The CRM that counts every cut.
Kerf runs your whole made-to-order business — customers, costed quotes, production, stock and the books — in one place. From your desk, or from WhatsApp.
14-day free trial · No card needed · Live in an afternoon
Kerf
Sara’s chat with Kerf · WhatsApp
Sara· 09:14
Sara· 09:14
KERFKerf· 09:14
Unit cost AED 3.18 · price AED 4.60 · margin 31%, above your 25% floor. Create the quote?
Sara· 09:15
KERFKerf· 09:15
Quantity
4-up on 1000×700 greyboard · 1,250 sheets
| Board | 1.42 | |
| Print & foil | 0.64 | |
| Machine time | 0.58 | |
| Labour | 0.54 | |
| Unit cost | AED 3.18 | |
| Unit price | AED 4.60 |
Your quote is in Excel. Your customer is in WhatsApp. Your margin is a guess.
Made-to-order businesses run on five disconnected tools and one person’s memory. Sales prices from last year’s spreadsheet. Production hears about the job when the order lands. Accounts find out when the customer doesn’t pay. Every hand-off loses something — usually money. Kerf is one system from the first message to the final payment.
The only CRM with
True Cost™
Every Kerf quote starts from what the job actually costs to make — not a price list. A blank 1mm too wide to fit 4-up costs you 33% more board. Kerf knows. Your spreadsheet doesn’t.
- It nests the sheet.
- Kerf works out how many blanks fit on the board you actually buy, grain and gripper margin included.
- It counts the step.
- Material cost jumps when one fewer blank fits. Kerf sees the jump before you quote.
- It adds the real time.
- Machine hours and labour from your own rates, not a rule of thumb.
- It protects the floor.
- Set a minimum margin and a discount cap. Quotes that break them wait for approval.
- It remembers the cost.
- Every line keeps the cost it was quoted at, so you can check quoted against actual later.
Blank width · 1000 × 700 mm greyboard sheet
- Blanks per sheet
- 4-up
- Sheets for 5,000
- 1,250
- Extra board
- —
Computed by the same nesting engine Kerf uses to cost your quotes.
01 · Win the enquiry
Every enquiry, wherever it starts.
WhatsApp, email and Telegram land in one shared inbox, matched to the right customer. Your pipeline shows every open job at a glance — as a table or a board, filtered and saved the way each person works.
- Contacts, companies and a full activity history
- Board and table views, saved per person
- Custom objects for anything you track — machines, dies, certifications
- Roles that decide who sees what, down to “only my own customers”
- New enquiry
Al Noor Sweets
Need 5,000 rigid boxes, 200×150×60…
- Order
Gulf Print House
Revised artwork attached for SO-548
- Delivery
Desert Bloom Florists
Can we push delivery to Thursday?
Enquiry
Desert Bloom
AED 8,400
Quoted
Al Noor Sweets
AED 23,000
Oasis Dates
AED 11,250
Won
Gulf Print House
AED 17,900
02 · Quote it
Quote in minutes. Know your margin before you send.
Pick a template, enter the size and quantity, and Kerf builds the cost from board, print, finishing and machine time. Then it prices to your margin and lays it out on your branded document.
- Costing formulas built from your own materials and rates
- Margin floors, discount caps and approval rules
- Branded PDF quotes in your own layout
- A secure link your customer opens to review and accept online
Meridian Packaging Co
Sharjah · TRN 100xxxxxxxx0003
Quotation
Q-1042
Prepared for
Al Noor Sweets
| Item | Qty | Unit | AED |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigid box 200×150×60, greyboard 2mm, wrapped in 157gsm art paper | 5,000 | 4.60 | 23,000.00 |
| Gold foil lid, one position | incl. |
- Subtotal
- 23,000.00
- VAT 5%
- 1,150.00
- Total
- AED 24,150.00
03 · Make it
The order arrives. The work order is already waiting.
An accepted quote becomes a sales order, and the sales order becomes work orders with every step laid out. Operators log their hours from the floor — in the app, or with a WhatsApp message.
- Sales orders and staged billing from accepted quotes
- Work orders with steps, scheduling and status
- Time logged against each job, by person and machine
- Print2.0h
- Foil lid1.5h
- Die-cutvia WhatsApp3.5h
- Wrap—
- Pack—
04 · Buy & stock
Buy exactly what the job needs.
Kerf knows what each order uses, what is on the shelf and what is already promised. Raise purchase orders to suppliers in a couple of clicks, and match their bills to what you ordered.
- Stock across several locations, reserved per job
- Reorder points so you never run out mid-run
- Purchase orders, supplier bills and payables
| Item | Reserved | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Greyboard 2mm · 1000×700 | 1,250 | 150 |
| Gold foil · 640mm roll | 4 | 14 |
| Art paper 157gsm · 1000×700 | 1,300 | 1,900 |
05 · Deliver & get paid
From dispatch to the books, without re-typing a thing.
