An exercise book can't tell you what's missing.

What the book does well

Nothing is faster than a pen when a customer is waiting, a book never runs out of battery, and an old storekeeper trusts what they wrote with their own hand. If your shop is small and you are always there, a book can be enough. Our free stock count sheet makes a monthly count in the book much easier.

Where it fails you

• It can't add up. To know what is left, someone has to total every page since the last count. Nobody does it until something is short.
• It can't say who. “He says he sold it.” Without a name and a time on each entry, you can't prove otherwise.
• It can be lost in a day. Rain through the roof, a fire, a book that walks away: months of records gone.
• It stays in the shop. You can't check it from the market, from home, or from another town.

Moving from the book to your phone

Type your product list in once, or import it from Excel, starting from your last count, so you don't start from zero. Your staff then record on their phones instead of the book: same work, but every entry adds itself up, carries their name, and is safe.