Rwanda · Hardware & building supplies
Credit, cement and a stock figure that holds up
A hardware shop's largest commercial decision is made at the counter all day long: how much more to let a contractor take before the last lot is paid for.
The stock is awkward. Cement by the bag, steel by the length, cable by the metre, paint by the tin and the litre. What you buy in and what you sell in are routinely different units, and the cost moves constantly.
In Rwanda there is a third pressure. EBM is interested in purchases and holdings as well as sales, and a hardware shop that cannot reconcile what it bought against what it is holding has an exposure on top of a thin margin.
What you get
What a hardware shop in Rwanda actually needs
Credit limits enforced at the counter
A limit and terms per customer, applied when the sale is rung up rather than recalled by whoever is serving while a lorry waits.
Ageing you can act on weekly
What you are owed grouped by how overdue it is, with statements you can send — so a slide is caught while it is still a reminder.
Units that convert
Buy a bundle, sell by the length. Buy a drum, sell by the litre. The conversion lives on the product so the stock figure survives it.
Purchases recorded with real costs
Deliveries against suppliers in francs, which is both how margin becomes real and how your closing stock gets something to reconcile against.
Trade and retail price lists
Separate prices for contractors and walk-ins over the same products, so a cost rise can be passed through deliberately rather than uniformly.
Named invoices with line detail
Business customers get itemised invoices with their details attached — the detail an EBM document is raised from.
Why EBM makes the purchase side matter
Hardware trade is mostly business-to-business, so your invoice is part of your customer's records as well as your own. That alone raises the standard: a contractor needs a document in their name with the lines itemised.
The Rwandan specific is on the input side. EBM's interest in purchases and holdings means a shop that keeps deliveries in a drawer has nothing behind its closing stock figure — and a hardware shop's stock is both high-value and awkward to count, which makes an unprovable position an uncomfortable one.
sell.ke records the delivery when it arrives, with the cost, against the supplier; records the sale when the goods leave, against the customer; and lets stock follow from both. The EBM invoice is still raised through your own route. What changes is that all three figures finally come from the same place.
- Deliveries recorded with costs, per supplier
- Sale recorded when goods move, not when money arrives
- Itemised invoices with the buyer's details attached
- Closing stock derived from purchases and sales rather than asserted
A contractor's month in Kigali
A contractor holds a RWF 9m limit on 30-day terms. On the 4th he takes 200 bags of cement and 60 lengths of Y12 — RWF 6.4m. On the 12th he wants a further RWF 3.1m of roofing, which would breach the limit. The counter sees it before the lorry is loaded.
He pays RWF 4m by MoMo on the 15th, applied to the 4th's invoice specifically. The balance is unambiguous and so is his remaining room — RWF 2.4m outstanding, RWF 6.6m available. The roofing goes out that afternoon.
Cement moves from RWF 11,200 to RWF 11,850 on the 19th delivery. The affected lines surface as the goods are received; trade and retail prices are both reviewed the same morning. On a 9 percent margin, three weeks at the old price is most of the profit on every bag.
At month end, purchases of RWF 41.7m and sales of RWF 46.2m imply a closing position the system already holds — and a count of the twelve highest-value lines agrees with it. That is the number the regime is interested in, and it came out of trading rather than out of an evening with a calculator.
Questions
Hardware shop in Rwanda — questions
Can I set a credit limit per contractor?
Yes — an amount and payment terms per customer, enforced at the counter when the sale is rung up. The decision gets made calmly in advance rather than under pressure with a lorry waiting.
We buy bundles and sell by the piece. Does the stock stay right?
Yes. The conversion sits on the product, so a bundle received is held as the pieces it contains. Same for drums and litres, rolls and metres, bags and kilos.
How does this help with EBM?
EBM is interested in purchases and holdings as well as sales. Recording deliveries with costs and letting stock follow from purchases and sales gives you a closing position that reconciles rather than one you assert. The invoice itself is still issued through EBM — sell.ke does not transmit to RRA.
Can contractors have different prices from walk-ins?
Yes. Trade and retail price lists sit over the same products and apply automatically at the counter. When a cost rises you can pass it through on one list and absorb it on the other, deliberately.
Does everything run in francs?
Yes — prices, costs, stock values, margins and reports are all in RWF. Subscription billing is quoted in KES; talk to the team about settlement in francs.
Can I use it for more than one shop?
Yes. Branches share one product catalogue but hold their own stock, so a transfer between them is a recorded movement rather than a re-count. Reports run per branch or across all of them, and staff permissions are set per branch — a Kisumu supervisor does not need to see Nairobi's margins.
Will it show me my profit?
Yes, and from a real ledger rather than a sales total. Every sale posts to a double-entry chart of accounts, so you get a trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow — not a CSV to hand your accountant. Margin is visible per product, per branch and per channel, because cost is tracked on the way in through purchase orders and goods-received notes.
What does it cost?
Plans run from USD 12/month for a single-location till to USD 115/month for unlimited scale, with the online store on your own domain included from USD 23/month. In Kenya the same plans are KES 1,499 to KES 14,999/month, billed in shillings. Every plan starts with a 14-day trial and no card, and there is no per-terminal licence and no commission on your sales. There is no hardware to buy either — sell.ke runs on a phone, tablet or laptop you already own.
Other trades in Rwanda
Supermarket POS (Rwanda)
MoMo-first checkout under a regime that cross-checks your stock against your sales.
Pharmacy POS (Rwanda)
Batch and expiry, insurance-split payments, and a stock position EBM can be reconciled against.
Restaurant POS (Rwanda)
MoMo-settled bills, recipes that move stock, and an EBM invoice for the table that needs one.
The features this leans on
Each one goes deeper than this page does.
Customers and loyalty
Credit accounts that do not go missing, loyalty that returns, and a debtor list you can actually chase.
Buying, suppliers and approvals
Purchase orders, goods-received notes, supplier bills and the cost figure every margin depends on.
Prices, price lists and promotions
Wholesale and retail off one product, quantity breaks, customer-specific lists, VAT-inclusive display.
Stock you can trust
Batch and expiry, serial numbers, reorder levels, stock takes and the formulas behind them.
What this actually fixes
The problems underneath, and the rails and revenue authority you deal with.
Customers who buy on credit
The debtors book is where a profitable shop runs out of cash. How to lend without bleeding.
Supplier prices keep moving
When cost moves every delivery, a shelf price set once is a margin you are losing on purpose.
Stock takes that close the shop
Counting everything on a Sunday finds the loss months late. Count less, far more often.
EBM and your stock (Rwanda)
EBM asks what you bought, sold and still hold. Most shops can only answer one of the three.
MTN MoMo at the till
Every MoMo payment attached to the sale that earned it, instead of a statement you read at night.
Try it in your Rwanda shop
Fourteen days, no card, no hardware to buy. Your prices, stock, costs and reports all run in RWF.