later at a desk, from memory and a stack of paper. By the time loaded, sold, returned and collected are made to meet, the day is already an argument.
The credit book is your money on the street. The close-out is the margin.
The credit gate holds the book at the load bay. The close-out holds the margin at the door. Neither one survives a reconciliation done from memory at a desk hours later.
What the sheet shows, and what you can prove.
What surfaces
Order booked for a supermarket account, van loaded, route dispatched.
What doesn't
The account went past its credit limit last week. Nobody checked, so the stock rolled out anyway. The exposure grows by one more order.
What surfaces
Van returns at close, sales sheet handed in, cash bagged.
What doesn't
Whether the sold, returned and damaged counts add back to what was loaded. The gap sits inside a total no one reconciled at the van.
What surfaces
A promoter reports strong sales on the north route this week.
What doesn't
That the same route runs a repeating short every Friday. The pattern only exists if someone has been keeping the history.
What surfaces
Delivery marked complete on the manifest.
What doesn't
Whether that drop was signed for, photographed and located. When the customer says it never arrived, there is nothing to put on the table.
What surfaces
MoMo, cash and cheque collected across the day.
What doesn't
Which collection matches which invoice, and which one is over or short before the agent leaves the counter.
These are the shorts that show up at the desk after the van has already gone home.
The day is closed once, and closed straight.
The five numbers, checked against each other. The variance is named at the van, not reconstructed at a desk the next morning.
ARCHETYPE 1 · LEAD SEGMENT
If you own the distributorship.
You carry the credit book. You fund the stock, and you wear the loss when a van comes back light or an account goes bad. Vans, promoters, credit customers, spread across a region. People you trust to bring the right numbers back from the places you never get to.
The margin is thin per case. You make it back on volume and on discipline. Discipline is the part that leaks. It leaks in the field, where you cannot watch it. You hear about it once the day is already closed.
What you care about
Credit exposure across your accounts
Every order released on credit is your money out on the street. When an account drifts past its limit, the next order should stop for a decision, not quietly add to the exposure.
The space between stock out and cash in
Between what leaves the depot and what comes back as cash, MoMo and cheque, the whole month sits. It has to be a record you can open. Not a total someone rebuilds at a desk that night.
The agent variance you cannot see from the office
You will never ride every van. The record does the watching you cannot: a running history of each agent's close-outs, so a repeating short shows up on your screen before it turns into a write-off. A safety net, not a tracker on a person.
Bad debt and the slow payer
The account that always settles late and the account that will not settle again look identical, until the credit history sits in one place.
Cash discipline in the field
Cash, MoMo and cheque collected at the roadside, each matched to an invoice, each flagged over or short before the agent walks away from the counter.
One number you trust at close of day
A GREEN or RED read before you leave, and an end-of-day summary of loaded against sold against collected. One read you did not have to count again yourself.
Proof point
A credit decision made before the stock leaves. A close-out you can read at a glance. An agent history that shows you the pattern without a confrontation. If a van came back short tonight, would you know before it loads again in the morning?
The exposure stops at the load bay, not at the ledger.
An over-limit order holds for a decision before the van is loaded. The stock and the money stay in the depot until someone releases them.
ARCHETYPE 2 · SALES AND DEPOT MANAGER
If you run the field force.
Load-out in the morning, routes through the day, close-out at night. Vans, promoters, multi-drop routes, and a reconciliation that lands on your desk whether or not the numbers were ever made to meet. You make them add up. When they do not, you hear it first.
What you care about
Load-out that waits for the credit check
The gate is at the load bay. An order for an over-limit account holds for a decision before the van is loaded, so the exposure never leaves the depot.
A consignment close-out under a minute
The count that left against the count that came back. Reconciled at the van and signed on the spot, with the cash panel matched to the count.
Multi-drop routes with proof of delivery
Each drop carries a photo, a signature and a location. The manifest is not complete until the proof is attached to the drop it belongs to.
Returns, damages and empties
Counted into the close-out, not scribbled on the back of the sheet and lost by the next morning.
The end-of-day summary
The day closes with one reconciled view of loaded against sold against collected, ready before anyone goes home.
Proof point
A signed close-out for every van in under a minute. A route that is not marked done until the drop is proven. A dispatch that does not roll until the check is green.
