To oversee store staff transparently, the owner needs to define each employee’s duties, set up separate user accounts, and establish procedures for checking sales, returns, cash, and goods. Employees should know in advance what data the employer reviews, who examines discrepancies, and how they can explain or correct a mistake.
To motivate staff, set out bonus conditions in writing and combine sales volume with work quality. Before calculating pay, the responsible person should confirm the hours actually worked and check the source data. Low revenue, a product return, or an entry in the transaction log is not, by itself, sufficient grounds to conclude that an employee is at fault.
Assign duties and access to transactions
Start with a brief written description of the work of the sales assistant, shift supervisor, inventory specialist, and owner. For each transaction, define who carries it out, who approves exceptions, and who checks the result. If one person performs several roles, state this explicitly and assign another authorized person to review that person’s transactions.
As a practical measure, give sales assistants access to the transactions they need for their work, while reserving changes to discount rules, stock adjustments, and permission management for designated responsible staff. Each employee should use their own account. A shared password makes it harder to establish who actually performed an action.
| Process | Who is responsible | What to check and retain | Action if there is a discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale | Sales assistant records it; shift supervisor checks it | Sales document, product, price, payment method, and attribution of the sale to an employee | Compare the documents and explanations, and check that the correct user account was used |
| Return | Sales assistant records it; designated person checks it | Original sale, return document, movement of goods, and refund | Establish the reason for the return and check all related transactions |
| Discount | Sales assistant applies permitted terms; manager approves exceptions | Reason for the discount, price, and approval of an exception | Check the promotion terms and the employee’s authority |
| Cash | Employee who receives and hands over the cash drawer | Opening balance, receipts, payouts, physical cash count, and shift handover | Count the cash again and reconcile movements for the period |
| Stock | Inventory specialist or designated employee | Physical quantity, receipts, sales, returns, transfers, and write-offs | Repeat the count and check movements of the specific items |
| Working hours | Shift manager confirms them; person responsible for payroll checks them | Planned schedule, actual work, substitutions, absences, and approved corrections | Clarify the circumstances with the employee before calculating pay |
| Bonus | Designated person calculates it; manager checks it | Current bonus terms, verified metrics, and calculation | Explain the formula and correct any inaccurate data |
Check discrepancies against documents and explanations
Introduce a brief check when shifts are handed over. Employees should count the cash, reconcile it with recorded receipts and payouts, note unfinished transactions, and pass on information about documents with issues. Separately review unusual returns, discounts, and stock adjustments using criteria set in advance. The review should take the circumstances of each transaction into account.
- Describe the discrepancy. Record the date, shift, document number, product or amount, and the specific question to be resolved.
- Compare related data. For a return, check the original sale, the goods returned to stock, and the refund. For a stock shortage, also check transfers, write-offs, and possible counting errors.
- Obtain the employee’s explanation. Invite the employee to describe the circumstances in writing and provide documents. In the review record, distinguish established facts from assumptions.
- Record the outcome. State what was confirmed, which questions remain open, who will correct the records, and by when. If the cause relates to training or settings, specify the appropriate action.
If a sales assistant has lower revenue, first compare the length and timing of their shifts, product availability, customer numbers, and duties away from the checkout. An employee who received a delivery or trained a colleague may have had fewer opportunities to make sales. An entry under an employee’s account name should also be assessed alongside documents and explanations, especially if employees shared access with one another.
Confirm actual work before calculating pay
The schedule shows planned shifts. For payroll, the responsible person must separately check when the employee actually worked and whether there were substitutions, absences, or additional work. Logging in to the program or making the first sale does not capture all work: the employee may have prepared the sales floor or received goods.
We recommend keeping the planned schedule and actual hours side by side: the planned shift, confirmed start and end times, breaks, deviations, and the reason for any correction. At the end of each shift, the manager should clarify discrepancies. Before payroll is calculated, the employee should have an opportunity to check their data. Retain corrections with an explanation, date, and the name of the responsible person.
Working hours, payment for additional hours, changes to pay terms, and deadlines for notifying employees must be determined in accordance with applicable Ukrainian labor legislation. For decisions during martial law, also check the special rules that apply to the particular employer and employee. Accounting software settings do not establish legal grounds for such decisions.
Set clear bonus criteria
Before the evaluation period begins, define the metrics, data sources, formula, review deadlines, and procedure for handling objections in writing. Specify which sales count toward the calculation and how returns, discounts, and individual contributions to teamwork are treated. Employees should understand which results qualify for a bonus and how to check its amount.
For a trial period, you can combine a team sales target with the quality of transaction processing. For example, assess document accuracy using equivalent samples for all employees. A return due to a product’s characteristics or a customer’s request should not, by itself, be treated as a sales assistant’s mistake: the responsible person should first establish the reason.
