How to manage stock in your shop in Nigeria (and the app that does it for you)
If your stock count never matches what is on the shelf, or you only find out something finished when a customer asks for it, the problem is almost never your staff. It is the way the records are kept. This guide shows a simple routine that works in any shop, whether you sell provisions, phones, drugs, building materials or clothes.
Why exercise books stop working
A book works when you sell ten things a day. At fifty or a hundred sales a day, entries are missed, handwriting gets mixed up, and nobody can tell you how much stock is left without counting the whole shop.
The bigger problem is that a book cannot answer questions. How much profit did we make this month? Which product moves fastest? What is Chuka still owing? Answers like these need records that can add themselves up.
What you should record for every product
- The name, and the category it belongs to (for example Drinks, Grains, Phones).
- What you paid for it (cost price) and what you sell it for (selling price). Without both, you cannot know your profit.
- How many you have right now (opening stock).
- A low-stock level: the number at which you want a warning so you can reorder before it finishes.
- Who you buy it from, so you can compare suppliers and track what you owe them.
A daily routine that keeps the count right
- Record every sale when it happens, not at the end of the day. Pick the product, quantity and how the customer paid.
- Record every purchase the same day the goods arrive, with the cost and how much you paid the supplier.
- Record returns and damaged or lost goods as stock adjustments, so the number in your records still matches the shelf.
- Once a week, count a few fast-moving products and compare. A small difference found early is easy to explain; a big one found at year end is not.
What to look for in an inventory and sales app
- It works when the network is bad. A sale should never be lost because the signal dropped.
- It handles customers who pay later or pay in parts, because that is how many Nigerian businesses actually trade.
- Prices in naira and receipts you can send to a customer on WhatsApp.
- Staff accounts with limits, so a cashier can record sales without seeing your profit.
- You can download your records at any time. Your data should never be locked in.
- A price that makes sense for a small business.
How LogBase helps
LogBase is built around this routine. You add your products with their prices and opening stock (or import them from a spreadsheet), then record sales and purchases every day. Stock goes down when you sell and up when you buy, and the dashboard shows what is low, what you sold today and how your business is doing.
It keeps recording without internet and sends everything to your account when the connection returns. Customers who owe you, suppliers you owe and staff permissions are all built in. You can try it free for 14 days with no card, and keep using the free plan after that for a small business.