Poorly tracked stock means money tied up on one side and stock-outs on the other. Here is what inventory software should do for a shop.
In a shop, stock is the biggest cash item and the least well tracked. A notebook works while there are few products and one person serving. Beyond a certain volume, discrepancies appear and nobody knows where they come from.
Four questions stock must answer
- How much of each product do I have right now?
- Which ones will I run out of this week?
- What am I owed, and what should I order?
- Where does the gap between theoretical and actual stock come from?
Threshold alerts: act before the stock-out
You set a minimum level per product. When stock reaches it, the software flags it. You order before the customer asks for the item, instead of finding out in front of them. It is the quickest win of any inventory tool.
Every movement must leave a trace
Receipt, issue, sale, breakage, return: each movement is recorded with its reason, operator and date. When a gap appears, you trace the product's history instead of suspecting everyone.
Receiving goods
A supplier purchase order is created, then the delivery is validated in part or in full. Stock updates on receipt, not before. You also see what is still to come, useful when a supplier delivers in several batches.
Stocktaking without closing the shop
Counting by hand then retyping doubles the work and the mistakes. With mobile stocktaking on an Android phone, you enter quantities at the shelf, and the variance report automatically compares theoretical and counted stock.
Several shops: one stock per location
As soon as you have a second store you need stock per site, traced transfers between them and a consolidated view. Otherwise a product runs out in one shop while it sits unsold in the other.
Reliable stock isn't the stock you count often; it is the stock where every movement is recorded when it happens.
Where to start
Import your products with their prices and thresholds, run one clean stocktake, then let sales feed the stock automatically. Logesco includes these functions in the same software as the till, so a sale reduces stock with no retyping.