Products, stock and branches
Products
Products is your catalogue as a sheet: product, SKU, barcode, category, price, cost, margin, whether stock is tracked, stock, reorder level and status.
- Filters: All, Low stock, Out of stock, Stock tracked (and No URA code for EFRIS businesses), plus category and search by name, SKU or barcode.
- Edit a price, cost or reorder level right in the sheet.
- Typing a new stock count records a stock correction — the change is logged with who made it, rather than silently overwriting the number.
- Paste a price list from Excel below the last row to add many products at once, or use Import.
- The foot of the sheet shows your stock at cost.
- New product (N) opens the editor; you can scan a barcode with the camera there too.
- Receive stock on an open product adds units that arrived, and asks where they came from — see below.
- Categories manages how the catalogue is grouped.
- Restock advice asks Kiongozi what to reorder this week, weighing what is low, what sells and your margins.
Where your stock came from
A cost on its own is just for your margin — it records no money. But when you add a product with a quantity, or Receive stock on one you already have, SBB asks "Where did these come from?" so your books match your shelf:
| Choose | What SBB records |
|---|---|
| I already had them | The stock, as opening stock. No money — it was not spent today. |
| I bought them and paid | Money out of the account you choose, under Inventory, with the supplier if you name one. |
| I bought them on credit | A supplier bill for the total, due when you say (or on the supplier's terms). Pay it later from Bills. |
| From a purchase order | Pick the order and the line: the name, cost and quantity fill in, the order is marked received, and you say whether it was paid or bought on credit. If the order already has a bill linked, no more money is recorded. |
The total is quantity × cost each, and a line under the choices tells you exactly what will be recorded before you save. Everything is saved together — if something is missing, nothing is saved, so you never end up with the stock but not the money, or the same product twice.
When stock counts as a cost
Stock you buy counts as a cost (under Cost of Sales) in the period you pay for it or are billed for it. Opening stock does not count as a cost in this period.
Stock in more than one branch
When your stock sits in more than one branch, Products gains a branch picker:
- All branches adds a Where column showing each branch's stock — for example "Main 40 · Ntinda 12".
- Choose a branch and the stock column becomes that branch's count ("At Ntinda"). Low and out of stock, the status and stock value all follow that branch.
- A count typed while a branch is chosen corrects that branch's stock only.
- If you are assigned to one branch, you see that branch.
Where a product is, and moving it
Open a tracked product to see Where it is — each place that holds it, with its branch. To move stock, choose Move from, To and How many, then Move. A move is recorded as a transfer, so each branch's count stays explainable.
Categories and units
Two small pages that decide how the catalogue reads, both reached from Products.
Categories
Categories groups the catalogue — Drinks, Food, Hardware — with subcategories inside each. It is what the till's buttons and the product filters are arranged by.
- New group adds a top-level; + Sub adds a kind within one.
- Start here makes one category the one a new product begins on. A shop that only sells goods should not pick Goods eleven times a day. Do not start here clears it, which is the right answer for a business that sells goods and services equally — it should be made to choose each time.
- Turn off takes a group and its subcategories out of the picker without deleting anything. Products already filed under it are untouched; it simply stops being offered on the next one. Show what is turned off and Turn on bring it back.
Units
Units is how you count things. A bar buys beer by the crate and sells it by the bottle; a restaurant buys rice by the sack and serves it by the plate. Set this and 12 stops meaning twelve of something you have to remember.
- Add the usual ones puts in pieces, kilos, litres, crates, cartons, sacks, plates and the rest. Safe to run again later — it only adds what is missing, so it is also how you undo a tidy-up you regret.
- Write my own for anything particular to your trade.
- Start here makes one the unit a new product begins in.
- Turn off takes one out of the picker. Products already counted in it keep saying so.
On a product, Counted in is the unit. Leaving it as Just count them is a real answer — most shops count in nameless ones and always have.
A unit is a label, not a conversion
SBB will not turn 2 crates into 48 bottles. If you buy in crates and sell in bottles, keep them as two products — otherwise your stock count is in units that do not match what you sell.
Branches
Branch management is found through search, not the sidebar: press Ctrl+K and type branches.
On Branches you can open a new branch, assign tills and stock locations to it, give staff access to a branch, and see each branch's numbers. Stock transfers (also in search) moves stock between branches and shows what is in transit.
More detail: Locations and Stock transfers.
Purchase orders
Purchases is what you have ordered from suppliers and what is still to come — writing an order, sending it on WhatsApp, receiving the goods and linking the supplier's bill. It has a page of its own: Purchases and purchase orders.
Receiving on an order records the quantities. Putting those units on your shelf and the cost in your books is Receive stock on Products — see Where your stock came from.