Multi-Branch Stock and Margin Intelligence
A retailer with two or more branches, holding stock that was bought from different suppliers at different prices, with margin estimated from a standard cost rather than what each unit actually cost.
The problem
Margin is reported against an assumed cost, so the reported figure is wrong in a direction nobody can quantify. Stock sitting in the wrong branch is capital doing nothing, and nobody sees it until a count.
In scope
- Ingestion from the existing stock and sales system
- True unit-level margin
- Branch comparison
- Dead stock and ageing
- Transfer recommendations
- Supplier price analysis
Out of scope
- Replacing the point of sale or stock system.
- Automated reordering or automated transfers — this recommends, a person decides.
- Demand forecasting, which needs more sales history than most single-region retailers have.
What this would cover
Grouped by module — open the ones you want to read.
Ingestion
- From the Retail & Electronics Operations Platform, or from an existing POS export or database
Unit-level margin
- Selling price against the purchase cost of that specific unit, not a product average; this is the whole point of the module and it only works where the source system records cost per unit
Branch comparison
- Sales, margin, stock turn and dead stock per branch, normalised by size so a small branch is not judged against a large one
Dead stock
- Units aged beyond a threshold, with capital tied up, per branch and in aggregate
Transfer recommendation
- A product selling in one branch and sitting in another, surfaced as a suggestion with the numbers behind it
Supplier analysis
- Purchase price history per product per supplier over time, exposing which supplier is actually cheapest once freight and returns are counted, and which one's stock generates warranty claims
Reporting
- Scheduled to the owner, in a format read on a phone
Data model
- Read-only over source.
- StockUnit
- Sale → SaleLine
- Branch
- Product → Supplier
- PurchaseRecord
- MetricDefinition
- TransferSuggestion
Invariants
- Margin is computed from unit cost where available and clearly labelled as estimated where it is not — a mixed report that does not distinguish the two is worse than no report.
- Metric definitions are versioned.
- Every figure traces to its source rows.
Offline behavior
Not applicable.
Hard trade-offs
The difficult decisions, stated plainly — not trimmed for length.
If the source system records cost per product rather than per unit, the headline feature of this concept cannot be delivered.
Generic retail software usually stores a single cost against a product line, which is exactly why it fits this trade badly. Phase 1 establishes which is true. Where it is per product, the honest recommendation is the Retail & Electronics Operations Platform first, and this engagement should not be sold on a promise it cannot meet.
Branch comparison is read by branch managers as a ranking of them.
Publishing it without deciding how it will be used produces gamed numbers — stock hidden, transfers refused, sales timed. That is a management decision to settle before the first report goes out.
End state
What would be true about their day once this is running.
- Margin is calculated from what each unit actually cost.
- Dead stock is visible with the capital it is holding.
- Stock in the wrong branch is surfaced as a suggestion with numbers attached.
- Supplier choice is made on landed cost and claim rate rather than on list price.
Let's map how your operation actually runs.
One session. We look at what's breaking, and what we'd build around it — whether or not you hire us afterward.
Start the operations review