Loading…
Loading…
Every one of these is costing you money this month. Here is the mechanism, what it costs, and the specific thing that stops it.
Free, no-obligation consult — just a real person.
Official ERPNext Partner
In business since 2011 · 200+ clients
None of these problems announce themselves. There is no line in your P&L called "sales lost because the stock was at the other branch", or "warranty work the manufacturer never paid for", or "the two days a month somebody spends rebuilding the incentive sheet". They show up as a margin that is thinner than it should be, and nobody can say exactly why.
What follows is the list, in the order they usually hurt. Each one is a real mechanism, not a category — and each has a specific answer in the system, which is named so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
In business since
Clients served
ERP projects
Work by referral
Each outlet keeps its own stock position, its own day's takings and its own version of the truth. Head office finds out on Monday what happened on Saturday, from a message.
You manage last week. Decisions about buying, transfers and staffing are all made a few days late, which is exactly long enough to be wrong.
Every posting carries its branch as an accounting dimension, so stock, sales and profit exist per outlet and consolidated at once. Multi-branch stock and IMEI →
A customer asks for a handset the branch is out of. The salesperson has no way to see that two are sitting at another outlet, so the answer is "come back tomorrow".
The sale goes to the shop across the road, and the stock that could have filled it ages into a markdown somewhere else. You lose twice on the same handset.
The counter sees every branch's stock for that model and raises the transfer request from the same screen. Billing and POS →
The IMEI is written in a book, photographed, or skipped because the queue is long. Months later you need it for a warranty claim, a police enquiry or a return.
Claims you cannot make, disputes you cannot win, and no way to prove which unit went to which customer.
The till will not complete a handset line without a scanned IMEI, validated and matched against stock actually in that branch. Overriding it is an administrator's act, and it is logged. Multi-branch stock and IMEI →
A device goes to the bench and disappears from view. The only way to learn its status is to ask a technician, so customers ring the branch, and staff stop what they are doing to go and look.
Counter time on status calls, promises made from memory that are then missed, and customers who quietly go elsewhere next time.
An 18-state job card, a promised time computed on your actual working hours, and a link the customer opens on their own phone to see where it has got to. Service centre management →
A device comes back from repair and the customer points at a mark on the casing, or asks for a memory card nobody recorded receiving. It is their word against a busy counter's memory.
Repairs done free to keep the peace, replacements you did not owe, and an argument in front of other customers.
Intake ticks off the accessories handed in, photographs the device, and takes the customer's signature on screen. Handover needs a one-time password sent to their phone, plus the receiver's name and ID. Service centre management →
A technician phones the customer, describes the fault, quotes a number and starts work. Nobody writes it down.
Bills argued down at the counter, work done that the customer says they never approved, and parts already fitted that cannot be un-fitted.
The estimate goes to the customer as a private link. They approve, reject or ask for a revision themselves, and the answer is attached to the job. Service centre management →
A repair needs a part the branch does not stock. It gets requested, and the job sits. The turnaround report counts every one of those days against the technician.
Turnaround figures nobody believes, so nobody manages by them — and good technicians who resent being measured on someone else's delay.
The request goes to the branch that has the part, the job goes On Hold, and the clock stops until the part arrives. Service centre management →
The financier funds the sale on the day. Weeks later a payout arrives, net of charges and any subvention, covering a batch of applications. It is checked against the bank statement, not against what was actually due.
Short payments that are never chased, because proving them means reconstructing months of applications by hand.
Every application is settled line by line against what the partner actually paid, with receivable ageing per financier so a slow payer is this month's conversation. EMI and finance →
An exchange is valued by whoever is at the counter, on the day, by eye. The used handset then re-enters stock with no clear cost, and is resold with tax charged on the full sale value.
Inconsistent trade-in values that customers compare and complain about, an unclear margin on resale, and GST paid on more than you owe.
