Frequently Asked Questions

No. Cheetah Smart runs entirely in your web browser at your company's ERP address (for example erp.cheetah-smart.com). There's nothing to download or install, and it works on any modern desktop browser.

Contact your company's Cheetah Smart administrator (typically whoever set up your account) to reset it, or reach out to cheetah-mail@cheetah-smart.com for help.

The Dashboard shows four KPI cards — Active Orders, Pending Quotes, Inventory Value, and Average Production Yield — plus a live, searchable table of your most recent orders with status and due date. It's a starting point; click into Sales, Production, or Operations for full detail.

A main menu runs across the top: Dashboard, Sales, Production, Stock, Purchasing, Customers, Invoices, Operations, Tasks, and Data Manager. Most of these open a row of sub-tabs underneath — for example Production has Manufacturing, Production Runs, BOM Builder, and Hierarchy. The gear icon in the top-right corner opens Settings from any page.

Yes. Your plan can be changed anytime from Settings → Billing as your team grows or shrinks.

Yes. Card entry is handled by Stripe's secure payment fields directly in your browser, so your card number is tokenized before it ever reaches Cheetah Smart's own servers — we never see or store your full card number.

You'll see a confirmation screen letting you know your workspace is ready, and you can go straight to your new dashboard. A welcome email also goes out with your login details and a link to the full user manual to help your team get started.

A Sales Order is a confirmed order for finished products. A Quote is a proposal that hasn't been won yet — it becomes an order once approved. Parts and Services is for sales that skip manufacturing entirely, such as spare parts shipped from stock or billable service work.

Cheetah Smart automatically raises a Manufacturing Order for the shortfall as soon as the Sales Order is saved — you don't need to create it by hand.

Check the "Show Shipped?" checkbox above the Sales Orders table. It's off by default so the table only shows what's still open.

Open Sales → Quotes. Open quotes show by default; check "Show Approved/Cancelled" to bring already-decided quotes back into view.

Go to Customers and click + New Customer. Fill in the primary contact plus up to two additional contacts, billing and shipping address, payment terms, customer type, and active/inactive status, then save.

Yes. Click "Price List" on that customer's row in Customer Master to set special regular or volume pricing. It's applied automatically whenever that customer is selected on a new Sales Order.

Click "Send Email" on that customer's row in Customer Master. It prepares a pre-filled email to their address without you needing to leave the app.

Open Production → Manufacturing, find the order, and click Complete. This moves the built quantity into finished-goods stock, and generates a serial number automatically if serial numbers are turned on in Settings → Production Areas.

A Manufacturing Order is normally tied to a specific Sales Order. A Production Run is for building to stock without any linked customer order — both support the same Start/Stop/Complete workflow and the same Print Documents options.

BOM Builder is where you define the "recipe" for a Component or a Finished Product — which raw materials and/or components go into it, and in what quantity. Go to Production → BOM Builder, choose Create New BOM or Edit Existing BOM, and add items from the search pickers into the costed basket.

On the Manufacturing Order or Production Run row, click Print Documents, check whichever of Picking List, Stickers, and Packing List you need, and click Print.

Finished Goods are sellable end products. Components are sub-assemblies used inside products (defined via BOM Builder). Materials are the raw materials you purchase from vendors. All three have their own stock table under the Stock menu.

On Stock → Materials, a colored dot next to each row shows whether it's normal, below its minimum order quantity (MOQ), or below what production currently needs. You can also check Purchasing → Reorder Suggestions for a auto-calculated list.

"Needed (Production)" is how much of that item is required by production right now. "Expected (Incoming)" is how much is already on order and due to arrive. Comparing the two against what's on hand tells you whether you're covered or need to order more.

Reorder Suggestions (the default view under Purchasing → Purchase Orders) is calculated automatically from current stock level, each item's reorder point, and its vendor lead time, so you can see what needs ordering today without checking every stock screen by hand.

From Purchasing → Purchase Orders (Reorder Suggestions), review the Suggested Qty, adjust if needed, and click Create PO — you can also select several rows and act on them together.

When creating or editing a Purchase Order, change the Ship-To from your own warehouse to the specific Sales Order or Parts Order it should ship directly to — the linked order number carries through onto the PO.

Mark the PO received when the shipment arrives (turn on "Show Received?" if you need to find it again later), and separately click to mark it paid once you've settled the vendor's invoice — received and paid are tracked independently.

Purchasing → Vendors holds each supplier's contact details and terms, the same way Customer Master does for customers.

Yes. Open the invoice under Invoices → Invoices and click Receive Payment. Partial payments are supported, and the invoice keeps a running paid/unpaid balance automatically.

Check "Show Invoiced?" on the Unbilled Orders screen to bring already-billed orders back into view.

FIFO (First-In, First-Out) values cost of goods sold against the oldest raw material cost on hand; LIFO (Last-In, First-Out) uses the newest. The two only produce different numbers once a material has been purchased at more than one price — until then they're identical. Switch between them in Operations → Finance.

Operations → Finance shows Receivables Due (unpaid balance on Sales Orders, Parts Sales, and open Invoices), Payables Due (unpaid Purchase Orders due on order date plus vendor terms), and the Net of the two, charted forward from any past-due amounts through your selected Reporting Period.

Operations → Inventory gives a unified view across all three inventory levels in one table, rather than checking each Stock sub-tab separately.

Tasks is a shared to-do list inside the ERP for follow-ups that don't belong on a specific order — like calling a vendor about a price change. The number shown next to Tasks in the main menu is how many are currently open.

Open Tasks from the main menu and click + New Task, then fill in the description and any other fields your team uses.

Data Manager (manager-access only) lets you download your data or a blank template for any master table, upload a file to add or replace master data in bulk, and run a data-integrity and inventory-valuation report.

Configure serial numbers under Settings → Production Areas, choosing a fixed text prefix and/or an auto-incrementing counter. Once turned on, a serial number is generated automatically each time a Manufacturing Order is completed.

Go to Settings → Team & Licenses to manage who has a login and see your plan's seat usage.

Settings → Billing shows your current plan, seat count, and the payment method on file, and is where you can change plans.

Open the document's Print/Export (or Print Documents) menu and click Send Email. Cheetah Smart builds a real PDF attachment and hands it to your device's normal share or mail flow, so it's sent from your own email address rather than a generic system address.

Yes. Use "Download PDF" in the same Print/Export menu as the Print and Send Email options — it saves an actual PDF file rather than opening a print dialog.

Yes. The full User Manual is available to read online, download, or print at cheetah-smart.com/manual, and a copy is included with every new trial's welcome email.