Your shop on your phone: what the BooksPOS Owner app shows

The owner of a book depot or stationery shop is often away from the counter: at a publisher's office, at a school collecting the new class lists, at a second branch, or at home in the evening. The question is always the same: how is the day going? Phoning the shop interrupts the counter, and the answer is only as good as whoever picks up.

The BooksPOS Owner app for Android answers that question on your phone. It shows what your store PCs sent to BooksPOS Cloud: each branch's sales, bills, stock, khata and what needs you, every figure with the time its branch last reported. This guide goes through what it shows, how fresh the figures are, and how it keeps your data safe.

What it is, and who it is for

• Read-only. Nothing in the app bills, changes a price, voids a bill or touches stock. Those stay on the shop's PC, where each person signs in with their own account.
• For the Cloud edition. The app reads what your store PCs send to BooksPOS Cloud. A shop on the Offline edition keeps its sales on its own PC and never sends them, so the app has nothing to show for it, and says so.
• For Android. It is downloaded from bookspos.pk (version 1.1.0 when this guide was written) and needs Android 7.0 or later. The owner portal works in any phone's browser too.
• Your owner account. You sign in with the same email and password as the owner portal. Staff accounts on the store PC do not sign in here.

See the Owner app page for the download and the app's screens.

Getting it on your phone

1. On your Android phone, open the Owner app page on bookspos.pk and choose Download for Android. Android asks once to allow installing apps from your browser: allow it for this download, then open the file.
2. Open BooksPOS Owner and sign in with your owner portal's email and password.
3. If you use two-step sign-in, type the 6-digit code from your authenticator app, or one of your recovery codes.
4. Under More › Settings, turn on App lock, so the app asks for your fingerprint or phone PIN when you come back to it.

The full steps are in the help article The BooksPOS Owner app for Android.

What each screen shows

Home is the morning view: net sales, bills, profit and returns across your branches today, against yesterday; a card for each branch; how customers paid today; the last 30 days as a chart; this month; and your best sellers over 7 or 30 days.

Bills lists the bills and returns of any day, for all branches or one, with how each was paid and what went on khata. A voided bill is marked; open it to see the reason. Open any bill to see its lines, payments, cost and profit, and its FBR status when the branch reports to FBR.

Stock shows every title with what each branch has on the shop floor and in the godown, what is low or out of stock, and the stock value. School uniforms appear with their size, such as Shirt – City School (26), because in BooksPOS each size is its own item. Selling school uniforms by size.

Khata shows the customers who owe you: how much, whether they are past their credit limit, their oldest unpaid bill and their last payment, with Call and a WhatsApp reminder that you read before you send it. The suppliers you owe are there too, with advances and open return claims. Purchases and expenses by day open from Home.

Alerts gathers what needs you: a branch that has gone quiet, low stock, customers past their limit, invoices not with FBR yet, stock transfers on their way, item changes to decide, and your plan.

More has your store PCs and when each last checked in, notices from the BooksPOS team, items and prices as each branch last reported them, settings and help.

How fresh are the figures?

This is the most important thing to understand about any owner app, and it is where BooksPOS is deliberately strict.

Your shop's PC is the record. It keeps billing whether or not the internet is working, and sends its new sales to BooksPOS Cloud every 15 seconds while it has internet. So the app can only ever be as fresh as each branch's last report, and it always shows that time.

A branch that has not reported for 15 minutes is marked STALE. That does not mean the shop is closed: usually its internet is down or its PC is off, and it may be billing offline. When the connection comes back, the waiting sales are sent in order, each once, and the figures catch up. Nothing in the app is called live, so an old figure is never mistaken for the current one. What works without internet.

Stock, khata, and purchases and expenses need BooksPOS 0.9.7 or later on the store PC; a branch on an older version shows "Not reported yet".

Keeping it safe

A phone is lost more easily than a shop PC, and the app is built with that in mind:

• two-step sign-in with an authenticator app, as in the owner portal;
• an app lock with your fingerprint or PIN;
• the bill and khata screens are kept out of screenshots and the recent-apps preview, because they show names, phone numbers and amounts;
• a lost or sold phone is signed out from the owner portal: Security › Phones signed in to the Owner app, then Sign out. Its access stops at once, and a phone that has not used the app for 30 days is signed out by itself.

A simple routine

• Morning: open Home. Check that every branch reported recently, compare yesterday with the day before, and look at Alerts.
• During the day: open Stock when a supplier calls, and Khata before you phone a customer about what they owe.
• Evening: open Bills for the day, look at any voided bill and its reason, and check how customers paid.

Common questions

Can someone change my prices or stock from the app?

No. The app is read-only. Prices, stock and bills change only on the shop's PC.

Why does a branch say STALE when the shop is open?

Its store PC has not reported for 15 minutes, usually because the internet is down or the PC is off. The shop can still be billing; the figures catch up when it reports again.

Does it work for the Offline edition?

No. The Offline edition keeps its sales on the shop's PC and never sends them to the cloud, so the app has nothing to show.

Can a manager use the app?

The app signs in with the owner portal's account, which is the owner's. Staff sign in on the till and the store PC.

Does it use much mobile data?

Very little: each screen is a small summary, fetched when you open it or pull down to refresh.

More on the Owner app page, and on choosing software for your shop in How to choose book depot software.