A grading engine that asks the same questions every time, the used unit re-entering stock against its original IMEI, and resale handled under the margin scheme, Rule 32(5), with its own register. Billing and POS →
Work is done under manufacturer warranty. A claim is raised, a part or device goes back, and then everyone moves on to the next job.
Repairs you funded on the manufacturer's behalf, and stock sent back that never returned as either a credit or a replacement. This is one of the largest silent leaks in the trade.
Claims logged against the job, returns tracked out and chased, credits matched back, and an ageing report on everything still open. Warranty management →
To close a sale, a salesperson gives a little more than they should. Individually it is a few hundred rupees; nobody notices, and the habit spreads.
Margin that erodes steadily and is nearly impossible to trace afterwards, because each instance looks reasonable on its own.
The till stops a line below the minimum selling price and waits for a manager. The decision happens before the sale, not in a report a month later. Billing and POS →
Slow models sit at the wrong branch. Damaged units are set aside and forgotten. Repaired phones stay uncollected on a shelf for months.
Cash frozen in stock that is losing value weekly, write-offs that surprise you at year end, and shelf space you are effectively renting out for free.
Ageing and dead-stock rules that flag stock before it is worthless, damage reports that route recovery to whoever is responsible, and storage charges for devices left uncollected. Multi-branch stock and IMEI →
Somebody rebuilds the incentive sheet from sales exports, attendance and a memory of the rules. Staff check it, disagree, and it is adjusted.
Two days of a manager's month, and the credibility of the scheme itself. An incentive nobody trusts does not change behaviour, which was the whole point of paying it.
One calculation run against the scheme, with slabs, product spiffs and the attendance, rating and returns gates applied and visible before anyone approves it — then posted to payroll as its own payslip line. Reports and incentives →
Customers are messaged from staff phones. When someone leaves, the customer relationship and the message history leave with them. Nobody knows what was promised.
No record of what was sent, no protection if a customer complains about being messaged, and repeat business that depends entirely on which salesperson remembers to call.
Approved templates sent from the business, one sender per purpose, opt-in and quiet hours respected, every attempt logged — plus telecalling with a real queue and a disposition after each call. WhatsApp, CRM and telecalling →
We are not going to invent a percentage. You know your own numbers better than any website does, and a figure we made up would be worth nothing to you.
But the arithmetic is worth doing once, honestly, on the back of an envelope. Take the handsets you did not sell last month because the stock was at another branch. Add the warranty work you funded on a manufacturer's behalf and never recovered. Add the financier shortfalls you decided not to chase because proving them was too much work. Add the dead stock you will eventually mark down, and the two days a month somebody spends on the incentive sheet. Then set that annual figure against what one system costs — a system with no per-seat licences, scoped to a fixed price before you commit.
For most chains of any size, it is not a close call. And the reason it has gone unfixed is rarely money — it is that no single one of these problems is ever the most urgent thing in the week.
Official ERPNext Partner
Three branches is where these problems start to bite, because it is the point at which no one person can hold the whole picture any more. The transfer, branch-P&L and cross-branch stock features matter from the second outlet onwards.
Usually not on day one. Most chains start with the area causing the most pain — often service, sometimes stock across branches — prove it, and bring the rest across after. What you cannot do is leave two systems running permanently and expect the numbers to agree.
Item masters, customers, suppliers and opening stock are a defined migration step, and we validate the result rather than just loading it. Transaction history is a scoping decision: a common approach is opening balances plus one closed year, because migrating five years of detail costs more than it is ever worth.
They rarely do. Schemes, slabs, spiffs, gates, offers and approval limits are configuration, not code. Where something genuinely does not exist yet, it is built on the Frappe framework as part of the project, and it belongs to you.
Whichever one you recognised most sharply while reading. In practice it is usually either service visibility or cross-branch stock — they are the two that cost you customers rather than just money, and both show a result within weeks.
Get a clear plan, an honest timeline, and a fixed scope. Talk to a real expert today — whether or not you work with us.
Kochi (Kadavanthra & Infopark) · Thiruvananthapuram · across India & overseas · In business since 2011