Inventory management software for shops, godowns and makers

A stock register or an Excel stock sheet works by adding and subtracting what people write in. It is right on the day it is checked and drifts after that: a sale billed but not written down, a carton moved to the shop without a note, a damaged pack thrown away. A few weeks later the register and the shelf disagree, and nobody can say why.

Inventory software changes where the numbers come from. Stock goes down because a bill was completed or a delivery left the godown, and up because a supplier's goods were received or a production run finished. Each movement is listed in a stock ledger with its date and time, location, batch, quantity, the document behind it and the person who made it. Search it by product and filter by received, sold, transfers, counts and adjustments, production, returns or write-offs, so a difference can be traced instead of guessed.

managemate also does not let stock go below zero. If a bill asks for more than the usable stock at that location, the counter warns, and the sale is refused until the stock is received, transferred in or corrected by a count. That feels strict in the first week, and it is what keeps the figures honest.

Many Indian businesses keep stock in more than one place: a godown on the edge of town and a shop in the market, or a factory store and two retail counters. In managemate each of these is a location with its own stock, and there is no limit on how many you add. Purchase orders say where goods will arrive, sales orders and the counter say where they leave from, and production uses the stock where the run is made.

A transfer moves stock from one location to another with its batch and cost, so the shop's stock value is right the moment the goods arrive. Each device remembers the location it works in, so the shop counter sells only the shop's stock while the godown staff receive and count only the godown's. The owner switches to All locations in the top bar to see the whole business, or to one location to see only its stock, orders and reports.

Locations are a single level. managemate tracks stock by location and batch, not by rack, shelf or bin inside a godown, so a large warehouse that needs bin addresses would need another way to record them.

For food, cosmetics, herbal products and anything else with a shelf life, a batch (lot) number and an expiry date are recorded when goods are received or made, or when opening stock is imported. After that, sales, deliveries and production take the earliest expiry first, and an expired batch cannot be sold or used. The Expiring in 30 days and Expired tabs, and the dashboard, show what needs action, and expired stock can be written off with a numbered note or returned to the supplier.

Counting is where most stock systems fail, so it should be quick. Choose Count by scanning, pick the location and scan each item with a USB scanner or a phone camera. The screen shows how each count differs from the record before you save, only the products you counted are corrected, and a half-finished count can be kept and finished later on the same device. A practical rhythm is to count fast sellers every month and everything once a year.

Stock that leaves for other reasons is written off with a reason: expired, damaged, lost or stolen, used internally for samples or testing, or other with a note. Each write-off gets a WO- number and its value at cost, so losses show up in reports instead of disappearing.

Knowing quantities is half the job; the other half is value. managemate keeps a moving-average cost for each batch. When you receive a purchase, freight, loading and other charges on the order are spread across its lines by value, so the cost per unit includes what it took to get the goods to your godown. Stock added to an existing batch averages into its cost.

The inventory list shows each product's stock value at cost, and selecting rows totals their value, which helps when you prepare a stock statement for your accountant or bank. Batches with no recorded cost are valued at the catalogue price and marked, so estimates are easy to tell from real costs. Each sales order shows its cost and margin from the batches actually delivered, and Reports shows gross margin and best sellers for any period.

Production follows the same rule. A finished batch's cost comes from the materials actually used, at the cost of the batches they came from, so a masala maker sees the real cost per kg of each run as chilli and coriander prices change.

Setup needs the most care, because opening stock is the base for every figure that follows. Work in this order: customers and suppliers, then locations, then products with their stock unit, pack sizes, reorder level and usual supplier, and finally opening stock. managemate imports each of these from Excel (.xlsx, .xls), OpenDocument or CSV files of up to 5,000 rows, matches your column names, and checks every row before saving.

Opening stock rows can carry a location, batch number, expiry date and cost per unit. An import adds to what is already recorded, so import opening stock once; to correct it later, use a count rather than importing again. If your register is not reliable enough to import, count the shelves instead: scan each item at each location and save the count as your starting point.

Then set reorder levels for your fast sellers first. You do not need a level on every product on day one; the reorder list becomes useful as soon as the products that run out most often have one, and it drafts one purchase order per supplier from the lines you select.

managemate costs ₹299 per user per month or ₹2,870 per user per year, with every feature in every plan and no limit on products or locations. Stock is not charged separately: a godown with one storekeeper and a shop with two counter staff is three users, ₹897 a month or ₹8,610 a year. Prices are inclusive of all applicable taxes, and the 60-day free trial for up to 5 users needs no card and is available once per customer.

Some things it does not do. It tracks batches, not serial or IMEI numbers, so it does not suit businesses that must follow each phone or appliance by its own number. It does not read weighing scales; weights are typed in. It has no bin or rack locations, no offline mode and no Excel export of stock lists. Manufacturing is single-step: each level of a product you make is its own run, with no machine scheduling.