Know what you own
How to keep track of stock in a small store
Almost nobody loses stock dramatically. It goes a unit at a time — a delivery signed for without checking, a sale rung up as the wrong product, a return that never got processed, a damaged item quietly binned. Each is trivial. The sum is a stock figure nobody trusts and a shop that reorders by looking at the shelf.
The fix is not a big system. It is six habits, and they work whether you record them in a notebook, a spreadsheet or software. Software makes them much easier to keep, which is the honest argument for it — not that it does something you could not otherwise do.
This page covers the habits first, then a spreadsheet template that works, then how to tell when the spreadsheet has stopped being enough.
What you get
What this gives you
A number you can act on
The difference between 'we have about eleven' and 'we have eleven, four at the branch, and two are reserved for a web order' is the difference between guessing and deciding.
Buying that is a list, not a judgement
Reorder levels turn purchasing into something the system proposes and you approve, rather than a weekly act of memory under time pressure.
Shrinkage with a history
When every movement is attributed, the gap between what you bought, sold and hold stops being a mystery and becomes a set of events you can look at.
Cash off the shelves
Knowing what is not moving is worth as much as knowing what is. Slow lines are working capital sitting still, and they are invisible without a record.
Counts that take an hour
A rolling count against an expected figure is a quick check. An annual count with no expectation to compare against is a long day that produces a number and no explanation.
The same figure for everyone
One record means staff, the shop floor and any online channel are looking at the same quantity, rather than at three versions of it.
Step by step
Six habits that keep stock accurate
Record the movement, not the result
Every time stock changes hands, record why: sold, received, returned, transferred, damaged, used internally. A count that only ever gets overwritten with a new number tells you what you have; a record of movements tells you where it went, which is the only version you can act on when the number is wrong.
Check deliveries against the order, not the note
The delivery note says what the supplier believes they sent. Check against what you ordered, at the door, before signing. Short deliveries and substituted items are far more common than most shopkeepers realise, and they are impossible to prove a week later. This single habit finds more missing stock than any other.
Give every product one identity
One name, one code, one place in the list. Two entries for the same item — a shorthand at the counter and a full name in the order book — will each hold half the truth. If a supplier changes packaging or a barcode, update the product rather than creating a second one.
Set a reorder level for anything you must not run out of
Decide the quantity at which you would want to order more, based on how fast it sells and how long the supplier takes. Then buying becomes a list rather than a judgement made under pressure on a Friday. Set it too low and you have a stockout; too high and your cash is sitting on a shelf.
Count a little, often
Rolling counts beat an annual stock take for almost every shop. Count one category a week so everything is covered over a quarter, and count your fastest-moving and highest-value lines more often. The point is to find a discrepancy while its cause is still recent enough to identify.
Attribute everything
Voids, discounts, refunds, price overrides and stock adjustments should each carry the name of whoever made them. Not to catch people out — most of what looks like theft is an untrained cashier repeating the same mistake — but because an unattributed adjustment is a dead end, and an attributed one is a five-minute conversation.
A stock spreadsheet that actually works
Most downloadable templates are too elaborate and get abandoned within a month. The version that survives is deliberately plain: one row per SKU, never one row per transaction, with columns for opening quantity, received, sold, adjusted and closing, plus cost price and sell price.
Run it weekly rather than daily — a weekly cadence is one people keep, a daily one is not. Reconcile a sample against a physical count each week, and record the adjustment rather than silently correcting the number, because the adjustments are where the information is.
Keep cost price in it from the beginning. Without it you can see what sold and not what you made, and adding cost prices retrospectively across a few hundred products is a job nobody ever does.
- One row per SKU — a row per transaction becomes unmanageable fast
- Columns: opening, received, sold, adjusted, closing, cost, price
- Weekly reconciliation against a physical sample, not annual
- Record adjustments rather than overwriting the number
- One person owns the file; a shared file with two editors has two truths
How to stop losing stock in retail
Losses come from three places and they need different responses, which is why 'we are losing stock' is not actionable until you can tell them apart. Administrative error — goods received but never entered, sales rung up as the wrong item, returns not processed — is usually the largest and the cheapest to fix. Supplier shortfall is next, and is invisible unless deliveries are checked against orders. Theft is what everyone assumes first and is frequently the smallest of the three.
The highest-value controls are unglamorous. Check deliveries at the door. Attribute every adjustment. Count often enough that a discrepancy is recent. Make the correct action at the counter easier than the workaround, because staff take the easy path and that is a design problem rather than a discipline problem.
