How Technology can help a Small Shop

[gary4gar]

Hi,
My friend owns a small Wholesale shop of electric parts & fittings. turnover would be in few lakhs.

Present system:
Everything is manual and done by hand like billing & stock keeping

Problems:
Due to large volumes of stock, Stock maintenance is headache
he has to send his servant to stock yard every now and then to verify stock.


He is now looking to use I.T in his small business for:
1) Billing
2) Stock Keeping

*if changing over feasible for small shop like this?
*Anyone Has a idea how do we go?
*what hardware and software would be required?

he asked me me all this, but i had no answer:S
so i asked here, with confidence of getting some help

[iinfi]

turnover ..few lakhs ...ok..
i dont have much knowledge abt this ... but i think he needs a good ERP solution.
contact a ERP vendor who can giv you more insight into all this.
try reading this
and this

or contact oracle n see if they can help with his warehouse management.

wait for more answers here.

[amitava82]

If you give me a little more details on business process such as his warehouse operations, inventory turnover & management, daily sales volume etc; I'd be able to give some suggestions. Since its a small store, a commercial ERP would be an overkill. There are plenty of free and open source ERP packages available but I don't think a full blown ERP package is required. MS Access application is more than enough.

[mehulved]

Anything from a simple spreadsheet to a finance software to a full fledged ERP package can be setup depending on the amount that the person is willing to spend and if he's willing to learn/hire a dedicated person for it.
Hardware shouldn't be a problem. You don't need a top of the line C2D or something. A simple machine around sempron processor or something should do. It should come to around about 18K or more depending on what the person needs.

[gary4gar]

He deals in Electrical parts that are used in Home & commercial Space. like Wires,plugs, switches and such related items. its a Wholesale business. nature of inventory is somewhat static as the new products are not introduced everyday, yeah but their rates change constantly.

To keep things simple getting a full fledged ERP package is been avoided. just looking for application which "just works".

For a machine, he had arranged a P4 based system. by we need to finalize the software and hardware(printer etc).

We are looking at stock keeping and Billing.

{edit}
Decided to start with Billing first, will handle accounting & Warehouse mgt at later stages.
also, going for custom-made solution is a option but at the monent we are just trying to experiment if its really worth it. Does technology help him to earn more profits with less efforts.

So please suggest some Billing software, no full blown software. need simple easy to use applications that just do that job

[amitava82]

OK. First of all you won't get any solution that "just works". You have to configure the system as per your business process. I'd suggest PHP Point of Sale. Its pretty small and easy to use. You can run on local server. Its good for small business. And its free. First ask you friend to try the demo. I'm sure it would be more than enough for his business.

[gary4gar]

Thanks for application, it looks good but its billing format sucks.
http://www.imgx.org/public/view/10650

[amitava82]

Told ya. You have to customize it as per your need. If you know some php and designing, you can design it as per your need. Not a big deal.

BTW, thanks for the idea. I'm gonna start developing a PHP POS as soon as I'm free..

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by amitava82

BTW, thanks for the idea. I'm gonna start developing a PHP POS as soon as I'm free..

piece of ****?

[amitava82]

HAHAH.. good catch

[gary4gar]

I don't know PHP, but i had a look at source code. looks like /sales/addsale.php Needs to changed for changing the printing format. need something similar to this

can anyone help.

[amitava82]

OK, I'll look into it.

Edit: try this one http://www.mediafire.com/?mpwckhjmmm2
Replace existing files with these two. For header and logo you should have pre-printed stationary.

Take a look at WebERP. Its has more features.

[gary4gar]

sorry i missed your post, it didn't show up in subscribed threads

i am using this PHP point of sale. i am liking it very much.I have tried the new format which you gave. it look good on screen but i can't fully say anything as currently when i try to print a test page i get a "Print spooler service not running". i installed it on the used machine he has got for this purpose.

The config of machine is
Intel Pentium 4 @2.4Ghz
Intel 865 chipset
512MB RAM
80Gb HDD
windows Xp
there is a combo drive present but i guess its end of life, as it not reading disc
for servers using XAMPPLITE

I haven't tried WebERP, so will be trying it shortly and let you know


one feature which is needed in application is ability to check the prices of some items quickly. like he has lot of items for sale and each item is not always in stock and its not possible to remember the rates of all items. so with current system you have look into the manufacturers brochure(its a book actually), know the model no and find its rate in price list.

all this takes lot of time, want something by which you should easily search in your product list and give a quote to customer.
maybe a interface where you quote prices of 10-15 items and print it.
so customer can keep it for future reference.

[mehulved]

Check http://phpcoin.com/
It's a bit complex but seems quite nice, too.

[amitava82]

phpcoin lacks inventory management system. PHP Point of Sale is VERY basic system. It lacks some very basic features such as quotations, reprint order, no notification for out of stock items, poor sales order management etc. WebERP is really good in terms of features. But its bit complex for avg users.

Or you can wait till I come up with my own ERP.. until then use any of these

[goobimama]

http://www.xsilva.com/features.phpI know this is overkill and way too expensive, but look at Checkout and Lightspeed (both mac wares)

Slurp!

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by goobimama

http://www.xsilva.com/features.phpI know this is overkill and way too expensive, but look at Checkout and Lightspeed (both mac wares)

Slurp!

Here the fellow isn't even ready to buy a new PC, let alone pay for any software. If you recommend an expensive PoS and a mac to him he will have all your sons running after you

haha. his hardware must have cost him in rupees what your software will cost him in dollars.

[goobimama]

I wasn't seriously recommending that stuff. It is more like, what you call, trolling

[gary4gar]

Originally Posted by amitava82

phpcoin lacks inventory management system. PHP Point of Sale is VERY basic system. It lacks some very basic features such as quotations, reprint order, no notification for out of stock items, poor sales order management etc. WebERP is really good in terms of features. But its bit complex for avg users.

Or you can wait till I come up with my own ERP.. until then use any of these

I am trying to use weberp but some database errors getting up now and then.
*first it complained that it can't connect to mysql database, so i examined the config.php file. and enterred correct user name & pass.

* Now its giving me "Database Error :
Table 'weberp.www_users' doesn't exist"

I have tried creating the table www_users with simple SQL Command but i know don't what kind of table stuct this application uses. i tried RTFM method but the manual just says.

"If there are no users defined the next time you try to login you won't be able to! In this situation the only way then to create a user to login with is to manually edit the SQL table WWW_Users to insert a user. If phpMyAdmin is installed on the web server as well then this can be achieved by adding a new record to WWW_Users."

it does not define number of fields would be present, what is their data type to be used.
It would be good if someone could describe the table structure with Primary keys,Alternate key and all that stuff. so i may proceed try the app.

[amitava82]

Read the INSTALL.txt file in doc folder. It has clear instructions. The sql folder has sql file for new database and demo database.

[gary4gar]

Okay, I have successfully installed webERP.
First thoughts, It support lot of features & a bit complex.
so i would need some more time testing the application

Thanks for help.

[rajzoo1]

Thanks 4 the info.

[shaunak]

If the size of operation is small enough, I would suggest using a custom PHP+MySql Solution. It would be cost effective and scalable.