Moving a general store or kiryana shop to a computer POS: step by step

What you need

• A Windows 10 or 11 computer. It does not need to be new or powerful.
• A receipt printer (80 mm thermal is the usual choice).
• A barcode scanner - or, to start, an Android phone with a scanner app.
• Optional: a label printer if you stick your own barcodes on loose items.

Step 1: make your product list

This is the biggest job, and you only do it once. In Excel, list each product with its name, sale price, purchase price and barcode (if it has one). Start with your top 200 items - the ones you sell every day. You can add the rest as they come to the counter. Most POS software can import the Excel file in one go.

Step 2: barcodes

Packed goods already have barcodes; scan them into the product list once. For loose items (sugar, rice, daal by weight, your own packs) either print your own barcode labels or add them as "quick items" you tap on the screen.

Step 3: count your opening stock

Choose a quiet day, close an hour early, and count. Enter the quantity of each product as opening stock. It does not have to be perfect on day one - but the closer it is, the sooner your stock reports become useful.

Step 4: credit customers and suppliers

Copy your khata: each credit customer with what they owe today, and each supplier with what you owe them. From now on every credit sale and every payment goes into their ledger by itself, and you can print or WhatsApp a statement instead of arguing over a notebook.

Step 5: users for your staff

Give every salesman their own login. Decide who may give a discount, take a return or delete a bill. You will see who sold what - and it protects honest staff too.

Step 6: run both for a week

For the first few days keep your old method as well, and compare at closing time. Once the cash matches the computer's closing report for a few days in a row, stop the old way.

Step 7: back up - every night

Your shop now lives on that computer. Make sure a backup is made automatically every night, and that a copy goes somewhere else: a USB drive you take home, or a cloud folder of your own. Test once that you can restore it.

What to look at after the first month

• Profit by product: some "best sellers" make almost nothing.
• Low stock and reorder: order what sells, not what the salesman pushes.
• Slow movers: money sitting on the shelf.
• Outstanding credit: who owes you, and since when.

How Alpha helps

Alpha imports products, customers, suppliers and opening balances from Excel, bills by barcode, name or quick item, prints receipts and barcode labels, keeps customer and supplier ledgers, and makes a backup every night. The free Alpha Scanner app turns an Android phone into a barcode scanner. It works without the internet. See Alpha for retail shops and the scanner app.