As we have seen, the general store is a very needful and economical household business shop. Containing items like Kirana items, clothes, small electrical items, and medicines, etc. Here you will find the vast no of category items. Knowing the inventory of the items, judging the customer demand, maintaining party outstanding, tracking history, and management is very difficult for any business owner/partner.
Do you have a General Store? If you are facing issues in managing your store Inventory and customer demands? Don’t worry!!! You are in the right platform. Here you can manage your general store business!!! with the Best General Store Inventory & Billing Software.
Nowadays everyone is trying to make their business digital and reach maximum number of customers. Then what are you looking for. Start your business with India’s Best inventory, billing, GST, and Accounting software. With the help of Vyapar app now your business will be on your Fingertips. Download General Store billing and inventory management software on mobile & desktop for free.
# Here are step-by-step process how to Use Vyapar for Inventory Management of General Store
How to create your Company?
Go to the left menu > at the top left corner click on “My Company” and add your company details. Like
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Add your company LOGO
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Company name
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Company Description
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Contact Details
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Email ID
Click on the “More Information” option and add additional information like
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Business address
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State
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GSTIN number
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Business category
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Business type
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Company/Business Authorised Signature
How to Maintain Party and Party Balance?
Most likely the general store will have maximum availability in rural areas and small cities. Here most of the sales will be in the credit sale and there may be chances of payback after one month, two months, etc. To track the history of the party you need to create the party. So that you can easily track the records and outstandings and get payments on the expected time.
Go to the left menu > Parties > Create a new party > Enter all details > click on save button
How to Add Multiple Parties at a Time? (Importing the parties)
In Vyapar app one more way to add all parties in bulk through Excel sheets. Just by entering all the details of the parties in Excel.
Go to the left menu > Utilities > Import Parties
Download the Excel Template > reopen the saved excel Sheet & enter all party details in the excel sheet and save it in your local folder.
Now get back to Vyapar, go to utilities > Import Parties > Click on the “Click here to browse” option > select the saved file from its location > Now check the details and if there is zero error then Click on the Import parties button > Click on OK
Now parties have been “Imported Successfully” in the Vyapar application.
After importing, the parties will be listed as shown below. for the quick access you are able to check each party balance as it is visible in front of each party name.
Red – You need to pay that much amount
Green – You need to collect the amount
It allows you to import the parties from your phone device or Google contacts.
How to Use Payment Reminder to get paid on Time?
It will definitely help you to maintain the business relation & customer relation better and save your time as well. It also helps to collect the credit money from the customers by informing them earlier. You can send the payment reminder to your parties by SMS, WhatsApp Message.
You can set the reminder date for you as well as for your parties.
We have also provided the option for the bulk payment reminder. It helps to save your time and you can remind every party with just a click.
How to add items & Why it is Important?
In common most of the General stores have more sales with low-profit margin. Hence, normally storing the maximum inventory in small spaces. It is really difficult to know the exact inventory, low stock items & more demanding items. That’s why we need to maintain the Stock inventory efficiently
Go to the left menu > Items > Add Item/ Add your first product. > Enter all the related details of the particular item > Click on save button
You can maintain the products/items as per different categories. To create the category go to the left menu > Settings > Items > Enable Item Category.
Now go to the Items in the left menu > “category” > create the category.
As you can see demo items listed below. If you click on any item then you are able to check sale price, purchase price, stock quantity, stock value and transactions made by that particular items for your quick access.
How to add Multiple items at a time? (Import Items)
One more option in here to add the all types of items in a bulk. And you can also upload the all items/commodities through Excel Sheet. Follow below step to import:
In the left menu > Utilities > Import Item > Download the excel template > Save excel template in the local folder > Reopen the Excel > add all item details > Save excel file
Reopen Vyapar application > Utilities > Import Items > click on “click here to browse” option > Select excel file that you have updated & saved earlier with all product/items details > Make sure that there is no error > click on the “import__valid items” button > Click on Ok
Now the items have been Imported Successfully.
How To Create My Online Store?
Nowadays everything is going digital. Let’s start your general store to be online when it is available completely free !!! It helps your end customers to catch you easily. He can view the product available in your store. Online stores will directly address the customer that these products are available here. It saves the time of the customer. Indirectly it grows your market in the online and you will start getting the orders from many people and it also helps your customer to check your item prices. Your customers can place the order through this catalogue link and at the same time that order will be notified in the software.
Go to the left menu > My Online Store> Select the items you want to show on the screen (Here you can add or remove items by time whenever it is required) > Click on the “Create Online Store” button
Here is a View of your product catalog. These categories will help your end customers to redirect them to the particular items.
