What a small shop needs from a POS
A duka or minimart needs a till that is cheap to run, quick to learn and honest about the money. Usually the owner, a relative or one attendant serves at a single counter, and the business runs on a few hundred items, an exercise book of debts and an M-Pesa till number.
The trouble starts when you are not behind the counter:
- You know what is in the drawer tonight, but not what sold.
- The madeni book grows, and nobody is sure who owes what.
- Bread, milk and cooking oil run out while slow items gather dust.
- Money leaves the drawer for transport or a padlock, and nobody writes it down.
- You know the takings but not the profit.
Wave POS gives a small shop the records a supermarket keeps, without a supermarket’s costs.
Start on the device you already own
Wave POS runs in Chrome on a laptop, a tablet or an Android phone, so you do not need to buy a computer to begin. You can install it as an app from Chrome; there is nothing to fetch from a disc or an app store. Your shop gets its own address, such as yourshop.wavepos.app.
The first 14 days are free and need no card; after that, plans start from KSh 1,500 a month, paid by M-Pesa. Pricing shows what each plan includes. A USB barcode scanner and a 58 mm thermal printer can come later; until then, find items by typing part of the name.
To set up in an afternoon, list your products in an Excel sheet with name, price, cost and opening stock, and import them in one go. The guide to moving from Excel to a POS explains how to prepare the sheet.
Credit for regular customers, with a limit
Wave POS replaces the madeni book with customer accounts that each have a credit limit. Before a sale goes on account, the till checks how much of the limit is left, and every sale, return and payment goes into that customer’s ledger.
When a regular customer pays KSh 1,200 of her balance by M-Pesa on Friday, the attendant takes it at the till and it goes straight onto her account. Debtors ageing shows who owes and for how long, so you can decide who to stop serving on credit. More on customer credit.
A day at a minimart in Kasarani, worked through
Say your shop sells this on a Tuesday:
| Item | Sold | Price | Takings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bread, 400 g | 40 | KSh 65 | KSh 2,600 |
| Fresh milk, 500 ml | 60 | KSh 60 | KSh 3,600 |
| Sugar, loose | 12.5 kg | KSh 150 a kg | KSh 1,875 |
| Cooking oil, 1 L | 8 | KSh 340 | KSh 2,720 |
| Bar soap, 1 kg | 6 | KSh 250 | KSh 1,500 |
Sales come to KSh 12,295. Loose sugar sells by the half kilo because quantities take decimals: 0.5 kg rings up at KSh 75. Many of these customers pay to your M-Pesa till number; the attendant types in the transaction code, or, with a ZetuPay account connected, sends a prompt to the customer’s phone and the payment records itself.
During the day you take KSh 300 from the drawer to pay the boda rider who brought the bread. Record it as petty cash in a Transport category, and the closing count expects KSh 300 less cash. That night the profit and loss report shows the day’s sales, what those goods cost you, the KSh 300 expense and the net profit.
Stock that tells you when to reorder
Wave POS takes stock down with every sale and lists low and negative stock on the dashboard. Give bread and milk a reorder level and they show up as low before the shelf is empty.
When the distributor’s van comes, receive the goods at what you paid for them. The average cost updates, so your profit stays right when a supplier raises prices. Once a month, count the shop and let Wave POS show you the difference between what should be there and what is.
Know your profit, not only your takings
The profit and loss report gives sales, cost of goods sold, gross profit, expenses and net profit for any period you choose. Rent and electricity tokens go in as expenses from the back office, and petty cash comes in from the till, each with a category. Our guide on how to calculate shop profit goes further, and expenses and profit shows the reports.
A small shop rarely has an accountant on call, so these figures are worth reading weekly. The product performance report adds gross profit item by item: if cooking oil sells well but leaves KSh 10 a bottle after cost, you will see it, and you can decide whether to raise the price or give the shelf space to something that pays.