Accounting software for retail shops

A simple question many shop owners cannot answer on the spot: what did I make last month? The month's sales are known, but profit needs cost of goods sold, and that needs stock under control.

Accounting software for retail shops is a system that links purchasing to stock to sales to the e-invoice in one movement, so the shop's profit comes out as a number rather than a guess. Fahim delivers this system over WhatsApp: you photograph the supplier invoice and it is recorded, and you ask about profit or dead stock from your phone. It suits small and mid-sized shops in Saudi Arabia — the grocery and supermarket, the clothing, tools, spare parts and building materials shop — with one branch or several, whose owner wants to know the real profit without a full-time accountant.

Three numbers that decide a shop's profit

1. Cost of goods sold — unknowable unless every item carries a current purchase cost.
2. Dead stock — goods with your cash frozen on the shelf. Every item that has not moved in months is idle money.
3. Shrinkage — the gap between what the system says and what is actually on the shelf: damage, keying errors or theft. What is not measured is not fixed.

How Fahim brings them under control

• Purchasing from a photo — send a picture of the supplier invoice and quantities and costs are recorded, updating each item's cost.
• Sales deduct instantly — shelf and stock are one number, not two.
• Stock-counts without closing — enter counted quantities and the system shows variances item by item.
• Low-stock alerts — a reorder point per item, so fast movers do not run out and slow movers do not pile up.
• Branches — unified stock and reporting with per-branch detail.

And you ask from your phone: “what is this month's profit?”, “which items are dead stock?”, “which branch sells most?” — in Arabic, over WhatsApp.

Every sale issues a simplified invoice meeting e-invoicing requirements and reaches tax reporting with no second entry.

Who this system is for

• A grocery or supermarket with hundreds of fast-moving items and a thin margin that makes shrinkage matter.
• A clothing or shoe shop with sizes and colours, where dead stock piles up in one size without anyone noticing.
• A spare parts, tools or building materials shop buying in quantity and needing a current cost for every item.
• A small chain of branches whose owner wants one number for all branches and detail for each.

Restaurants and repair workshops each have their own page, because their work cycle differs from selling off the shelf.

A working day in the shop

For example: a housewares shop with two branches and around 800 items. This is how the day runs:

• Morning: the supplier arrives with 12 items. The owner photographs the invoice and sends it, and the quantities are added and each item's cost updated.
• Through the day: the cashier sells, and every transaction deducts from the balance and issues a simplified invoice with 15% VAT.
• Noon: he asks “what is the balance of item X in the second branch?” and gets the number without calling the branch.
• Afternoon: he counts one shelf and sends the counted quantities. The system shows a variance on 3 items, which he records as damage or investigates.
• Evening: Moeen sends the day's summary: sales, gross profit after cost of goods, and 5 items below their reorder point.

The numbers are hypothetical, but the idea is the same: profit is known every day, not at the end of the year.

How it works, step by step

1. Define items: name, unit, selling price, reorder point, and barcode if there is one.
2. Opening balance: one initial count gives the system a correct starting point.
3. Purchasing from a photo: every supplier invoice adds quantities and updates cost.
4. Selling from the till: instant deduction and an e-invoice for every transaction.
5. Cycle counts and reports: one shelf at a time, and the profit, dead-stock and shrinkage reports requested by message.

These steps produce the 5 reports a shop owner asks for most: gross profit after cost of goods, item movement and the dead stock within it, count variances, items below their reorder point, and sales by branch. All arrive by WhatsApp message with today's numbers, not those of the last reconciliation.

What regulation requires and how it is covered

E-invoicing is mandatory under the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA): Phase 1 since 4 December 2021, and Phase 2 (integration) in waves since 1 January 2023. The shop issues consumers a simplified tax invoice with a QR code, and business customers a full tax invoice, both with 15% VAT and stored in the required format. Input VAT is recorded from the supplier invoice itself, so the tax return comes out of the system with no manual compilation. And if you have employees, their wages fall under the Wage Protection System through the Mudad platform, with the upload file built from the approved payroll run.

Compared with the ledger, spreadsheets and a standalone till

• The ledger or a spreadsheet: records sales but does not know cost of goods sold, so profit is a guess.
• A standalone POS system: sells and deducts but knows nothing of purchasing or accounting, so you need a monthly reconciliation between two systems.
• Desktop accounting software: accurate, but needs someone sitting in front of it, and the owner is standing at the shelf.
• A system that runs from WhatsApp: purchasing from a photo, questions by message, and till, stock and accounting as one number.

What Moeen adds

Moeen is the personal assistant included in the Moeen and Fahim plans. It sends a morning summary of yesterday's sales, their profit and the items running low, reminds you of a supplier payment due or an item that has sat unsold for 90 days, for example, and prepares the purchase order or the customer offer message for you to review before sending. It takes no action without your permission.

Permissions come in 5 roles: general manager, sales manager, accountant, warehouse supervisor and employee. So the cashier sells but does not see purchase cost or profit, and the accountant sees the numbers but does not change prices. Alongside Moeen, 4 AI agents work on sales, finance, purchasing and market.

Plans and trial

The Essential plan at SAR 75 per user per month gives you the full system from the browser: selling, stock, invoicing and reports. The Moeen plan at SAR 375 adds WhatsApp and the personal assistant. The Fahim plan at SAR 935 adds AI that modifies the system on request: you ask by message for an expiry-date field or a sales report by hour, and it is applied within minutes. Prices exclude 15% VAT, the first month is free, and with the Golden Guarantee you get a full refund within 30 days. Start from the free trial page.

Implementation plan

1. Setup: load items from a file or from photos of recent supplier invoices, and add users with their roles.
2. Opening count: one count of all items, or of the fastest movers first.
3. Run one branch: selling and purchasing through the system until the cashier is used to it.
4. Roll-out and review: the remaining branches, then the profit, dead-stock and shrinkage report every month.

The free month is usually enough for the first three steps, so you decide to continue having seen a real month's profit from your own shop, not from an example.

Read next

• Stock discrepancies: causes and fixes
• Managing multiple branches
• The POS and cashier system