Illustrative bonus calculation. A store has set a maximum bonus of UAH 3,000: 70% for meeting the team sales target and 30% for transaction quality. If the first criterion is fully met, the employee receives UAH 3,000 × 70% = UAH 2,100. If quality is rated at 80% under a scale defined in advance, the second part is UAH 3,000 × 30% × 80% = UAH 720. The total bonus is UAH 2,820. This is an example of variable compensation only, not rates established by law or a full salary calculation.
After the trial period, check whether the criteria encourage unnecessary discounts, rushed service, or disputes over individual sales. Discuss unclear cases with the team and refine the rules for the next period in compliance with applicable requirements for changing pay terms.
Set limits on oversight and protect employee data
In a Ukrainian store, the processing of employee data is governed by the Law of Ukraine “On Personal Data Protection” dated 01.06.2010 No. 2297-VI. Article 6 requires open and transparent processing for specified lawful purposes, data accuracy, and data volumes that correspond to those purposes. Therefore, collect the work-related information needed to review transactions and do not include unnecessary private information in evaluations.
Before oversight begins, explain in writing its purpose, the types of data collected, who has access, how errors can be corrected, and how long data will be retained. Determine the legal basis for each type of data under Article 11 of this Law. This may include, for example, the employee’s consent, the performance of a legal transaction to which the employee is a party or that was concluded for their benefit, or the need for the employer to fulfill an obligation prescribed by law.
If the employer chooses the need to protect its legitimate interests, or those of a third party to whom the data is transferred, as the legal basis, it must check whether the employee’s fundamental rights and freedoms relating to data processing outweigh that need. Do not replace the determination of the appropriate legal basis with a general statement of consent to any kind of oversight.
Give access to personal reports only to those who need it for their work, and protect exported spreadsheets and backup copies as well. Under Article 24 of the Law, data controllers must protect data from unlawful access or processing, accidental loss, or destruction; a sole proprietor ensures this protection personally. Determine retention periods in light of the lawful purpose and mandatory requirements for the relevant documents.
Do not introduce covert monitoring, automatic fines, or deductions from wages based on a software flag. Disciplinary measures, material liability, and deductions require a separate review of their legal grounds and procedure. The Law “On Personal Data Protection” alone is not sufficient to determine permissible penalties, deduction limits, or special labor rules during martial law. Before taking such decisions, ask a labor law specialist to review them; the presence of a “штраф” (“fine”) field in the software is not a legal basis for applying one.
Monitoring sales staff and calculating bonuses in Torgsoft
Torgsoft-Ultra includes roles and settings for employee access rights. As a practical first step, create separate user accounts and check which transactions each account can access. To review a specific case, use the “Протокол дій користувачів” (“User Actions Log”): it has filters by period, user, content, and event type, as well as an Excel export. The help documentation describes, among other things, the creation of goods receipt documents, sales, and returns, document printing, messages, confirmations, warnings, and errors.
It does not support treating the log as complete evidence of every change to a discount, cash transaction, or stock movement. Entries are generated automatically and cannot be manually edited through this form, but they can be deleted up to a specified date; clearing statistics for closed periods also clears the log for the corresponding period. Save the materials needed for a review in advance and restrict access to them.
“Зарплата та мотивація” (“Payroll and Motivation”) is an add-on feature: the official license page states that additional options are paid, including payroll accounting. Compatibility of the option with a program version does not mean it is included in the license price. According to the configuration help, you can combine a fixed rate, hourly pay based on a schedule, pay per shift, an individual percentage, and a team bonus.
In the “Бригадна робота з урахуванням особистих продажів” (“Team Work with Individual Sales Taken into Account”) mode, the salesperson’s badge must be scanned for each sale. This makes it possible to create an individual ranking, while the team bonus is calculated according to the team work rules. The “За тривалістю зміни” (“By Shift Duration”) time tracking method fills in a duration only for planned shifts, so the responsible person must confirm actual work before calculating pay.
Before using the calculation, check the settings with several test transactions: an individual sale, a shared shift, a return, and an employee substitution. For the “За оплаченими товарами” (“By Paid Items”) calculation method, enable “Часткова розшифровка по товару” (“Partial Item Breakdown”). Do not use this method for sales made in “Торгівля з випискою рахунка” (“Trade with Invoice”) mode: those sales will not be included in the sales plan, and employees will not accrue remuneration for them. Compare the result with the approved bonus rules, check the allocation among employees, and confirm the hours worked. A decision to pay must be based on verified data and lawful pay terms.
Introduce a store review procedure
- Write down duties, permitted transactions, and who is responsible for reviewing them.
- Create individual user accounts and check their permissions using practical examples.
- Explain the oversight, data processing, and explanation procedures to employees.
- Organize cash handovers and checks of discrepancies in goods and documents.
- Keep the planned schedule separate from confirmed working hours.
- Set documented bonus criteria and run a trial calculation.
- Before payment, let employees check the data, correct errors, and record the final calculation.
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