Running a uniform or tuck shop on a till
How a school runs its uniform shop or tuck shop on Achekam's till, keeps that stock and cash apart from school fees, and cashes up each day.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Education businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Many schools run a small retail business on the side without thinking of it as one. The uniform shop sells blazers, ties and sports kit at the start of each year; the tuck shop sells snacks and drinks every break; the second-hand clothing sale raises money for the PTA. Cash changes hands daily, stock goes missing, and at the end of the year nobody can say whether the shop made money.
The usual problem is that shop takings get mixed into the fees account and shop stock is counted, if at all, once a year. A till keeps the two worlds apart. This article explains how a school, in South Africa, Nigeria or Kenya, sets up its shop on Achekam's till and keeps those sales and that cash separate from fees.
The Point of Sale add-on
The till lives under Commerce & POS, and it comes with the Point of Sale add-on. A school without the add-on does not see the till, and the server refuses its till requests, so the first step is to add it to the school's subscription.
Products are created in the Item Master, under the Accounting menu, with an SKU, name, category, selling price, cost price, opening quantity and VAT treatment. For a uniform shop, that means one product per item and size: "Blazer, small" and "Blazer, medium" are separate products, because they are separate stock. For a tuck shop, products are simpler, but the cost price still matters, because it drives the cost of sales posted with every sale.
A till at the shop's own location
Several tills can run at once, each opened at one of the school's stock locations, and the server hands out receipt numbers so that two tills never share one. With the Warehousing add-on, the school keeps its stock locations on the server, with the quantity on hand at each.
A sensible layout for a school:
| Location | Till | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Uniform shop | Uniform till | Uniforms, sports kit, stationery packs |
| Tuck shop | Tuck shop till | Snacks and drinks |
| Storeroom | None | Back stock awaiting transfer to the shops |
Keeping the uniform shop and the tuck shop at separate locations means each has its own stock figures, and a shortage in one cannot hide in the other. The arrangement is the same one event organisers use for pop-up bars and merchandise stands, described in pop-up tills and floats.
Stock reduces as items sell
A till sale takes the sold quantity off stock in the same step, at the till's own location, and refuses to go below nil unless the school has chosen to allow negative stock. Leave negative stock switched off. A sale refused because the system shows nothing on the shelf is a signal that stock was never received properly, and you want to find that out on the day.
Stock still needs counting. With the Warehousing add-on, a stock count sets a location's quantity to what was counted and records the difference as an adjustment. Count the uniform shop before the start-of-year rush and after it, and the tuck shop at least once a term. AccountingTools sets out a step-by-step inventory count procedure, from preparation and count tags to post-count checks, which a volunteer team can follow without accounting experience.
Cash-up by the shop's staff
The cashier at the till is the signed-in user, so give each person who works in the shop their own login. Discounts above the school's limit, refunds, voids and cash paid out need a supervisor or manager, which stops a well-meaning volunteer from giving away stock.
At the end of each session, the cashier counts the drawer by notes and coins. The server works out the expected cash and records any difference, posting it to cash over and short. A till with sales still waiting to reach the server cannot be cashed up, so make sure every sale has been sent first. If differences appear, cash-up differences at the till explains how to investigate them before anyone signs.
Bank the shop's cash separately from fee payments, with a deposit slip marked for the shop, so the bank statement tells the two apart as well.
How shop sales post apart from fee invoices
Every till sale that reaches the server posts a balanced journal in the same step: revenue, output VAT, and cost of sales against inventory at the product's cost price, with each payment method going to its own account. The school can choose whether the till posts one journal per sale or one summary journal per till session per day; for a busy tuck shop, the daily summary keeps the ledger readable.
Fee invoices post differently. Invoice revenue currently goes to one account, Professional Services Revenue (4100), and an invoice line cannot name another sales account. Till revenue goes to the till's own revenue account (4000). So, without any extra effort, fee income and shop income land in different revenue accounts, and the shop's cost of sales sits beside its own revenue.
That separation is what lets the school answer the board's question at the end of the year: what did the shop sell, what did the stock cost, and what was left over.
Before the shop opens
- Add the Point of Sale add-on, and the Warehousing add-on for separate locations.
- Create every product, with cost prices, in the Item Master.
- Set up a stock location per shop and enter opening quantities.
- Give each shop worker their own login and name a supervisor.
- Agree banking for shop cash, apart from fees.
Run one test sale and one cash-up with the shop team the week before term starts, so the first real break-time queue is not their training session.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
