When to Switch from Excel to Torgsoft and How to Prepare Your Store’s Records

It is worth switching from Excel to an inventory program when the owner and employees regularly spend time re-entering transactions, searching for discrepancies, and reconciling stock balances. The number of products alone is not enough to make this decision. First, find out where errors occur, calculate the time spent, and list the operations the program must support.

If you decide to implement Torgsoft, organize the product list, reconcile physical stock and debts, and try out the required functions. Set a date and time after which employees will record all new product and money transactions in the working program. This will help prevent discrepancies between two independent sets of records.

When You Can Continue Keeping Records in Excel

For a small store where one person keeps the records and the assortment and workflow rarely change, a spreadsheet may remain a convenient tool. Assess whether you can trace every transaction and explain the stock balance, amount of money, and debt without spending a long time searching through different files.

Before changing systems, try to organize your current records. Choose one working file and appoint someone responsible for changes to the catalog—the list of products and their characteristics. Keep backup copies and record sales, receipts, and returns using consistent rules. Every transaction should have a date and a reference to a document or other supporting basis. If reconciliation takes an acceptable amount of time after these steps, you can reassess the need to switch later.

When discrepancies arise, find out who entered the data, when, and in which file. For example, a salesperson recorded a return in their file, while the owner prepared an order for a supplier using an earlier copy of the stock balances. In this case, check how data is updated and how different versions of the file are used.

What Signs to Check Before Automating

For a typical working week, record each instance when employees had to re-enter, search for, or correct something. For each instance, note the operation, the cause, the time spent, and any verified consequences.

• Several people change the data. Check whether employees know which record is final and who is authorized to correct a transaction that has already been entered.
• Physical stock differs from recorded stock. Trace receipts, sales, returns, and write-offs for a specific product. Find out which transaction was missed or entered twice.
• Employees confuse product variants. Check whether different colors, sizes, and pack sizes have separate labels and stock balances.
• Returns are recorded late. Make sure the responsible employee records both the returned product and the corresponding change in payment or debt at the same time.
• Debt has to be reconstructed from correspondence. For each amount, identify the counterparty—the customer or supplier with whom the store settles accounts. Find the document, payment due date, and payments already received.
• The cash register does not balance at the end of a shift. Reconcile cash and payments to the bank account separately, and check refunds, deposits, and withdrawals.
• Files have to be combined again to prepare reports. Record exactly which data you copy and how long you spend checking the result.

After this review, formulate specific requirements for the program. For example: the salesperson processes sales and returns, the inventory clerk enters receipts, and the owner reconciles stock and money. For each employee, define the permitted actions and responsibility for corrections.

How to Calculate Your Own Costs for Manual Record-Keeping

Add up the time spent re-entering data, reconciling, and making corrections separately. If a check is already part of the daily workflow, do not count the same minutes twice. Include financial consequences only for verified cases, such as a documented write-off or the cost of a repeat delivery caused by an error when assembling an order.

Hypothetical example. The store operates 24 days a month. The owner spends 25 minutes each day transferring data and 15 minutes reconciling it. That totals 40 × 24 = 960 minutes, or 16 hours. Another 4 hours a month go to separate corrections that were not part of the daily reconciliation. The total cost in time is 20 hours. At an assumed value of UAH 200 per working hour, that is 20 × 200 = UAH 4,000 per month.

This amount shows the value of the time based on the assumed rate. To forecast savings, measure how long the same operations take in a configured program. Also include licenses, required options, equipment, data preparation, training, support, and server services in the transition budget, if needed.

To estimate the payback period, first subtract recurring payments for the new system from the expected monthly cost reduction. If the result is positive, divide the one-time transition costs by that amount to get the approximate number of months until payback. If a trial run does not show a cost reduction, assess the benefits using other indicators that matter to you: the time it takes to close a shift, the number of unresolved discrepancies, or the time it takes to find a document.

How to Match Store Processes to a License

Before a program demonstration, make a table of the processes you need. Mark a process as mandatory if it is required for launch. Next to it, record the result of trying it with your products. For your selection, use the comparison of Start and Ultra licenses and the license purchase terms.

An accounting center in Torgsoft is a store or warehouse for which product records are kept. Determine how many such stores and warehouses you need to track.

Before purchasing, ask an implementation specialist to demonstrate each mandatory operation in the selected configuration—the combination of a license, additional options, and settings. Check the result using an example from your store’s workflow.

How to Switch from Excel: Preparation and Launch Steps

1. Save the Source Data and Appoint Someone Responsible

1. Make backup copies of all working spreadsheets and related documents.
2. Make sure the copies open, and save them separately from the working computer.
3. Appoint someone to approve the prepared catalog, opening stock balances, and amounts of money and debts.
4. Collect disputed records in one list. For each one, note who must clarify the data.

2. Organize the Catalog and Separate Product Characteristics

1. Remove accidental duplicates and standardize product names.
2. Use separate fields for the SKU—a product identifier—color, size, material, and other required characteristics.
3. Keep a mapping between old and new identifiers so you can find products in older documents.
4. Define the unit used to track and sell each item. If the supplier delivers packages and the store sells individual units, record the conversion rule and check it with an example.
5. Store barcodes as text to preserve leading zeros.
6. Check for duplicate barcodes. Using one code for different product variants may cause the wrong size or color to be selected at the time of sale.

3. Prepare a Trial Transfer

Torgsoft supports uploading product and customer information from Excel. The file must be in .xls format (Excel 97–2003), and cells must use text format. Product fields include barcode, SKU, characteristics, quantity, and prices, among others.

