To decide what to order, which product to reprice, or why a customer has not returned for a long time, start with a specific question. Then check the documents, select the relevant store and period, review the appropriate analysis in Torgsoft, and define the action, the employee responsible, and the timeframe for assessing the result.
Stock levels, sales quantities, and purchase histories can support a decision. The owner must investigate the reason for weak demand separately by checking product availability, price, display, and returns. After changing an order or sales terms, repeat the analysis for a comparable period and see whether you achieved the expected result.
Frame a question that can be answered with an action
For your first analysis, choose one store and a small group of products. In Torgsoft, an accounting center (центр обліку) is a store or warehouse for which inventory records are maintained. Write down what you need to decide:
- Which products should be reordered before the next delivery?
- Which items are remaining in stock and need different sales terms?
- Which regular customers have not made a purchase for a long time, and is there a good reason to contact them?
Set the scope right away: the store, products, and analysis start and end dates. If you are assessing an individual location, review its figures first, then compare them with those of other stores. The chain-wide stock total may conceal a shortage of the required size at the store where customers are asking for it.
Check the documents before changing an order or price
Ask the merchandise specialist to check the movement of the selected products, and the salesperson to review any transactions that raise questions. In a small store, the owner can do this. Follow the same sequence for each item in question:
- Receipts. Compare the quantity actually received with the document: are the product, size, unit of measure, date, and store recorded correctly?
- Sales. Make sure the item sold is the one you are analyzing and that the transaction falls within the required period.
- Returns. Check the returned product, its quantity, and the date. Separately confirm whether the customer received a refund and whether the product is fit for resale.
- Customer link. When analyzing customers, check that the correct customer card was selected for the transactions. A purchase without this link is not grounds for drawing conclusions about a specific person’s behavior.
- Comparison criteria. Use the same store and agreed dates in every form. When comparing different periods, account for their length and the store’s opening days.
First investigate any error you find against the documents and the actual stock. After correcting it, open the analysis again. This helps the owner make decisions based on data that reflects the store’s transactions.
How to check stock in Torgsoft before reordering
Open “Склад → Стан складу” (Warehouse → Stock Status). Here you can review product quantity, price, and cost. For a chain, the “Усі склади” (All warehouses) toggle opens the warehouse selection. Select the required locations and check the “Склад” (Warehouse) column to identify where the product is stored.
The “Стан на дату” (Status as of date) filter shows the quantity on the selected date. First record the stock at the beginning of the analysis, then return to the current status. If the product was unavailable for a long time, weak sales alone do not prove low demand. To explain the difference, open “Рух товару” (Product movement) or “Картка складського обліку” (Stock accounting card): the latter shows the balance after receipts, sales, returns, and transfers at the current warehouse.
If the quantity is zero or negative, check the documents and count the product physically. The “Перерахувати кількість” (Recalculate quantity) action is available when the stock status mode is “Статичний” (Static) and is intended to recalculate the recorded quantity. After using it, compare the result again with the documents and the actual stock.
How to determine the quantity to order
The owner or buyer can work out the requirement manually: expected sales through the next delivery plus a chosen safety stock, minus the saleable stock on hand and confirmed incoming stock. Safety stock is extra quantity held in case of a delivery delay or a change in demand. Set its size based on the store’s experience and delivery time.
Before approving the order, confirm with the supplier which quantities and dates they have agreed to. After the goods arrive, check whether the delivery matches the order. At the end of the selected period, assess whether stock lasted until the next delivery and whether excess stock accumulated.
How to find stagnant products and choose an action
Open “Аналіз → Аналіз товару, що залежався” (Analysis → Analysis of stagnant products), set the period, accounting center, and product filter, then click “Оновити” (Refresh). To compare stores, you can enable grouping by accounting center. The toggle for stock at the start of the analysis helps focus on products already in stock; displaying zero stock is configured separately.
The threshold for “Кількість реаліз. за період” (Quantity sold during the period) uses the condition strictly less than the specified value. For products sold by the piece, a threshold of 1 selects items with zero units sold. If a product is sold in fractional quantities, positive values below 1 will also appear in the results. To draw your own conclusion about demand, use the documents to count units sold and returns separately. The number of receipts is not a substitute for product quantity: a single receipt can include several identical units. Record both figures if you need to assess sales volume and purchase frequency.
After selecting an action in this form, you can set a product discount, add a product to a revaluation or supplier return document. A product discount takes priority over other customer discounts. Adding a product to a distribution is available when a specific accounting center is selected. The “Встановити ознаку необхідності замовлення товару” (Set whether the product needs to be ordered) action lets you enable or prohibit ordering the product in general. The “Заборонити до замовлення у постачальника” (Prohibit ordering from supplier) action sets a restriction for the selected supplier: the product will not appear in the “Формування замовлення постачальнику” (Create supplier order) form for an order from that supplier.
How to choose between repricing, transferring stock, and pausing orders
First check whether customers can access the product: is there a price tag, is the required size on display, and is the product in good condition? Then compare sales at other locations and find out the supplier’s return terms. Based on the results, the owner can assign someone to:
- change the display if customers have difficulty seeing the product;
- transfer part of the stock to a store with confirmed demand;
- set an agreed price or discount and update the labels;
- pause repeat orders;
- agree on a supplier return and only then process it.
Choose one main change for a specific group and record its start date. If the price, display, and assortment all change at once, it is harder to tell what affected the result. In the next analysis, compare units sold, returns, and stock for a period of equal length.
How to assess customer inactivity in Torgsoft
In “Аналіз → Аналіз активності покупців” (Analysis → Customer activity analysis), set the activity period and accounting center. If both fields are empty, the analysis covers the entire period for which records have been kept and the whole chain. To identify customers for an inactivity review, you can filter by purchase count using “не більше” (no more than) the required value.
