Stocktaking for a small shop in Nigeria: a simple stock-count guide

Stocktaking compares goods physically available with the quantities in your business records. A useful count does more than replace an inconvenient number: it helps you discover an unrecorded delivery, a unit mistake, damage or a sale entered twice. ReceiptPro can hold the reviewed quantity, but the counting, explanation and approval still need a deliberate shop routine.

Agree when and what you are counting

Choose a quiet period and note the cutoff time. Pause sales and deliveries for the shelf being counted where practical. If trading must continue, keep a separate list of movements after the cutoff so the count and the app refer to the same moment.

List the product name, SKU where used, counting unit, recorded quantity, physical quantity and difference. Count the same goods in the same unit. One carton containing twelve bottles is not interchangeable with one bottle. Separate similar sizes or brands so an extra item in one row does not hide a shortage in another.

Count saleable goods in all relevant places, including a store area behind the counter. Keep customer-owned items, goods awaiting collection and damaged stock clearly identified rather than mixing them into an unexplained total. Ask a second person to recount significant differences before changing records.

Work through a fictional difference

Suppose a shop's record shows 44 phone chargers, but the physical recount finds 41. The difference is 41 − 44 = minus 3 chargers. At a fictional unit cost of ₦1,000, those three units represent ₦3,000 of cost information to investigate, not ₦3,000 of automatically recorded sales or an app-generated expense.

Check recent receipts, deliveries and any documented damage. Perhaps a sale was missed, perhaps three units were placed on another shelf, or perhaps the original count was wrong. Do not immediately label the difference theft without evidence. Tax and selling-price calculations are not part of this quantity example.

If a genuine missing transaction is discovered, review the correct way to record or correct it before also changing stock. Recording a goods sale can reduce stock, so an additional manual subtraction may count the same movement twice. Keep the review decision, person responsible and explanation in a separate count record.

Update the quantity through the actual inventory form

In the local Standard Mode workspace, open Inventory, find the existing goods entry and use its edit control. Review Starting / Current Stock Qty, enter the approved absolute quantity and choose Save Goods. For the reviewed charger example, enter 41, not minus 3 and not 44 plus 41. Leave the product's Goods kind, unit and prices correct.

The Quick Stock Up buttons add their displayed quantity to the current record. For example, +20 changes 41 to 61. They do not mean that twenty units were counted. Easy Mode also has an additive quick-restock shortcut; use the edit form when replacing the current quantity with an approved count.

In a protected online team workspace, an authorised owner or manager can use Edit / restock and set Stock quantity. The server can reject a save if the product changed while the form was open. Reopen and review the latest values instead of repeatedly forcing an older count. A cashier does not gain inventory-edit rights just because they helped with the physical count.

Keep corrections separate from money and historical sales

A direct stock-quantity edit changes the current product record. It does not create a supplier purchase, bank payment, cash receipt, shortage expense or automatic stocktake-adjustment ledger. Retain the reason and supporting count evidence separately and obtain appropriate accounting help for any financial treatment.

Do not change the item into a Service merely to stop a low-stock warning. Services genuinely do not consume stock; a charger remains a physical good. ReceiptPro does not provide FIFO layers, batch or expiry tracking, automatic ingredient consumption or a complete warehouse stocktaking module.

If 20 new chargers arrive after the approved count of 41, the quantity becomes 61. If eight are then sold and properly recorded as goods sales, it becomes 53. Do not manually deduct those eight again after the sale workflow has already reduced them. Keep the delivery evidence separate from the quantity update.

Make the next count easier

Use consistent names and units, record sales promptly and set a sensible Min Stock Alert Level for the goods. Low-stock and out-of-stock filters identify recorded quantities requiring attention; they do not verify what is physically on the shelf. Count frequently moving items more often than slow-moving ones if that suits your operation.

Starter supports up to 50 combined catalogue entries, and existing items can still be edited at the limit. Growth and Pro support more catalogue entries. Export a backup before substantial corrections and keep it separate from the working device. Protected teams can export backups, but protected restore is not available in this release; do not assume automatic cross-device sync.

Read the provisions-shop workflow, compare sales with actual collections, or review the daily record routine before setting up a free Starter account.