1. Prepare a small sample of products and customers in the required format.
2. Match the file columns to the corresponding program fields.
3. Upload the sample and check that the values are displayed correctly.
4. Separately agree with the implementation specialist on how to handle sales history, tax data, and debts.

4. Count Opening Stock and Reconcile Money and Debts

1. Choose the date and time for which you are recording the store’s position.
2. Count products by storage location and variant.
3. Mark damaged items, products with a return still in progress, and orders on hold separately.
4. Find the cause of every discrepancy before approving the opening data.
5. Record the counted cash separately for each cash register, and reconcile bank account balances with statements for the chosen time.
6. Prepare separate lists of amounts owed by customers, amounts owed to suppliers, and prepayments. For each amount, identify the document and the relevant counterparty.
7. Agree with the implementation specialist on how to enter these amounts. Make sure that entering opening stock does not create a duplicate debt to a supplier.

5. Set Up Access and Train Employees

1. Make a list of actions permitted for the salesperson, inventory clerk, and owner.
2. Decide who can change prices, adjust quantities, process returns, and correct documents.
3. Sign in using each employee’s account and check that the actions they need are available and that the set restrictions are in effect.

Train employees using your store’s operations. Each person should independently find the required product variant, complete the sales and return operations assigned to them, and finish their part of the reconciliation. Write down whom to notify and how to report an error so employees do not correct it by arbitrarily changing stock.

6. Set the Time to Begin Working with the New Records

After the agreed time, employees must record all new transactions in the working program. Keep spreadsheets from the previous period for reference. Carry out trial transactions in a separate training database—a set of data for practice—so they do not change working stock balances or amounts of money.

If the store continues making sales during the transfer, appoint someone responsible for transactions between the stock count and launch. They must ensure that each transaction is entered into the working records once. For a technical interruption, decide who records transactions, where the records are kept, and who reconciles them with their subsequent entry into the program.

How to Accept the Result: Trial Sale and Return

Before launch, agree with the implementation specialist on the expected result of each check. The sample should cover typical and complex situations in your store: different sizes and colors, a discounted product, partial payment, or a transfer, if these are required.

Hypothetical verification example. The training database contains 8 units of one product variant priced at UAH 300 each. After 2 units are sold for cash, the balance should be 8 − 2 = 6 units, and money received should be 2 × 300 = UAH 600. After the customer returns 1 unit and receives a UAH 300 refund, the balance should rise to 7 units. Net receipts from these transactions should be 600 − 300 = UAH 300. This example assumes an unchanged price and no other transactions.

1. Check that the salesperson selected the required size and color.
2. Reconcile the quantity after the sale and after the return.
3. Make sure the return is linked to the relevant transaction and the money is recorded under the correct payment method.
4. Compare the documents and totals with the expected values.
5. Record all deviations and who is responsible for correcting them. After corrections, repeat the check and record the result.

After transferring the working data, reconcile the balance of each item, individual cash registers, accounts, and debts for each counterparty. Checking only the total quantity or amount may conceal discrepancies between different products. To check quantities and the sequence of warehouse transactions in Torgsoft, you can use “Стан складу” (“Warehouse Status”) and the stock record card—a list of transactions for the selected product.

Torgsoft for Your Store: Licenses, Paid Options, and Support

Try the required operations in the free demo version for 30 days: it provides the full set of functions and lets you temporarily activate additional options. Before paying, compare the capabilities you tested with your order. Start is limited to one accounting center—a store or warehouse in Torgsoft; Ultra supports extended operations on local computers and a local network; Terminal or Online is available for shared remote work. Check the term of use and number of workstations under the current commercial terms. After payment is confirmed, the customer is provided with an electronic key or access to activation.

Additional options are paid for separately, including for Ultra. Agree with the implementation specialist on their settings, compatibility with your configuration, and how to check that they work, and confirm the purchase terms and limitations in the catalog of paid options. The “Програмний реєстратор розрахункових операцій” option (“Software Settlement Transaction Registrar”), which enables the use of software for registering settlements and issuing fiscal receipts, is paid for annually for each device.

The “Хмарний архів даних” option (“Cloud Data Archive”), which creates database backups and stores them in Google Drive, is also paid for annually: for separate installations, a license is required for each workstation; for a shared local network, one covers the network; for terminal access, one covers the server.

The standard support package for a new customer includes 2 hours of support over 30 days; the specific amount depends on the offer. Further service can be purchased separately. Before paying, agree on the list of migration, training, and configuration tasks so that the allocated time is spent on the work you need. Confirm the terms for updates and support on the license page and in the invoice.

What to Agree on Before the Final Launch

Ask the person responsible for the transition to confirm that backup copies open, the catalog is ready, stock balances and debts have been reconciled, access rights are configured, and trial transactions produce the agreed results. Decide who will reconcile the totals for the first shifts and whom employees should notify about deviations.

For a store in Ukraine, agree with your accountant on the requirements of Ukrainian law for tax accounting, primary documents—documents that record business transactions—and processing settlements. Give the accountant information about your business and tax system, samples of sales, return, and product receipt documents, and a list of payment methods. Ask them to determine which requirements and exceptions apply to the store and what must be taken into account after the switch. Before launch, agree on the list of required documents and actions, and who is responsible for them.

Start by recording time spent and errors during a typical working week. Use these records to make a list of required operations and prepare examples for a Torgsoft demonstration. This will help you determine what the selected configuration must support before transferring your working records.