All-purpose business software, specialised for theatres and law practices

The till, the diary, and the books.

Master Penny runs the whole business on one system: sales, stock, suppliers, payroll and proper double-entry accounting. No bolt-ons, no syncing, no seams. And because no two trades are alike, it specialises: theatres get ticketing and producer settlements, law practices get trust accounting.

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Ticketing · Box office · Bar POS · Producer settlements · Audience feedback · Stock & purchasing · Bank reconciliation · Payroll · Trust accounting · Mailing lists · Issue tracking

What's inside

One core for every business. Specialisations for yours.

Most software covers one department and leaves you to glue the rest together. Master Penny treats your business as it really is: one system, where a sale, a delivery and an invoice all land in the same set of books, live. Everyone gets the full core; the specialisations speak the language of your trade, and theatre and law are our two favourite examples.

The core

Every business gets the full kit

Selling & point of sale

The POS at the counter or the bar plugs live into the Master Penny backend, so every sale is in the books the moment it rings, not after a nightly import. Services are billed from the billing area, and bigger sales get a proper invoice.

  • Products arranged in categories, exactly as they appear on the till
  • Voids handled properly: a credit note and a payment reversal, one tap
  • Sales invoices for the big stuff: equipment, hires, services
  • Statements, age analysis and bad-debt recording for account customers
  • Mailing lists and newsletters, with subscribers joined automatically by department

Buying & stock

From purchase order to stock shelf. Master Penny knows that what you buy and what you sell are not the same thing: a 750 ml bottle arrives, a 187 ml glass leaves.

  • Raise many purchase orders at once; each supplier gets their email at once
  • Print a delivery sheet and tick items off as they arrive
  • Fulfil an order into a purchase invoice with one review-and-save
  • Ad hoc invoices and purchase credit notes for life’s little surprises
  • Recent cost prices tracked; shelf and stockroom layouts ease stock takes

Money

Reconcile what you captured to what actually arrived, in the bank and in the cash box.

  • Bank reconciliation until the report is empty
  • Cash box balances to zero at the end of every day
  • Supplier payments at capture, later, or during reconciliation

Books

The person capturing invoices is rarely the right person to allocate accounts, so allocation is its own job, done afterwards, properly.

  • Move entries to the right accounts and make your bookkeeper happy
  • Freeze dates protect prior periods from creeping mistakes
  • (Temporary thaws exist, but they are very much frowned upon)

Staff

The essentials of paying the people who run the place, without a separate payroll system.

  • Pretty payslips, PAYE and UIF
  • Help filling in the EMP201 SARS submission
  • Staff dates and basic leave recording

Issues

Day-to-day actions, follow-ups and delegation, attached to a client, a booking or a supplier invoice, or standing on their own.

  • Incoming email, voicemails, web enquiries and scanned documents
  • Every outgoing email carries a code; replies reopen the right issue automatically
  • Postpone, delegate, get notified; notices that every user must accept

For theatres

Front of house, settled properly

Events & ticketing

Shows, venues, seating plans and any number of performances. Audiences book and pay online, or reserve now and pay at the door.

  • Two prices per performance: reward pre-payment, charge more on the night
  • Override pricing per performance for previews or closing weekends
  • “Todo” bookings: reserve seats, settle on arrival
  • Publish titles, blurbs and creative teams straight to your public website
  • Generate a press release and send it to targeted media lists in minutes

Producers & settlements

Door deals as a percentage, flat fees, or any combination, agreed up front and calculated automatically.

  • Every producer gets a private live link to their own report
  • Ticket sales, deductions and payments, always current
  • Audience ratings and comments included

Audience & feedback

The morning after every performance, each ticket buyer is invited to rate the show out of five or leave a comment.

  • Sent automatically to every ticket buyer, no list-keeping required
  • Feedback flows to you and to the producer report
  • Ratings build a public record of how the work landed

For law practices

Other people’s money, accounted to the cent

Trust accounting

Attorneys, conveyancers and estate agents hold money that is not theirs, and the books must prove it, every day. Master Penny keeps trust ledgers alongside the business books, separately and properly.

  • Trust receipts and payments per client, reconciled like everything else
  • Business and trust never blur; the system holds the line for you
  • Running a law practice outright? Meet LawPracticeZA, the law edition of Master Penny, with matters, fees and trust investments built in

A day in the life

Two very different days. One system.

Follow a day at a theatre and a day at a law practice, side by side. Different trades, same books.

At the theatre

10:00
The delivery arrivesTick the stock off the purchase order sheet, fulfil it into a supplier invoice, done.
12:00
The producer checks inThey open their private report link: sales so far, deductions and payments, no phone call needed.
18:00
Doors openPre-paid tickets and pay-on-arrival reservations, one list at the box office.
19:30
Curtain upThe bar POS rings straight into the ledger, sale by sale, all night.
23:30
Cash-upThe cash box balances to zero, the night’s takings are already in the books.
09:00
The morning afterEvery ticket buyer gets the feedback mailer; ratings land on the producer report before the kettle boils.

At the law practice

08:30
An email arrivesIt becomes an issue on the right client’s file; the reply will reopen it automatically.
10:00
A deposit lands in trustReceipted to the client’s trust ledger, kept apart from the business books.
12:00
An invoice goes outServices billed and emailed; the debtor’s statement is already up to date.
15:00
The post is capturedA supplier’s invoice goes in; the bookkeeper will allocate the account later.
16:30
Suppliers get paidPayments captured against their invoices, ready for the reconciliation.
17:00
Bank reconciliationThe report comes back empty, and the trust balances to the cent.

Our approach

Your business isn’t a series of disconnected systems. Why is your software?

A small business is one big system: every part of it affects every other part. Sell a ticket and the books change. Pour a beer and the stock changes. Receipt a trust deposit and the trust ledger changes. So we built one monolithic system that runs the lot, rather than a pile of products held together with exports and good intentions.

We wrote Master Penny to run our own venue: box office, bar and books. It has been honed in daily use ever since, and the same core now runs businesses as different as theatres and law practices. It is in a constant state of change and improvement as we get better at understanding how the parts of a business fit together. Master Penny is not finished, and it probably never will be. We consider that a feature.

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