The problem with selling part of a carton
Stock arrives by the carton, but customers rarely buy a whole one. Most point of sale software keeps quantities as whole units or rounds them to two decimals, and that is where a cold room starts losing track. An eighth of a carton is 0.125. Rounded to two decimals it becomes 0.13, and the till, the stock count and the money slowly stop agreeing with each other.
A cold room using UbiquePOS hit exactly that on a real till, and it is the reason quantities are now kept to four decimal places everywhere, not just at checkout. 0.125 stays 0.125.
- Sell a half, a quarter, an eighth or a sixteenth of a carton
- The exact amount is what is charged, what comes off the shelf, and what is printed
- The same four decimals apply in returns, stock write-offs, stock adjustments and transfers, so a figure never changes precision on its way through
- Switched on once for the business, so a shop that only sells whole units never sees any of it
Selling by naira amount
A customer says "give me three thousand naira worth". The attendant types the amount, and UbiquePOS works out how much of the carton that buys, to four decimals, and shows the quantity and the price before the sale is completed.
The charge is always the price times the quantity actually recorded, so it can differ from the amount typed by a few kobo. The screen shows the real figures rather than quietly forcing the total to match, because a total that disagrees with quantity times price is how stock valuation and profit reports go wrong later.
Or type the exact fraction
When the customer already knows the portion, the attendant types it as a fraction: one third of a carton, say. The line total is worked out from the price and that fraction and rounded once, to the kobo. Typing 0.33 is not a third, however many times it is rounded, which is why the exact fraction is there as its own option.
Cartons in, kilos out
A cold room might buy cartons of about 25kg and sell them loose by weight. Put a "kilograms per unit" on the product and switch on kilogram conversion for the branch that sells by the kilo, and a transfer of cartons arrives there in cartons, waiting to be weighed.
Someone at that branch weighs it and confirms the real figure, and only that weighed amount becomes stock you can sell. Real fish does not weigh out to a round number, so the system suggests a total from the usual carton weight and the person at the scale always has the last word.
- A shipment waiting to be weighed never appears on the till and never mixes with the kilos already on the shelf, so selling carries on while it waits
- A weight typed wrongly, one kilo instead of one hundred, is caught against the expected weight and refused with a warning
- Cost per kilo is recalculated as a weighted average of what is on the shelf and what just arrived, with the working shown
- Items that never need weighing pass straight through, in the same transfer as items that do
Moving stock between rooms, with the cost of getting it there
A transfer takes stock off one branch and puts it on another in a single step, with a record on both sides and a reference code. Transport, clearing or haulage can be added to a transfer afterwards as a landed cost, and it is added to the cost price of what arrived, so profit is worked out from what the stock really cost to land.
Anyone at the branch can print the transfer slip for the driver or for the receiving room.
Spoilage written off with a reason
Frozen stock goes bad, gets damaged and goes missing. Each write-off carries its own reason, spoilage, damage or theft, and is tracked apart from ordinary stock corrections, so you can see what shrinkage costs you in each room instead of it disappearing into adjustments.
Regular buyers and wholesale customers
Restaurants, caterers and traders who buy every week can run on an account with a credit limit you control, or hold a prepaid wallet. You see who owes what on one page.
You can also give an item a wholesale price and switch it on at the till for an established customer. Every sale that used it is flagged for the owner to review, so a wholesale price is never handed out quietly.
When the light goes
The till keeps selling when the power or the network drops. Sales are saved on the device and sync when the connection is back, each one tagged so it can never be counted twice. See offline selling.
How to get started
- Upload your product list, with the kilograms per carton where it applies.
- Switch on selling in fractions for the business, then amount-based or exact-fraction selling, and kilogram conversion, for the branches that need them.
- Record deliveries and transfers as stock arrives, and weigh in what needs weighing.
- Sell, count each drawer at close, and review the day.