The list in the drawer
Am Said has a grocery in Sidi Bishr, Alexandria. Every month or two the cleaning-products distributor leaves a new price list: three printed pages, seventy lines, some up a little, some up a lot. Am Said reads the first page, sighs, and puts it in the drawer “for Friday”. Friday comes and goes. Two months later he sells a shampoo at the old price on a new cost, and the margin he thinks he makes is not the one he makes.
The list has everything he needs. What it lacks is the hour to type it.
Four steps
- Suppliers → the supplier → Price list by photo. Take a photo of the list, or pick a PDF. A list of several pages? Add the next page to the same list.
- Read the price list. The invoice reader lists every row with its price and matches it to your products the way it matches invoice lines: by barcode, by what this supplier called it last time, then by name. Each row comes green (sure), amber (have a look) or red (no product or no price).
- Review. Every row is ticked when read; untick what you do not want. Choose the supplier, correct the list's date, and say whether the printed prices include VAT. A row with no product: make it a new product, or leave it unticked.
- Apply the ticked rows. The new costs are written, and the list is kept as this supplier's latest version, with its date and who applied it.
One row, read out
The list says: shampoo 400 ml, a carton of 12, 660. On the review that row reads:
| Column | Shows |
|---|---|
| Pieces per unit | 12 (from the carton) |
| Piece cost | 55.00 (cost now 50.00, change +10 %) |
| Margin | 16.4 % at 75.00 (was 24 %) |
| Suggested price | 82.50 keeps 24 % |
The margin is worked out on the price without the 14 % VAT, and the suggested price is rounded up to the quarter pound. On a row whose cost rose and whose price no longer keeps the margin you may tick Also set the price to 82.50. A cost that falls never lowers a price by itself.
What changes afterwards
- Purchase orders to that supplier start each line from the list's price (“list 55.00” beside it), unless you type a cost yourself.
- Receiving at the list's price raises no “cost went up” warning: you already reviewed it. A delivery that differs from the list still warns.
- A list older than 60 days says “may be stale” on the purchase order, the supplier's page and the suppliers list: time to ask for the new one.
What it does not do yet
• Switching on shop by shop. It comes with invoice photos, which we switch on in stages. Until they reach your shop, the supplier's page says “Price lists by photo come with invoice photos, which are not enabled for your shop yet”.
• Not in the program on your PC: it has no invoice reader, and its purchase orders keep the product's cost.
• Setting prices needs the products right or a manager. Someone with the stock right alone can apply the costs, not the prices.
• The first time, a manager must agree to send photos to the reader, as for invoice photos.
Which plans include it
Wherever the invoice reader is on, from the same monthly readings: each page of a list is one reading (a PDF counts each of its pages).
| Plan | Readings (invoices and price lists together) |
|---|---|
| Basic, Cashier | Not included |
| Shop | 15 a month |
| Business | 20 a month |
| Chain | 40 a month |
Plans are 1,999 (Shop), 2,500 (Business) and 5,000 (Chain) EGP a month — see the PosMasr Cloud page.
Quick answers
Will it change my selling prices by itself?
No. Only the rows where you tick “also set the price”, and only by someone allowed to change prices.
The list is in cartons and I sell pieces.
The review shows the pieces per unit (a carton of 12 → 12) and writes the piece cost. Correct the number if it is wrong.
Is this the same as the invoice from a photo?
Same reader, different job: an invoice receives stock; a price list only updates costs. See the supplier's invoice from a photo.
What if I photograph the same list twice?
An open review comes back as it was; a list already applied is caught as a duplicate.
Let the price list type itself
Start the 14-day trial of Business, no card. Once invoice photos are switched on for your shop, the trial's readings work for price lists too.
First year 20% off every plan and add-on — with the code