You can also do changes in online stores by clicking on Edit store > Store settings like accept online order or not, enable set minimum order amount to receive order for minimal amount, enable additional charges if any applicable.
Share the link with your clients or customers through any social media channel like WhatsApp, email, Instagram, etc.
Now, you can see how it is visible for your customers. (View of both desktop and mobile screens)
Learn more about “My Online Store”
How to make the transactions?
With Vyapar you can create all types of transactions like sale, purchase, sale/purchase orders, estimation/Quotation, delivery challan, sale/purchase return, expenses, Other income, payment-in and payment-out etc.
Here is a sample how to enter your first sale
Go to the left menu > Sale > Add your first Sale Invoice
Enter the below details like
1. Select the sale type cash or credit sale at the top left corner
2. Enter/Select the party
3. Select the Items > Add tax details > enter all required details > click on “Save” button
How to Link the Payments with Transactions?
As you are creating the credit sales, you will get the payments later (payment-in) or you can make the payments later (payment-out). Later it is more confusing to remember a particular payment is against which particular invoice. The link payment option helps you to link the invoice with the particular payments so that you will get the payment history and avoid future disputes.
To enable the link payment option
Go to the left menu > Settings > Transaction > Link payment to invoices
Now go to any old payment receipts or while creating any payment receipts you will get the option of “Link payment”. Click on the link payment button and select the invoices belongs to this payment
You can also link the advance amount with the current sale/purchase invoice. From the bottom left corner by clicking on the “Link payment” and select the advance payments belonging to the current invoice.
How to check the Reports
Accounting is also a part of business management. It is very tough work to do accounting for the business. In Vyapar you will get automated reports. All reports will be updated automatically after each and every transaction. Here you will get all the reports in the excel and pdf format. For the sales and expenses you will get the graph report additionally. To check the reports-
Go to the left menu > Reports
Here is the list of the most viewed reports by any general store business owner.
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Sale report
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Purchase report
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Daybook
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All transaction report
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Profit and Loss
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Bill wise Profit
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Sale Aging
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Cash flow
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Balance sheet
you can get these reports instantly in PDF formats and some of the reports in Excel and Graphs.
Party related Report
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Party Statement
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All party report
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Party wise Profit & Loss
All types of GST reports
If you are registered under a regular scheme you will get these GSTR-1, GSTR-2, GSTR-3b & GSTR-9 reports in the menu.
If you are registered under the composition scheme and already selected that from Settings > Taxes & GST > Enable “Composition Scheme” you will get these GSTR-3B, GSTR-4, GSTR-9A reports in the Reports Section.
Item/Stock Report
Here we have some reports that are likely needed for the General store.
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Stock summary (Here you can see your current stock quantity and Stock value and Sale and purchase details)
Low stock Details
Stock detail report
Some other important useful reports for inventory management
Watch out our demo videos related to these topics:
For Desktop Videos : Click Here
For mobile Videos : Click Here
For New Updates Videos : Click Here
# 10 Benefits of using Inventory Management Software for your Retail Store
When it comes to growing your retail store, one of the biggest challenges is to manage your inventory right. Inventory is your money sitting on your store’s shelves, if you don’t keep track of them, you will be at loss mainly due to stock-outs and overstocks.
To track down the sold products, check what’s remaining every time you make a sale need countless hours and numerous headaches. Running a successful retail store is a tough task, luckily there is inventory management software out there that can take a lot of pain out of the process.
Look at these 10 major advantages of using inventory management software in your retail store.
✔ Manually tracking each and every item in your retail store is tough. Ensuring your products are not spoiling is important to avoid wastage and loss. With Inventory software like Vyapar, you can track items effortlessly using just your smartphone. knowing exactly how much inventory you have on-hand will be just a click away.
✔ It is a great time-saving tool. It eliminates the manual work involved in counting inventories. With the help of the software, stock levels are updated automatically every time you make a sale. With this, you can save yourself the hassle of doing inventory recounts as the software makes sure your records are accurate.
✔ An software gives you insights on your inventory instantly. You can know how much you have in hand, what items are expiring, what needs to be re-ordered, which items are yet to go out-of-stock and so on. This makes it easier to prevent product shortages and keep just enough inventory on hand without having too much.
✔ Not having enough stocks to fulfill the order can lead to stock-outs and angry customers. Checking expiry dates of each and every item in your retail store needs a lot of time and patience. Items may even expire by the time you get to it. Whereas, in an inventory software identifying “Soon-to-expire” products is just a click away.