What we don't fix
Software will not make a short disappear.
Distribution runs on trust, out in places the owner never gets to. Darikoda does not change that. What it changes is the record. The gap between what was loaded and what came back stops being an argument at the end of the day and becomes a written, signed, time-stamped account of it. The variance comes up with the evidence attached. What you do about it is yours to decide.
It is not a point-of-sale system. It does not run your accounting, your ledger, your pricing or your payroll. It is the operating record under the field force. Who loaded what, who sold what, who collected what, and where the numbers stopped agreeing. The account and the ledger stay where they are. Darikoda gives you the field record they were never built to hold.
We built distribution from the same operating record that runs the mining and construction fleets, not a distribution feature list bolted on after. New payment methods, new route shapes, new account types slot into the record that is already there. The audit finds which part of your operation is leaking before anything gets configured.
The count is taken once, and taken where it happens.
Returns, damages and empties counted into the close-out at the van, not reconstructed from paper at a desk hours later.
02 / The platform · applied to distribution
Three engines, applied to distribution.
The same operating-record logic that runs underneath every Darikoda deployment, surfaced in the vocabulary of the van, the route and the credit book.
Credit gate on order release
Every order is checked against the account's limit before the stock is released. Over-limit orders hold for a decision at the depot, so the exposure never rides out on the van. The credit book stops being a number you reconcile after the fact.
Consignment close-out in under a minute
Loaded, sold, returned, damaged, should-remain, counted. Each van is reconciled at the door and signed on the spot, with a cash panel that matches cash, MoMo and cheque against the count and flags the over or the short before the agent leaves.
Proof of delivery on every drop
Multi-drop routes where each delivery carries a photo, a signature and a location. The drop is not done until the proof is attached. Challenge it a week later and the photo, the signature and the spot it was dropped are already on it.
Where the day stops leaking.
An order for an over-limit account
Old way
The order is keyed, the van is loaded, the route goes out. The credit position is checked days later against a ledger at the office, by which time the stock and the exposure are already on the road. The account keeps ordering.
On Darikoda
The order meets the credit gate at the load bay. Over the limit, it holds for a decision before a single case is loaded. The person who can release it makes the call with the account history in front of them.
Held before load-out
the credit decision happens at the depot, not in a reconciliation days later.
The van comes back at close of day
Old way
The agent hands in a sales sheet and a bag of cash. The reconciliation is done from memory and paper an hour later at a desk. Loaded, sold, returned and collected are four numbers that were never made to meet. The short, if there is one, is buried in the total.
On Darikoda
The close-out runs at the door in under a minute. Every count is reconciled on the spot, the cash panel matches cash, MoMo and cheque to the count, and the agent signs the result before leaving.
Signed at the door
the variance is named while the agent and the stock are still in front of you.
A customer disputes a delivery
Old way
The manifest says the drop was completed. The customer says it never arrived, or arrived short. The record is a tick on a printed sheet. There is no photo, no signature and no location to settle it, so the credit note gets written to keep the account.
On Darikoda
The drop carries a photo, a signature and a location, captured at the door. When the account disputes it, the proof is already sitting on the record.
Proof on the drop
photo, signature and location on every delivery, ready when a drop is challenged.
One reconciled read before anyone goes home.
A GREEN or RED status on the day, and an end-of-day summary of loaded against sold against collected. No re-counting the field by hand.
Built so the record survives the day.
- Every load-out, sale and collection is saved on the device first and syncs when the signal returns. The field force does not wait for a network to record the day.
- You can always see whether a close-out has reached the office yet. No more wondering whether the van's numbers went through.
- Every action is attributed to a person, a role, a device and a time. No silent edits to a close-out after it is signed.
- Shared devices use PIN-level attribution, so no agent is logged in as another and every count carries its owner.
- Failed syncs from the field become visible issues, not silent gaps in the day's reconciliation.
- The account and the ledger stay where they are. Darikoda gives you the reconciled field record they were never built to capture.
Find where your operation loses stock and cash.
Free 30-minute audit on WhatsApp. A one-page leakage map for your operation. You keep it either way.
Built for the route
The field does not wait for a signal.
