How to keep shop stock on your phone without the cloud

One list of what you sell

Write down each item you keep on the shelf or in the godown: a name you actually use, a unit (piece, kg, litre), and an opening quantity counted on a quiet morning. If two people call the same thing different names, the count will never match.

Fractional units matter for shops that sell loose goods. If you sell 0.25 kg, the item has to allow fractions. If you sell whole pieces only, keep the unit as pieces so nobody enters 0.5 by accident.

Stock only moves when a bill does

The reliable method is boring:

• Opening stock is the count on day one, not a guess from last year’s memory.
• Purchases increase stock when goods arrive.
• Sales decrease stock when you bill the customer.
• Returns put saleable goods back, and take unsaleable ones out with an adjustment you can explain later.

If you sell without recording the bill, the shelf is right and the book is wrong. If you record the bill and forget a purchase, the book will say you have less than you do.

What Bill Book is for

Bill Book is an Android app for retailers and wholesalers: sales, purchases, parties, stock and reports on the device. Get it on Google Play. There is no cloud sync, so the book lives on the phone you use at the counter.

Set up business details, import or enter products and parties, then enter opening stock before the first live bill. After that, record purchases when stock comes in and sales when it goes out. Reports and PDF sharing are local; export a backup before you change phones.

Count, then trust the book

Once a week, pick ten fast-moving items and count them. If the book is off, find the missing bill or purchase before you “fix” the number. Silent adjustments hide theft, spillage and forgotten bills.

Barcode scanning helps when the catalogue is large, but scanning does not replace a counted opening stock. OCR on expense receipts can misread amounts: check every figure before you save it.

Protect the copy on the phone

Local records are private, and they vanish if the phone is lost, storage is cleared or the app is uninstalled without an export. Open Backups and save a file somewhere that is not that phone. Bill Book support explains restore and recovery copies.