From the stock register to software

A stock register works perfectly until two people need it at the same time. One is at the godown counting thaans, one is on the phone quoting a rate, and the book is with the third. Nobody is doing anything wrong — the book simply cannot be in two places.

It breaks a second way as the business grows. The register records what happened. It cannot answer what is left, what is lying with a karigar, or what a party still owes, without somebody sitting down and adding it up.

The cost of a register is rarely a dramatic loss. It is a steady leak that never shows up as a single number:

• Stock that is physically there but nobody remembers, so it is bought again.
• Stock that is not there but the book says it is, so an order is accepted that cannot be filled.
• Rates quoted from memory, which are quietly lower than last month's cost.
• Payments followed up late, because nobody sees an outstanding list until month end.
• Two hours every evening spent copying the same figures into a second book.

The single real change is that a number is written once and everybody sees the same one. A bill made at the counter reduces the stock, adds to the party's outstanding, and appears in the day's sales without anybody copying anything.

• Current stock is a screen, not a calculation.
• Low stock tells you before the customer does.
• Every bill, return and payment sits against the party it belongs to.
• The godown, the counter and the office read the same figure.

Software does not fix a business that does not record things. It fixes a business that records things three times.

The mistake is trying to move everything on one day. Nobody can shut a running business for a data-entry exercise. Move in this order instead:

1. Pick a start date — usually the first of a month. Everything before it stays in the register.
2. Enter only the closing stock as on that date. Not the history. Just what is physically there.
3. Enter the parties you actually deal with and what each one owes right now.
4. From the start date, make every new bill on the software and none in the book.
5. Keep the register open beside you for one month. Stop when you stop reaching for it.

Most businesses are through this in a week, because the only real work is counting stock once — which is worth doing anyway.

There is a free trial and no card is needed to begin. After that you pay for the plan plus only the modules you switch on — a trader who never does job work never pays for job-work tracking.

See the full pricing

The fastest way to know whether this fits your business is to see it running on your own stock and your own parties, not on a demo company. That takes about twenty minutes.

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