One specific pattern worth knowing: if a product is hard to find in the system, cashiers will ring it up as something similar. That does not lose money on the day, and it silently corrupts two stock figures at once. Products that are difficult to find at the till are a stock-accuracy problem, not a convenience one.
When the spreadsheet stops working
Three thresholds, all about coordination rather than size. A second person, because two people cannot both hold the current figure and a shared file becomes two files. A second channel, because now the spreadsheet has to be told about both and you are managing the relationship between two records instead of managing stock. A second location, because transfers need to decrement one place and increment another as one action, and a spreadsheet cannot do that reliably.
Until one of those is true, the spreadsheet is a legitimate answer and buying software is buying overhead. Once one of them is true, the spreadsheet does not fail loudly — it just becomes quietly wrong, which is worse, because you keep trusting it.
Questions
How to keep track of stock — questions
How do I keep track of stock in a small store?
Record why stock changed rather than just what the new number is, check deliveries against the order at the door, give every product exactly one identity, set a reorder level for anything you must not run out of, count a little and often rather than everything once a year, and attribute every adjustment to a person. Those six habits work in a notebook; software mainly makes them easier to keep up.
Is there a good Excel template for tracking store stock?
The template that survives contact with a real shop is plainer than most: one row per SKU, with columns for opening, received, sold, adjusted and closing quantities plus cost price and sell price, reconciled weekly against a physical sample. Avoid anything with a row per transaction — it looks thorough and becomes unusable within a month.
How often should I do a stock take?
Rolling counts beat annual ones for almost everyone: one category a week so the whole shop is covered over a quarter, with fast-moving and high-value lines counted more often. A discrepancy found within a week can usually be explained; the same discrepancy found after a year cannot.
What is a reorder level and how do I set one?
It is the quantity at which you want to be told to buy more. A workable starting point is how many you sell in the time it takes the supplier to deliver, plus a small buffer for a bad week. Review it after a season — too low and you get stockouts, too high and your cash is sitting on the shelf.
Why does my stock count never match the system?
Usually a combination of goods received but not entered, sales rung up as the wrong product, unprocessed returns and undocumented damage — rather than theft, which is what most people assume first. The way to tell them apart is attribution: once every movement carries a reason and a person, the pattern becomes visible within a couple of weeks.
Can I run more than one location?
Yes, from the Basic plan up. Locations share one product catalogue but hold their own stock, so moving goods between them is a recorded transfer rather than a re-count at both ends. Reports run per location or across all of them, and staff permissions are set per location — a branch supervisor does not need to see another branch's margins.
Can I bring across the products I already have?
Yes — bulk import from CSV or Excel, including photos, variants, pack sizes, prices, cost prices and opening stock counts. If what you have is a supplier price list rather than a clean spreadsheet, Amina can build the catalogue from a photo or a PDF of it, which is usually faster than retyping.
How much does sell.ke 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.
Does it keep working when the internet drops?
The counter does. Offline mode keeps taking sales, printing receipts and reserving stock while the connection is down, then reconciles everything when it returns — so a bad afternoon costs you connectivity, not revenue or a gap in the record. The parts that are inherently online stay online: card and mobile-money authorisation, tax-authority submission, and the storefront itself all need a live link.
Read next
The other pages that answer the question you are probably about to ask.
Inventory management software
Stock that updates itself as it moves, instead of a spreadsheet you maintain.
Multi-location inventory
Per-location stock, recorded transfers, and reports that split or combine.
POS systems explained
What a point of sale system is, what it replaces, and how to choose one.
All-in-one POS, inventory & online store
One system for the counter, the stock and the website — not three that sync.
POS hardware
Receipt printer, scanner, drawer — what you need, what you don't, and in what order.
Best POS for a small business
How to judge one honestly, and the trap that catches most first-time buyers.
Go deeper on a feature
Stock you can trust
Batch and expiry, serial numbers, reorder levels, stock takes and the formulas behind them.
Buying, suppliers and approvals
Purchase orders, goods-received notes, supplier bills and the cost figure every margin depends on.
Reports and real accounting
Double-entry books — trial balance, P&L, balance sheet — not a CSV export to somebody else's software.
See it for your trade
Try it on your own products
Fourteen days, no card. Import your product list or let Amina build it from a photo of your price list, and run it alongside whatever you use now.