Key concepts

A few ideas run through the whole of ekPOS. Knowing them makes every screen easier.

Your account and your data#

Everything you enter belongs to your business alone. Other ekPOS customers can never see it, and you can't see theirs.

Locations: branches and warehouses#

A location is a shop (branch) or a store room (warehouse). Stock is counted separately at each location. Every user has a home branch, which their sales screens start on. See Branches, warehouses and zones.

Products and stock#

• A product is single, variable (with variants) or a combo (a bundle).
• Stock goes up when goods are received or returned to you, down when they are sold, returned to a supplier or written off, and moves between locations with transfers. See How stock works.
• A product with Manage Stock off (a service) is never counted.

Documents and references#

Every sale, purchase, return, transfer, adjustment, audit, expense and repair gets a reference like INV-00001 or PO-00012. You choose the prefixes in Document settings. References never repeat.

Most documents have a status that decides what they do. A sale can be Final, Draft, Quotation or Proforma; only a Final sale takes stock and money. A purchase only adds stock once it is Received.

Invoices and receipts#

A sale to a customer with a tax registration number prints as a Sales Invoice and is reported to ETA as an e-invoice. A sale to anyone else prints as a Sales Receipt and is reported as an e-receipt.

Prices and tax#

Each product has a purchase price and a selling price, each with tax rates that are either exclusive (added on top) or inclusive (already in the price). See Pricing and tax. Saved sales keep their prices forever; later price changes only affect new sales.

Warn, don't block#

At the counter, ekPOS mostly warns rather than refuses: a serial number sold before, or a payment larger than the total, is flagged for you to check, and the sale goes through. A customer waiting at the till is not turned away by a data problem that can be fixed afterwards.

Two things are refused instead. A product with Manage Stock on can't be sold beyond what the location has available (see How stock works), and, if your business enforces credit limits, a sale can't take a customer over theirs (see Business profile).

Permissions and plans#

What each person can do is set by their role; which modules your business has is set by your plan. See Permissions and plans.