Make the day add up at the door.
Load-out in the morning, routes through the day, close-out at night. The reconciliation lands on your desk whether or not the numbers were ever made to meet.
Darikoda gates the load-out against credit, closes out every van at the door in under a minute, and proves every drop with a photo, a signature and a location. Captured at source.
You run the field force. Darikoda gates the load-out against the account's credit, reconciles every consignment close-out at the van in under a minute against cash, MoMo and cheque, and proves every drop with a photo, a signature and a location. Captured at source.
Where the day leaks
Six places the load-out, the route and the close-out lose stock and cash before they reach your desk.
Load-out that goes out unchecked.
Without a gate at the bay, an order for an over-limit account is loaded with the rest and the exposure leaves the depot on your van. The credit call should happen before the keys are handed over, not in a reconciliation days later.
A close-out done from paper an hour later.
The count that leaves and the count that comes back were never built to meet. Reconciled from a sheet at a desk, the short hides in the total and it lands on you.
Deliveries you cannot prove.
The manifest says the drop was done. The customer says it never arrived. Without a photo, a signature and a location, the credit note gets written to keep the account, and it comes out of your day.
A van that rolls before it is ready.
No gate on dispatch means a van leaves with the wrong stock, a bad count or an unresolved credit hold. The problem is found on the route, where it is expensive to fix.
Returns, damages and empties that vanish.
Written on the back of a sheet and lost by the next morning, they become a variance nobody can explain at month-end.
The reconciliation that lands on your desk.
Loaded, sold and collected have to add up, and you are the one who makes them. When they do not, you hear it first. Doing that from memory and a stack of paper is where the evening goes.
The platform, in your vocabulary
Three engines, running the field force.
Load-out against the credit gate
The gate is at the load bay. An over-limit order holds for a decision before the van is loaded, so the exposure never leaves the depot on your route.
Consignment close-out under a minute
Loaded, sold, returned, damaged, should-remain, counted, reconciled at the door and signed, with the cash panel matched to cash, MoMo and cheque. The over or the short is flagged before the agent leaves.
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. Dispute a delivery a week later and the photo, the signature and the spot it was left are already on the record.
A van does not roll until the check is green.
The dispatch gate holds the van at the depot until the credit hold, the count and the last close-out all clear. The problem is caught at the bay, not on the road.
What changes between paper and a signed record
Three moments in the day that stop landing on your desk as a surprise.
Orders are loaded together and the credit position is checked later at the office. An over-limit account rides out with everything else, and the hold that should have stopped it never happened.
Each order meets the credit gate at the bay. Over the limit, it holds for a decision before it is loaded. Only cleared stock leaves the depot, and the van is held until the check is green.
Green to roll
the dispatch gate holds the van until the check is green.
A sales sheet and a cash bag reconciled from memory an hour later at a desk. The numbers were never built to meet, so the short lands on you.
Reconciled at the van in under a minute and signed, with cash, MoMo and cheque matched to the count. You close it out with the variance already named.
Under a minute
the close-out is signed at the door, not rebuilt from paper at a desk.
A tick on a printed manifest against a customer who says the drop never arrived. You write the credit note to keep the account, and it comes out of the day.
A photo, a signature and a location captured at the door. When the account says the drop never came, 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.
Different scenarios. Same underlying gap. Same closing move.
Built so the record survives the route.
Your operating record faces the load bay, the road with no signal and the disputed drop. It is built to hold under all three.
- Every load-out, sale, collection and drop is saved on the device first and syncs when the signal returns. No route waits for a network to record the day.
- You can always see whether a van's close-out has reached the office yet. No wondering whether the 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 every count carries its owner and no agent is logged in as another.
- The dispatch gate holds a van until the check is green, so a bad count or an unresolved credit hold does not leave the depot.
- Failed syncs from the field become visible issues, not silent gaps in the day's reconciliation.
Inside the first month
What a Darikoda month looks like running the field force.
From a gated load-out in week one to a field that records itself on every route.
Week 1
Load-out and dispatch gate go live.
Every order checked at the bay, every van held until the check is green. The exposure stops at the depot from the first morning.
Week 2
The close-out moves to the door.
The day's counts reconciled at the van in under a minute and signed. The short stops landing on your desk from memory.
Week 3
Proof of delivery on every drop.
Photo, signature and location on each delivery. Disputed drops meet evidence instead of a tick on a printed sheet.
Close of day
One reconciled read.
An end-of-day summary of loaded against sold against collected, ready before anyone goes home.
Every route
The field records itself.
Offline-first capture means the day is written on the device and syncs when the signal returns. No route waits for coverage to record what happened.
A note from Theo
“The reconciliation happens where the work happens, not on your desk at night.”
The sales or depot manager is the one holding the day together. Load-out in the morning, routes running through places with no signal, close-out at night, and a reconciliation that lands on their desk whether or not the numbers were ever built to meet. I built the operating record so the reconciliation happens where the work happens. The credit check at the bay, the close-out signed at the door in under a minute, the proof of delivery attached to the drop it belongs to, the day captured on the device even when the network is gone. The short does not vanish. What changes is where you meet it, and who is standing there when you do. Named at the van, by the person who ran it, while the stock and the cash are still in front of them.
Theo Ilori
Founder, Darikoda. UCL MSc Mechanical Engineering. Formerly GE precision turbines, Caterpillar/Unatrac Ghana & Nigeria.
Sales and depot manager FAQ.
The questions other managers running a field force ask in the first call.
How fast is the close-out really?
The close-out runs at the door in under a minute. Every count is checked against the others, and a cash panel matches cash, MoMo and cheque to the count. The agent signs the result on the spot, so the reconciliation is done at the van, not rebuilt from paper at a desk an hour later.
What is on a proof of delivery?
Each drop on a multi-drop route carries a photo, a signature and a location captured at the door. The manifest is not marked complete until the proof is attached to the drop it belongs to. When a delivery is disputed, the evidence is already on the record.
How does the dispatch gate decide GREEN or RED?
The gate reads the checks that should clear before a van rolls: the credit hold on the order, the count against the load, the state of the close-out from the last route. You see a GREEN or RED status before the van is dispatched, so a bad count or an unresolved hold is caught at the depot rather than on the road. It is a status you check at dispatch, not a live tracker following the van.
Does it work with no signal 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. Failed syncs surface as visible issues so nothing goes quietly missing.
Can the same device be used by different agents?
Yes. Shared devices use PIN-level attribution, so each count and each close-out carries the agent who made it and no one is logged in as someone else. The record stays fair to the honest agent because it is always clear who did what.
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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.