✔ Too little stock can lead to a stock-out, unhappy customers and loss of sales. It is very common for a small business owner to forget restocking items due to his busy schedule. Thanks to inventory software like Vyapar that sents automatic SMS alerts when stocks go low. You can easily refill them quick to avoid “out-of-stock” situations.
✔ Maintaining the right balance in inventory is a challenging task.Not checking your inventory regularly results in excess or lack of necessary stock. Fortunately, with the help of software you can track low stock levels and identify the re-order points for each product, in turn avoiding the occurrence of stock-outs. You can also see which of your items are slow-moving to avoid purchasing more of them. With this, you can prevent product shortages and allow you to keep just enough inventory without having too much. Hence, stock rotation becomes smooth with inventory management software.
✔ Having excess stocks in your retail store, however, can take up valuable storage space and incur unnecessary charges. You can also see which of your items are slow-moving instantly on inventory software to avoid purchasing more of them. This will reduce the risk of over-stocking items.
✔ By using inventory management software like Vyapar App with batch tracking capabilities, you will have far better product traceability. You can instantly choose items with certain batch numbers, or with certain expiry dates, etc in no time. This will make your job easier.
✔ A good inventory management software helps you save money that could otherwise be wasted on slow-moving products. You can put the same money to better use in other areas of your business. You can easily learn about which of your items are bringing your profit, which ones are incurring losses, which items are selling faster, which are not selling as predicted. All of these details may fluctuate in a year. Of course, different items sell at different seasons. Knowing these while investing money on inventory gives you a competitive edge.
✔ Businesses are always looking for ways to save time and decrease labor costs. Inventory management systems are one of the best ways to accomplish that. In fact, in the last few years, there has been a 25% increase in the number of businesses investing in better ways to manage inventory.
Inventory software helps eliminate manual processes so you can focus on other – more important – areas of the business. Perhaps the biggest benefit to using the software is that it makes the process of managing your inventory a whole lot easier, saving you time, mone.
Finding an Inventory Software for your Retail Store
If you’ve decided that the time has come to purchase an inventory management system, try Vyapar App for Mobile, it FREE.
# 4 Big Inventory Mistakes You Could Be Making in Your Small Business
1. Not stocking what your customers want.
2. Placing new stocks visibly ahead of the old unsold ones.
3. Over-stocking or under-stocking your inventory.
4. Not adopting Inventory Software to manage it.
“Stock Summary Report” of Vyapar App helps you avoid such mistakes effortlessly.
Where to find “Stock Summary Report” in Vyapar App?
Go to Reports > Item/Stock Reports > Stock Summary Report
Have Vyapar App?
How to use “Stock Summary Report” of Vyapar App?
On the “Stock Summary Report”, Select the DATE on which you want to see your stock details. Choose “Item Category” (if you have any!) to see items details category-wise.
Here’s what gets displayed –
✔ All your items with their remaining count.
- Use this to check what items need immediate re-ordering & easily avoid “out-of-stock” issues.
- It also shows which of your items sells the fastest and slowest.
- Accordingly, you can stock more of fast-selling items, less of slow-selling ones.
✔ You can also see, money held up by each of your inventory items (Stock Value).
67% of Vyaparis use the “Stock Summary Report” of Vyapar to decide inventory purchases.
# 6 Easy Tips To Pick Inventory That Sells 2X Faster
1. Identify what sells best and when. Stock items by their demand.
2. Never miss out on what your regular customers want and need.
3. Understand the “spending potential” of your customers & stock items that are priced within their reach.
4. Create combos packs of items that tend to be purchased together.
5. Watch your competition: If they’re selling items at an unreasonable lesser rate, don’t stock in such items.
6. Discover items that should be in inventory but are not. Purchase them.
“Item Wise Profit/Loss” of Vyapar App helps you identify the most profitable items using your sales history.
Where to find “Item Wise Profit/Loss” in Vyapar App?
Go to Reports -> Item/Stock Reports -> Item Wise Profit/Loss
Have Vyapar App?
CHECK ITEM-WISE PROFIT/LOSS REPORT
How to use it?
On the “Item Wise Profit/Loss Report”, Select the time duration you like to see the details on.
- Shows all items you sold.
- Shows “profit/loss” incurred by selling each of the items.
72% of Vyaparis say “Item Wise Profit/Loss Report‘‘ of Vyapar has made their business 2X profitable by helping them make inventory-purchase decisions.
