The supplier's new price list: photograph it, update your costs in minutes

On the first of the month the drinks distributor's salesman leaves a stapled price sheet on the counter of a baqala in Al Nahda: three pages, a hundred lines, cartons and prices, some names in Arabic, some in English. Somewhere in there, a dozen prices went up. The sheet goes into a drawer. The next deliveries are received at whatever the invoice says, and the shelf prices stay where they were.

Typing a hundred lines into the system is an afternoon nobody has. So the price list is the most useful piece of paper the supplier sends, and the least used.

Photograph it

In CreekPOS Online, open Suppliers, choose the supplier and press Price list by photo. Take a photo of each page, or pick the PDF if the supplier e-mailed one. The AI invoice reader, the same one that reads supplier invoices, reads the rows: the description, the code or barcode, the pack and the price.

Each page is one reading of the reader's allowance, so the three-page sheet above is three readings.

The review: every row, with what it means for you

The reader only transcribes. Everything after that is ordinary arithmetic you can check, shown beside the photographed pages:

• The matched product: by barcode, by the name this supplier used last time, or by name. Green is sure, amber is worth a look, red has no product or no price.
• Pieces per carton: a carton of 12 becomes 12 pieces.
• The piece cost that will be written, today's cost, and the change in %.
• The margin at your current price, before and after.
• The price that keeps the margin, rounded up to the next AED 0.05.

These are example figures. A row reads "carton of 12, AED 81.90", and the sheet says its prices include VAT. CreekPOS keeps costs without VAT, so 81.90 ÷ 1.05 = AED 78.00 a carton, AED 6.50 a piece. Today's cost is AED 5.80, so that is a rise of 12.1 %. The shelf price is AED 8.40, which is AED 8.00 without VAT, so the margin falls from (8.00 − 5.80) ÷ 8.00 = 27.5 % to (8.00 − 6.50) ÷ 8.00 = 18.8 %. The price that keeps 27.5 % is 6.50 ÷ 0.725 = about AED 8.97 without VAT, about AED 9.41 with it, rounded up to AED 9.45.

Tick, then apply

Every row comes ticked. Untick what you do not want, and on a row whose cost rose you can also tick Also set the price to 9.45. A printed row with no matching product can become a new product, or stay unticked. You confirm the supplier, the list's date, and whether its prices include VAT.

Apply then writes the ticked costs, never the stock, and the prices you ticked. The list becomes that supplier's latest list, and the names it learned make the next one quicker.

After the list

• Purchase orders to that supplier start each line from the list's cost, shown as "list 6.50" beside it.
• Receiving warns only when a delivery's cost differs from the list. You reviewed the list when it came; a delivery that matches it needs no second look.
• "May be stale": a list older than 60 days says so on the purchase order, the supplier's price-list page and the suppliers list. Time to ask for the new sheet.

Good to know

• The invoice reader is in pilot: ask us to switch it on for your shop. Before the first photo goes to the AI provider, a manager agrees to it in Settings. The trial includes two readings, and paid plans include a number of readings a month.
• Nothing is written until you press Apply. A price list orders nothing and moves no stock.
• Costs and prices are separate rights. Someone with the stock right can apply costs; setting prices needs the right to change prices, or a manager.
• A good photo matters: flat, in good light, the whole page. Check the amber rows, not every row.
• Online only. The buy-once desktop program has no invoice reader, so its purchase orders keep the product's cost.

See price lists on the smart stock page, the stock alerts chapter of the manual and the invoice-photo chapter. To have the reader switched on for your shop, contact us.