Guide / stock control for stores
Retail stock control: one question, answered live
What is on the shelf, and what do I reorder? Stores that answer it from a file are always answering about yesterday. Here is the live version — per-product reorders, transfers, slow movers.
The short answer
- Stock control is one question: what is on the shelf, and what needs reordering — answered live, not as of the last update.
- The live version: every sale, delivery and count feeds one record; reorder points are per product, not per guess.
- Multi-outlet stores get the transfer answer: the fast seller at one branch covers the gap at another.
- BSimple runs the live record — from $180/month (AUD) with a free trial — while the till keeps doing the till.
- 01The short answer
- 02Why the file is always a little out of date
- 03Where BSimple fits
Why the file is always a little out of date
A spreadsheet answers "what is on hand as of the last update". Sales made this morning are not in the file; the delivery that arrived an hour ago is not counted; the on-hand number is really "on hand last time someone remembered". Every decision made on it — the reorder, the promotion, the promise to a customer — carries that lag, and the lag compounds with traffic. Stock control software replaces the update habit with live numbers: every sale, every delivery and every count feeds one record, and the answer to the question stops having a timestamp.
The payoffs are buying-shaped. Reorder points per product flag what is running low before it becomes a gap — and just as importantly stop you reordering the slow movers tying up cash and floor space. Multi-outlet visibility answers whether the fast seller is sitting at the other branch, so a transfer beats a purchase order. Live accuracy makes the count a verification instead of a discovery — the retail free ladder covers when a shop can stay on the POS-attached count, and the stock control flows show the receiving, picking and counting patterns in full.
Where BSimple fits
We build BSimple, so weigh that — boundary first: it is not a POS. The counter keeps the till; BSimple is the live stock record behind it: per-product reorder points and par levels, purchase orders raised from demand, multi-location quantities with transfers, negative-stock guardrails, counts from any phone browser, and the accounting handoff to Xero or MYOB — plus the wholesale side if the shop grows trade accounts ordering through their own portal. Plans start at $180/month (AUD), and the free trial answers the one question live with your own shelves.
Barcode scanning in inventory shows how the counts and receipts stay fast enough to be real, and the inventory management overview shows the record the whole loop runs on.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does stock control software actually do?
It keeps one live record of what is on hand and what moved, and turns that into answers: what to reorder, what to transfer between outlets, what is slow. The control is in the record being live — a file with opinions is not control, however well organised.
Do we still need the POS?
Yes — the till keeps selling. Stock control is the record behind the counter: deliveries, back stock, transfers, counts, purchasing. The two agree because both read the same truth rather than syncing copies of it.
How do reorder points work in practice?
Per product: you set the level (demand over lead time plus buffer), the record watches live quantities, and dips signal the buying side — a purchase order raised on the document, not a shelf glance. The operations models page covers how to set the levels.
We have two outlets. Does that change the software?
It changes the requirement: quantities per outlet with a transfer trail, so the fast seller at one branch covers the gap at the other without a new purchase order. Channel-attached counts cannot see across branches — that is the moment a leading record earns its fee.
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