The list includes the number of receipts, the date of the last purchase, and other figures. The “Виручка реалізацій” (Sales revenue) column does not account for returns. To make a decision about a specific person, open the customer card: purchases and returns accumulate on the “Придбання” (Purchases) tab. Find the last actual purchase across all available history, and review returns separately. If a return followed the purchase, account for it when assessing the customer’s activity.
The store manager can manually compile a small group of customers whose usual interval between purchases for that product has elapsed. Before contacting them, check their last purchase across the chain, any returns, and whether the offer is relevant. No purchase at one location does not mean the customer has stopped buying across the chain. If the data does not answer the question, leave the reason for inactivity unresolved.
How to use purchase histories and contact details lawfully
For a store in Ukraine, processing an identifiable customer’s purchase history and contact details requires a lawful basis. Articles 6 and 11 of the Law of Ukraine “On Personal Data Protection” set requirements for the purpose, scope, and grounds for processing data. Consent is one possible ground; the law also provides for, among other things, performance of a transaction or a statutory obligation. The ground must be appropriate to the specific purpose for which the information is used.
The owner must document the purpose of processing purchase histories in the documents governing the store’s operations, specify the information needed, and identify which employees will have access to it. Also set a retention period that matches that purpose: under Article 6, a history that can identify a customer may be retained no longer than necessary for the lawful purposes of processing it. Under Article 12, when data is collected directly from a customer, the customer must be informed at that time about the data controller, the data collected, the purpose of collection, the customer’s rights, and the recipients to whom the data is transferred.
If data is not collected directly from the customer, the customer must be informed within 30 working days of the date it was collected, except in cases established by law.
Limit repeat purchase analysis to the information needed. Before making a marketing contact, separately establish whether using the contact details for that purpose is lawful. If a new purpose is incompatible with the previous one, Article 6 requires consent to the changed purpose unless the law provides otherwise. Designate an employee to handle customer requests: Article 8 provides, among other things, the right to withdraw consent and to request the change or destruction of data that is processed unlawfully or is inaccurate.
Separate facts, assumptions, and decisions
Make three brief notes for each item. A fact describes specific transactions and stock at a defined store over a defined period. An assumption explains a possible reason, such as customers not seeing the product on the shelf. A decision names the action, the person responsible, and the timeframe: the salesperson changes the display, and the manager counts sales and returns again after the agreed interval.
Confirm the reason with separate observations. A list of products with no sales does not explain whether the problem is price, availability, seasonality, or placement. Record what result would support your assumption and under what conditions you would need to reconsider it.
| Person responsible | Task | Data to collect | Torgsoft form | Manual decision | What to assess after the action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buyer or owner | Prepare a reorder | Current stock, movement, delivery time, confirmed incoming stock | “Стан складу” (Stock Status), “Рух товару” (Product movement) | Approve the quantity and delivery date | Whether stock lasted and what remained before the next delivery |
| Merchandise specialist | Investigate an incorrect quantity | Physical count; receipt, sales, return, and transfer documents | “Стан складу” (Stock Status), “Картка складського обліку” (Stock accounting card) | Identify the cause and correct the recordkeeping error | Whether the quantity matches the documents and actual stock |
| Owner and store manager | Reduce stock of a product with weak sales | Stock at the start of the period, units sold, returns, price, and cost | “Аналіз товару, що залежався” (Analysis of stagnant products) | Choose a change to the display or price, a transfer, or a pause in ordering | Sales, returns, and stock for a comparable period |
| Store manager | Assess a customer’s inactivity | Last actual purchase, returns, purchase history across the chain, lawfulness of using contact details | “Аналіз активності покупців” (Customer activity analysis), customer card | Determine whether an individual contact is appropriate | Customer response and subsequent purchases, accounting for returns |
How to account for returns when assessing cash from sales
Illustrative manual calculation. The store sold 10 units at UAH 1,000 each and received UAH 10,000. During the same period, customers returned two units, and the store refunded them UAH 2,000. The supplier was paid UAH 4,800 during this period for the eight units that remained sold. Payment processing fees were UAH 160, and packaging and delivery paid for by the store cost UAH 240. Assume there were no other payments for this group during the period.
For this limited assessment, the group’s cash contribution is: 10,000 − 2,000 − 4,800 − 160 − 240 = UAH 2,800. Excluding the money refunded to customers would overstate the result by UAH 2,000. If the store also paid the supplier for the two returned units, that payment must also be subtracted; the goods remain a separate stock item.
These UAH 2,800 represent only the difference between the listed receipts and payments. To determine available cash, the owner must also account for rent, wages, taxes, other purchases, and payment due dates. Gross profit, calculated from revenue and the cost of goods sold, is not the same as the cash balance. This manual calculation also does not determine taxable profit.
Record the decision and the date for the next analysis
Save a brief record: the question, store, period, facts, assumptions, agreed action, person responsible, and assessment date. On that date, repeat the analysis using the same selection criteria. If the product was unavailable in the meantime, the operating schedule changed, or another significant event occurred, account for it in the comparison.
If you plan to work with several accounting centers, transfer stock between warehouses, or create supplier orders in the program, check that these tasks are supported by your license. Torgsoft-Start is limited to one accounting center and does not support transfers between warehouses or supplier orders. With this license, you can calculate the purchase requirement manually and send an order to the supplier outside the program. Available work formats and payment terms are listed on the Torgsoft licenses and prices page.
Official legal basis for working with customer data
Law of Ukraine “On Personal Data Protection” dated 01.06.2010 No. 2297-VI: Article 6 covers the purpose, scope, accuracy, and retention periods for data processing; Article 8 covers customer rights; Article 11 covers the grounds for processing; and Article 12 covers notification when collecting data.
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