Shopman blog

• A stock-take that takes an afternoon, not a weekend
  How to count a whole shop in one afternoon without closing: count in zones, count twice only where it matters, reconcile by value, and fix the five causes of shrinkage you'll find.
• Profit and loss for a shop owner who hates accounting
  The one-page P&L any shop can keep: sales, cost of goods, gross margin, the six expense lines that matter, and the three questions to ask it every month. No accountant required.
• Reorder levels: how to stop running out of the things that sell
  The simple arithmetic behind a reorder point — daily sales, lead time, a safety margin — and how to set one for every product in an afternoon so you stop discovering stock-outs from customers.
• The credit book that pays itself back: managing customer credit in a small shop
  How to sell on credit without losing money — limits, ageing, oldest-first repayments and the one report every shop owner should read weekly. Works on paper or automatically in Shopman.
• Running two shops: how to see both without being in both
  What changes when you open a second location — separate stock, separate staff, one owner who can't be everywhere — and the operating rhythm that keeps both shops honest.
• How to stop selling expired medicine: a 3-alert system any pharmacy can run
  A practical expiry-tracking method for independent pharmacies — by batch, with 90/30/7-day alerts — that works on paper, in a spreadsheet, or automatically in Shopman.
• Pharmacy management software: what it should do, and what it shouldn't cost
  A buyer's guide for independent pharmacies: the six jobs the software must do, the questions to ask on a demo, the warning signs, and what a fair price looks like in 2026.
• Excel vs pharmacy software: the honest comparison
  Where a spreadsheet genuinely beats pharmacy software, where it quietly breaks, the side-by-side, and the point at which it's time to move — plus how to move in an afternoon.
• FIFO for pharmacy stock: why the oldest batch must sell first, and how to enforce it
  First In, First Out is the rule that stops medicine expiring on your shelf. What it means by batch, how to run it on the shelf and in the book, and how to make the till enforce it.
• Controlled-substance records: what to log, for how long, and how to make it automatic
  The register every pharmacy must keep for controlled medicines — what goes in each entry, how to reconcile it, how long to keep it, and how to stop it being a separate book.