Routes run through places where the network drops. A close-out at a roadside counter cannot wait for four bars before it saves. Every load-out, sale, collection and drop is written on the device first and syncs when the signal returns. The agent records the day as it happens. Nothing is lost to a dead zone.
Offline-first is not a setting we switched on for Ghana. It is how the operating record was built. The numbers get made in the field. The field is where the signal drops out.
Cross-vertical reach
The same operating record runs the fleet and the field force.
Distribution sits next to the heavy-industry story, on the same operating record that runs mining, construction and civils in Ghana. A machine hour, a chainage, a consignment. Each is an event someone captured where it happened, tied to the person who did it and the money it moved. Know the thesis from one vertical and you know it here.
Native vocabulary
Darikoda speaks the language of the van and the route.
Consignment load-out and close-out. Van sales and promoter stock. Credit limits and account exposure. Cash, MoMo and cheque with over and short. Returns, damages and empties. Multi-drop routes with proof of delivery. The GREEN or RED dispatch gate and the end-of-day summary.
Not a translation layer over generic sales software. This is the native vocabulary of the operating record, spoken the way a Ghana distributor runs the day.
Distribution-specific FAQ.
Common questions from distributor owners and the managers who run the field force.
Does Darikoda replace my accounting or ERP?
No. Darikoda is the operating record underneath the field force, not your ledger. It captures who loaded what, who sold what, who collected what, and where the numbers stopped matching. Your accounting stays where it is. What Darikoda gives you is the reconciled field record your books were never built to capture on their own.
Full comparison: Darikoda vs ERP, trackers and spreadsheetsDo you integrate with my POS or accounting package?
Darikoda is not a point-of-sale system and it does not connect into a POS or an accounting package for you today. It is the operating record for the van, the route and the credit book. The reconciled close-out is exportable so the numbers can be carried into your books, but there is no live two-way sync with a named POS or ERP. If a connector matters for your operation, the audit is where we scope it honestly rather than promise it here.
How does the credit gate actually work?
Every order is checked against the account's credit limit before the stock is released. An order that would take an account past its limit holds for a decision at the depot instead of loading automatically. The person who can release it makes the call with the account history in front of them. The exposure is decided before the van leaves, not reconciled days later once the stock is already on the road.
Is this surveillance of my sales agents?
No, and it is not framed or sold as that. The agent variance history is a safety net for the owner: a record of each close-out over time, so a repeating pattern surfaces on your screen without a confrontation. The GPS on a delivery proves the drop happened at the customer, it does not follow a person through the day. The point is a fair, signed record that protects the honest agent as much as it protects the owner.
What is the consignment close-out?
When a van returns, the close-out reconciles it at the door in under a minute. Loaded, sold, returned, damaged, should-remain and counted are checked against each other, and a cash panel matches cash, MoMo and cheque to the count, flagging where a collection is over or short. The agent signs the result on the spot, so the variance is named while the stock and the cash are still in front of you.
Can it handle cash, MoMo and cheque collections?
Yes. Collections come in as cash, MoMo and cheque, each matched to an invoice and each flagged over or short before the agent leaves the counter. The mix is part of the close-out, not a separate reconciliation done later from a bag of receipts.
Does it work where the network drops on the route?
Yes. Every load-out, sale, collection and drop is saved on the device first and syncs when the signal returns. The agent records the day as it happens, including at roadside counters with no coverage, and nothing is lost to a dead zone. Failed syncs become visible issues, not silent gaps.
What size of distributor does this fit?
It fits distributors running a field force: consignment vans or promoters, credit-account customers, and multi-drop routes, where the gap between stock out and cash in is where the month is decided. A cash-and-carry counter with no field force and no credit book has less to gain, because there is little between the sale and the till to reconcile. The audit produces the specific read for your operation.
What does it cost?
There is a fixed-fee Build and Activation phase that configures the operating record to how your operation runs, followed by an ongoing subscription once the pilot proves operational value. The Operational Audit produces the specific number for your distribution operation. Book it through the audit page above.
See where your distribution operation leaks stock and cash.
The Operational Audit takes 30 minutes. You get a one-page leakage report, written for distribution, that you keep regardless of next steps.
Patterns described here are drawn from extensive field audits and industry research across Ghana's distribution, mining, construction, and roadworks sectors. No specific operator is named or identifiable.