One newton-metre is 0.1019716213 kilogram-force metres, because a kilogram-force is exactly 9.80665 newtons. The unit is a survival from the metric gravitational system and appears throughout older machinery documentation.
About the units
A kilogram-force metre, written kgf·m or kpm, is the torque produced by one kilogram-force acting one metre from an axis. It belongs to the same deprecated metric gravitational system as the kilopond, which used force rather than mass as a base quantity. SI replaced it with the newton-metre. The unit survives in European machinery manuals from before the 1980s, in some Japanese automotive documentation, and colloquially wherever someone describes a torque in kilos — a spanner said to need forty kilos at the end of a metre-long bar is describing 40 kgf·m.
The exact factor
The exact value is 9.80665 N·m per kgf·m, the same standard gravity that defines the kilopond. The approximation of ten is high by two per cent and adequate for anything but a design calculation. In pound-feet, one kgf·m is 7.233 lbf·ft. Older Japanese motorcycle and car manuals often give torque in kgf·m, so a specification of 12 kgf·m is 118 N·m or 87 lbf·ft — a conversion worth having when working from period documentation.
Where you meet this conversion
Restoration and maintenance of older machinery, where the service manual predates SI adoption. Japanese vehicle documentation from the 1970s and 1980s uses kgf·m throughout. Industrial gearboxes, presses and older machine tools carry ratings in the unit. Some torque wrenches sold in Asia are still marked in kgf·m alongside newton-metres. Anyone treating a kgf·m figure as newton-metres will under-tighten by nearly a factor of ten, which on a structural fastener is a failure waiting to happen.