# 7 Steps To Detect & Prevent Inventory Fraud/Theft.
1. Count and record each of your item’s opening and closing quantity for the day.
2. Track how many of each item you purchase and sell on a regular basis.
3. Conduct regular inventory checks to stay on top of your inventory movements.
4. Update your stock levels after every sale and purchase. This way, you can know ahead of time if any of your items are yet to go “out-of-stock”.
5. Maintain inventory accuracy. Know the exact value of your inventory at any point in time. This way you can catch problems before it goes unnoticed.
6. Stop doing physical inventory counts with pen & paper, they are a lot of work. Go digital instead.
7. Digitize your business with an inventory software like Vyapar App, that makes counting inventory a breeze.
“Stock Detail Report” of Vyapar App helps you track inventory levels accurately, instantly and effortlessly. With this, it’s easy to prevent both internal & external frauds.
Where to find “Stock Detail Report” & How to use it in Vyapar App?
Go to Reports -> Item/Stock Reports -> Stock Detail Report
Have Vyapar App?
CLICK TO CHECK STOCK DETAIL REPORT
How to use it?
On the Sale Detail Report screen, select the Time Duration you like to see the details on. You can also filter it down by item category.
✔ Shows the list of all your items in your inventory.
✔ Shows how many of each of your items you have at the beginning of this time period.
✔ Shows how many of each item you purchased in this time period.
✔ Shows how many of each item you sold in this time period.
✔ Shows how many of each item is left at the end of this time period.
✔ You can export these details as PDF or XLS & share it with people who matter.
97% of Vyaparis say “Stock Detail Report” makes inventory management as painlessly as possible.
# What Is Inventory? How to Control and Prevent Inventory Loss in Retail?
Inventory losses are a big deal in the retail industry. In the retail world, shrinkage, or shrink, is the term used to describe stock depletion due to shoplifting, employee theft, administrative errors such as record keeping, pricing, cash counting, and supplier fraud. One more category of shrinkage, represents all the unknown causes of damage in your store. While retailers suffer losses in their bottom line, it is an expensive problem for all retail industries.
This is why more retailers have to develop and implement a loss prevention strategy for their stores. 80% of retail businesses are investing in the budget to control inventory losses.
What is Inventory/Stock In Retail Businesses?
The term inventory/ stock is used for goods (Products/Items) available for sale and raw materials used to produce goods available for sale. Inventory represents one of the most important assets of a business because the inventory represents one of the primary sources of revenue generation and subsequent earnings for the company’s shareholders.
What is Inventory/Stock Management?
Inventory refers to the goods kept for future use. Each retail chain has its own warehouse or store to stock the goods where the current stock is replenished and it is also the storage of products used in times of crisis. The retailer keeps track of stocked goods and ensures that there is a surplus inventory to avoid being “out of stock”. Such a process is called inventory management.
What is Stock Control?
Stock control is also known as inventory control. It is used to show how much stock you have at one time, and how you track it. It is the process of maintaining a reasonable quantity of stock, so a business can meet customer demand and needs without any delay.
Efficient stock control allows you to have the right amount of stock at the right time, right place. It ensures that capital is not tied unnecessarily & protects production when problems arise along with the supply chain.
Stock control is important because it can be the difference between profit and loss. It keeps costs down while increasing its profitability on every sale. There are several stock control methods, including:
- Just-in-time (JIT)
- FIFO
- Economic Order Quantity
- Vendor-managed inventory
- Batch control
Regardless of which method you use, you need a stock control system. Stock control systems range from traditional pen and paper to inventory accounting software.
Why Stock Control is Required?
Stock Inventory control should be a priority for every business owner. When you control your stock, you will see improved warehouse efficiency, better customer service, and clear visibility of stock price and profit margins.
The main purpose of stock control is to reduce the cost of stock holding while ensuring that you can meet customer demand and ensure that there is enough material for production. As a businessman, you should always have a ‘safe’ amount of stock so that you can react and cover any unforeseen issues. Here we will explain some benefits of stock control for your business.
5 Benefits of Stock/Inventory Control
How stock under control will be beneficial for you:
1. Increase productivity and efficiency: As a Wholesaler, distributor & retailer you can make fundamental improvements in productivity and efficiency in your inventory When you implement the software. The software will eliminate time-consuming manual processes & in result it will provide time for employees to focus on other areas of the business.
2. Set up warehouse: cluttered warehouse creates hundreds of problems – staying on top of inventory is one of them. When you have a clear stock management strategy, it becomes very easy to organize and manage the warehouse.
