Uganda · Hardware & building supplies
A hardware shop runs on credit. Run it deliberately.
A hardware shop's biggest commercial decision is made at the counter, several times a day, by whoever is standing there: how much more to let a contractor take before he pays for the last lot.
The stock is awkward too. Cement by the bag, steel by the length, cable by the metre, paint by the tin and by the litre, nails by the kilo. The unit you buy in and the unit you sell in are frequently different, and the price moves every time the supplier's does.
And most of the sales are business-to-business, which means an invoice with a TIN on it and the line detail URA's EFRIS wants — not a till receipt.
What you get
What a hardware shop in Uganda actually needs
Credit limits that hold at the counter
A limit and payment terms per customer, applied when the sale is rung up. 'The system will not let me go past your limit until the last invoice clears' keeps a contractor; a judgement call does not.
An ageing report you can act on
What you are owed, grouped by how overdue it is, across every branch. The five-minute weekly habit that stops a slide while it is still a reminder.
Units that convert
Buy a drum, sell by the litre. Buy a bundle, sell by the length. The conversion lives on the product so the stock figure survives the difference.
Repricing when the supplier moves
A delivery at a new cost surfaces the affected lines immediately, so the shelf price does not sit six weeks behind the cement price.
Trade and retail price lists
Separate prices for contractors and walk-ins over the same products, so a cost rise can be passed through differently to different buyers.
Invoices with buyer details
Named invoices carrying the buyer's TIN and full line detail, ready for the EFRIS document, with customer statements for the accounts that need them.
B2B invoicing under EFRIS
Hardware is unusually exposed to EFRIS because so much of its trade is business-to-business. A contractor who is VAT-registered needs an invoice in their own name, with their TIN and the lines itemised, because they are claiming against it — so the quality of your invoice is a condition of the sale rather than an administrative afterthought.
That raises a second issue specific to this trade: credit. Goods frequently leave weeks before the money arrives, and the invoice, the delivery and the payment are three separate events. A shop recording only the payment cannot produce a document that matches when the goods actually moved.
sell.ke records the sale when the goods leave, against the customer's account, with their details attached and the lines itemised — then applies payments to specific invoices as they arrive. The EFRIS document is still raised through your own route; the detail behind it exists from the moment the lorry is loaded.
- Named invoices with buyer TIN and full line detail
- Sale recorded when goods move, not when money arrives
- Payments applied to the specific invoices they settle
- Customer statements for contractors running an account
A contractor's month, properly tracked
A contractor has a UGX 4m limit on 30-day terms. On the 3rd he takes 120 bags of cement and 40 lengths of Y12 — UGX 3.4m. On the 11th he wants another UGX 900,000 of roofing sheets, which would put him at UGX 4.3m. The counter sees the limit before the goods are loaded, not afterwards.
He pays UGX 2m by MoMo on the 14th. That payment is applied to the 3rd's invoice specifically, so the balance is unambiguous and so is his available credit — UGX 1.4m outstanding, UGX 2.6m of room. He takes the roofing sheets the same afternoon.
Meanwhile cement moves from UGX 32,500 to UGX 34,200 on the 18th delivery. The affected lines surface as the goods are received, the trade and retail prices are both reviewed that morning, and the shop does not spend three weeks selling at a cost that no longer exists — which on a 9 percent hardware margin is most of the profit on every bag.
At month end, the ageing report shows UGX 11.2m outstanding: UGX 7.8m current, UGX 2.6m at 30 days, UGX 800,000 at 60. Three names on one screen, each with a statement that can be sent without an argument.
Questions
Hardware shop in Uganda — 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. That is the whole point: the decision is made calmly in advance rather than by whoever is serving at the moment a lorry is waiting.
We buy in bundles and sell by the piece. Does the stock stay right?
Yes. The conversion is set on the product, so a bundle received is held as the number of pieces it contains and selling six takes six. Same for drums and litres, rolls and metres, bags and kilos.
Prices change every delivery. How do I keep up?
Record each delivery at the cost you actually paid and the affected products surface immediately, with their current margin. Repricing becomes a two-minute task on the lines that moved rather than a monthly exercise you keep postponing — which matters most in hardware, where margins are thin and cement moves constantly.
Can I give contractors different prices from walk-in customers?
Yes. Trade and retail price lists sit over the same products, so a customer on the trade list gets trade prices automatically, at the counter and online. When a cost rises you can pass it through on one list and absorb it on the other, deliberately.
Can I produce invoices with the buyer's TIN for EFRIS?
The sale is held as lines with the buyer's details and TIN attached, and exported per period — everything an EFRIS document is raised from. sell.ke does not transmit to URA; Kenya's eTIMS is the only revenue-authority integration that ships.
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 Uganda
Supermarket POS (Uganda)
Two rails at every till, thousands of SKUs, and an EFRIS filing that wants the lines.
Pharmacy POS (Uganda)
Batch and expiry under NDA licensing, dispensing by strip, and EFRIS on the invoice.
Restaurant POS (Uganda)
Orders to the kitchen, recipes that deduct stock, and a MoMo split bill that still reconciles.
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.
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.
Reports and real accounting
Double-entry books — trial balance, P&L, balance sheet — not a CSV export to somebody else's software.
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.
Not knowing your profit
Takings are not profit. The gap between them is where most small shops quietly fail.
EFRIS and your POS (Uganda)
Every sale held at the line detail a URA e-invoice needs, before you go to file it.
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 Uganda shop
Fourteen days, no card, no hardware to buy. Your prices, stock, costs and reports all run in UGX.