Dispatch the delivery, invoice the customer, record the payment. Every step posts to real double-entry books, so your P&L, cashflow and VAT are right the moment the work is done.
- Deliveries, invoices, payments and credit notes
- A chart of accounts, P&L and cashflow
- VAT and tax rules per country, with multi-currency built in
- Reports your accountant can export
INV-1042 · Al Noor Sweets
| Accounts receivable | 24,150.00 | |
| Sales | 23,000.00 | |
| VAT payable (5%) | 1,150.00 |
PAY-0391 · Bank transfer
| Bank — ENBD | 24,150.00 | |
| Accounts receivable | 24,150.00 |
Built for how the region works
Run the shop from WhatsApp.
Your team already lives in WhatsApp. Now Kerf does too. Ask it to draft a quote, approve one, check a job, log hours, raise a purchase order or dispatch a delivery — in plain language, from anywhere.
- “Quote Al Noor 5,000 boxes, foil lid”
- Drafts a costed quote
- “Approve Q-1042”
- Approves it, if you are allowed to
- “Where’s WO-318?”
- Tells you where the job is
- “Log 3.5h die-cutting on WO-318”
- Records the time against the job
- “Order 2,000 sheets of 2mm greyboard”
- Raises the purchase order
- Forward a customer’s PO
- Turns it into a sales order
- “Dispatch order 552”
- Books the delivery
Safe by design. Anything beyond a draft, and every message to a customer, waits for a human “yes”. Every action is written to the audit trail, with who asked for it.
Kerf
Omar’s chat with Kerf · WhatsApp
Omar· 10:02
KERFKerf· 10:02
Omar· 10:03
KERFKerf· 10:03
Omar· 15:52
KERFKerf· 15:52
Ask Kerf, inside the app too.
The same assistant lives in Kerf. Ask about a customer, a job or your numbers, and it answers from your live data — then offers to do the next step.
Follow-ups that never forget.
Kerf’s automations run on a durable workflow engine, so a follow-up scheduled for next month still happens next month — through restarts, updates and holidays.
Chase unsigned quotes
Nudge the customer three days after a quote goes out unsigned.
Escalate overdue invoices
Remind, then remind again, then tell the owner.
Route big quotes
Anything over your limit goes to the owner before it goes out.
Your data, locked at the database
Built like a vault, not a spreadsheet.
Isolated at the database.
Every company’s data is walled off by the database itself, not just by application code.
Permissions checked every time.
Access is worked out fresh on every request — never trusted from a login token.
Every change on the record.
A complete audit trail shows who changed what, with the before and after.
Files shared safely.
Attachments follow the record’s permissions, and downloads use short-lived signed links.
AI that asks first.
The assistant can prepare drafts on its own, but anything more waits for a person to approve it.
How Kerf keeps your data safe
Read the security overviewBuilt for the UAE
Made here. Made for here.
Kerf is built in the UAE for the way businesses here actually work — on WhatsApp, in several currencies, with VAT on every invoice.
VAT-ready
Tax rules, tax codes and VAT reports out of the box.
AED and every other currency
Quote in USD, buy in EUR, report in AED.
WhatsApp-first
The way your customers and your floor already talk.
ArabicComing soon
An Arabic interface is on the way.
One system instead of five.
| Kerf | CRM + accounting app + spreadsheets | A big ERP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quotes priced from real cost | |||
| Quote → work order → invoice, no re-typing | |||
| Real double-entry books | |||
| Works from WhatsApp | |||
| Live in days, not months | |||
| Priced for a 10-person shop |
Priced per seat. Every module included.
CRM, costing, production, stock and finance — no add-ons to unlock the parts that make you money.
Questions, answered.
Is Kerf a CRM or an ERP?+
Both, sized for a growing workshop. It starts where a CRM starts — customers and enquiries — and keeps going through quoting, production, stock and the books.
Do I still need separate accounting software?+
Kerf keeps real double-entry books with invoices, payments, VAT and reports. Many teams run on Kerf alone; others export reports for their accountant.
What kinds of businesses is it for?+
Any business that makes or finishes to order: packaging, print, signage, fabrication, joinery and fit-out.
How do I move over from Excel?+
During early access we set you up ourselves and bring your customers and products across for you.
Is the AI safe to let loose on my data?+
It can prepare drafts, but anything more — and every message to a customer — waits for a person to approve it. Every change it makes is logged with who asked for it.
Does it work in Arabic?+
Arabic is on the way. Kerf is in English today.
Stop guessing your margins.
Start your free trial, or let us set Kerf up with your own products and rates.