From a notebook or Excel to a POS: a step-by-step move for your shop

When is a notebook or a spreadsheet no longer enough?

• You cannot say how many pieces of an item are in the shop without walking to the shelf.
• The cash in the drawer at night never quite matches the day's sales, and nobody can say why.
• Customers' debts live in a notebook that only one person can read.
• Two branches each keep their own sheet, and moving stock between them leaves no record.
• Prices change on the shelf but not in the sheet, or the other way round.

What should you prepare before you switch?

Most of the work of moving is cleaning the list you already have. A clean sheet makes every later step faster, whatever system you choose.

Can PointLit import products from an Excel file?

Not yet. PointLit has no screen for importing products, prices or stock from a file, and its partner API does not create products. If you have a long list, write to support@pointlit.com before you start, and we will work out with you the quickest way to bring your products, prices and opening stock in.

In the meantime, your clean sheet is still the work that matters: it becomes the list you type from, and the product builder enters a whole model, in every size and colour, in one form.

How do you add your products to PointLit by hand?

The help article on products with sizes and colours shows the product builder in detail.

1. If your items have no maker's barcode, set your Barcode rule first, under Manage. From then on, a product saved without a barcode gets one automatically.
2. Open Products and choose New product. Name it, pick what it varies by, such as size and colour, and fill the grid: one row for each combination.
3. Type each row's price. Scan the maker's barcode into the row if it has one, or press Fill empty barcodes to let the rule make the rest.
4. Enter an Opening cost if you know what the item cost you. It is kept as the cost of stock that came in without a goods receipt.
5. If your business uses SKUs, switch on We use SKUs in Business settings, so the product builder shows the SKU column.
6. Print barcode labels from the Barcode Printer for every item that has no maker's barcode.

How do you bring in the stock you already have?

Do not copy quantities from the old sheet: count the shelf. In PointLit, stock on hand is the sum of every stock movement, so the opening quantity has to come in through a document, in one of two ways. The help article on counting stock explains the count.

• A stock count. Once your products are entered, count each branch. Posting the count moves every item you counted from zero to the quantity you found, and the difference is kept as a count adjustment. Use the Opening cost in the product builder for the cost.
• A goods receipt. If you know which supplier each item came from and what it cost, record the stock as a goods receipt from that supplier, with the quantity and the unit cost.

What about customers who owe you money?

Add your account customers in Customers, each with a Credit limit. Sales on account, statements and loyalty points come with Counter, Chain and Enterprise, and with the 14-day free trial of Chain. PointLit has no screen yet for a balance a customer owed before you started, so keep the old notebook for those debts until they are paid, and put every new sale on account in PointLit from your first day.

How do you run the old record and PointLit side by side?

• Pick a quiet day to start, and count the stock the evening before or that morning.
• Ring every sale in PointLit from the first day, even when the notebook feels faster.
• Close every shift with a count of the drawer and print the Z report, then compare it with the notebook during the first week.
• Record every delivery as a goods receipt, so the shelf and the system move together.
• After a week or two, count a few items again. If they match, put the notebook away.