3. Running out of stock: For a company to do business successfully, they must have the products, materials, or services that the customer requires. Out of stock occurs when a product, material, or service is not available to meet customer demand, and typically occurs when demand exceeds the normal sale. Running out of stock not only hurts the reputation of a business, but it can also cause major financial losses due to lack of sales.
4. Your customers will come back for more: If your customers know that your products are always available and they complete their orders in good time, they are likely to return. To remain competitive and gain an edge, you need to be able to meet customer demand in the most efficient way.
5. Sell your products easily using multiple channels: If you are selling products on multiple channels such as Amazon, Flipkart, phone, or stores, then staying on top and manually tracking these orders from all channels can become a minefield. With fully integrated software, your stock control will be managed from each channel so that stock levels remain up-to-date and keep customers happy.
What is a Stock Loss in Retail?
Any damage to the stock before the sale that prevents it from being salable is considered as stock loss and adds to a retailer’s shrinkage calculation. If stock loss is due to theft and robbery, then we should have evidence of that to consider is as Loss..
Depending on the business model and the type of goods sold, stock damage may be a minor or significant issue. Trade value, fragility, and seasonality all increase the need for careful consideration of the best strategies to ensure maximum sales through stock at full price.
Each retailer will have to watch their actions closely to determine the causes of stock losses that most affect their business. One of the primary reasons for fashion retailers may be cuts or marketdowns due to the stock season. For luxury retailers, this can result in malfunctions as a result of fabric pulls, leather marks, and other forms of damage that make the product uncontrollable. Supermarket causes of stock loss may include:
- Deduction: Product that must be gone before any date
- Wastage: Stock that goes into bin due to bad or inefficient part
- Shrinkage: Unacceptable or unavailable for share due to an administrative error, theft, flawed recording, or any other unknown reason
Having an awareness of the causes of stock losses in their specific context allows retailers to develop initiatives that can help to reduce losses.
7 Strategies to Control the Loss of Stock in Retail Business?
There are many strategies to control the loss of stock in your retail business. Hopefully, they can have some impact on reducing costs for your business. We have prepared a list of 7 strategies to control stock losses-
1. Use an EPOS system:
Your EPOS (Electronic Point of Sale digital) System is a big asset to your business, many businesses have no idea what it can do. It is an expensive tool but is often used as a cash box rather than managing stock and cash flow more efficiently. Use it to track transactions, restrict employees to what authority they have. Set the system to allow rebates, refunds or rebates to be granted by the manager only.
2. Find out who is stealing:
There are several potential culprits causing the decline in your stock. Your customers, employees, or suppliers are all possible threats to your business.
- Your customers – usually for personal use or for resale.
- Your employee – There are many reasons why employees steal from their companies to lower prices for friends, dissatisfaction at work. A modern EPOS system can reduce this.
- Your suppliers – suppliers and contractors may overcharge you, resulting in costs for services or products that you do not actually receive.
- Incorrect pricing – Pricing items incorrectly will be examples of both errors that will add significant losses.
3. Keep security in place for both customers and employees:
- Install CCTV – Installing visible security cameras throughout stores and storerooms has proven to detect thieves. Review the cameras weekly, even if there is no clue of shrinkage.
- Correct signs – Post-anti-theft signs around the store, warning of penalties resulting from theft.
- Secure Stockrooms – Ensure that your stockrooms are not readily available to all staff members in all cases. Having limited access allows you to choose who has contacted the backroom stock, cutting into potential theft.
4. Beware of scams:
Make sure that your employees are aware of any scams you hear about, new tricks always appear that are difficult to keep on top of. Try and be aware of these and keep your employees in the loop as well. Lakhs are lost every year due to scam artists.
5. Know what stock you have:
Your stock is your livelihood; It is essential that you know what stock you have because there is a lot of delivery and sales process every day. Ensuring that you carry stocktakes as often as necessary.
6. Run a live-stock system:
Have a system, which enables you to follow the motion of each item in stock at the click of a button. Having control over your stock from arrival to purchase will help eliminate discrepancies and make them easily identifiable. Using a system will allow it to run more smoothly.
7. Check for Discrepancies:
When it arises that a discrepancy has occurred, it should be noted, Investigate which products are causing problems through stocktaking or analysis of a specific department. If these are due to breakdown, it is ensured that they are recorded and have no accounts.
The last note here is to remember that everyone in your store is responsible for missing, stolen, and broken items. Employees will always be more careful knowing that they are responsible for any discrepancies that occur under their watch.
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