Invotron user guide

Create your account

1. Go to Start free trial and enter your business name, your name, email and a password.
2. Choose your business type. This decides which menus you see:
   • Retail: clothing, groceries, hardware; products with variants such as size and colour.
   • Electronics & appliances: every unit tracked by its serial number, with warranties.
   • Service: salons, clinics and repair shops; appointments, staff and services.
   • Restaurant: a tap-to-add menu, tables and running tabs.
3. You start on a 14-day free trial with every feature. No card is needed.

Find your way around

The menu on the left is grouped into Catalog, Inventory, Purchasing, Sales and Accounting. On a phone, open it with the menu button at the top. Press Ctrl + K (⌘ + K on a Mac) to search for any page.

Your first hour: a checklist

1. Open Business Details and add your logo, address, phone, VAT number (if any) and a closing message. They print at the top and bottom of every bill.
2. Add your staff logins and your tills under Users & Counters.
3. Create your categories and suppliers.
4. Add your products or services.
5. Bring in your current stock with Stock In, or by receiving a purchase order.
6. Ring up a test sale at the POS and print the receipt.

Open Users & Counters (owners only). Give every person their own login, so each sale, refund and drawer opening is recorded against the right name.

Roles

To add a user, enter their name, email (this is their login), a password of at least 8 characters, and a role, then press Add user. To stop someone logging in, untick Can log in and press Save. You can also change a role or set a new password there.

Counters (tills)

If you have more than one till, add a counter for each one, for example “Counter 1” and “Counter 2”. The first time the POS opens on a device, it asks which counter it is and remembers the answer. Every sale then records both the counter and the cashier, so the takings of each drawer can be checked separately. With no counters set up, the POS works as a single till.

Go to Products → New product.

Variants

If a product comes in sizes, colours or other options, enter the attribute names separated by commas (for example Size, Color), then the values for each (S, M, L and Black, White). Invotron creates one variant for every combination. For each variant you can set its own barcode (leave “auto” to have one generated), a price difference (Price Δ) from the base price, a different cost, and its own minimum stock.

Barcode labels

Go to Labels, search for the products, choose how many labels each variant needs, and print them on your label printer. The POS search box accepts these barcodes from any USB scanner.

Anything you charge for that isn't stock is a service: installation, delivery, fitting, alterations, gift wrapping, a haircut. Every type of shop can have them. Go to Catalog → Services → New service.

Selling a service

Services sit in the POS grid with your products and never use up stock. If the price can be changed, the bill line has a price box. When you have staff, each service line also asks Done by; leave it on “same as Sales by” to credit whoever the bill is marked as sold by. The receipt and A4 invoice show who did it.

Commission

Staff → Service commission shows, for any month, the services each person did and the commission they earned, invoice by invoice. Returned services are taken off. When you run payroll, each person's commission for that month is filled in as an allowance, so staff on commission only are paid too. You can change the figure before paying.

Stock is never typed over. Every change is a recorded movement, so you can always see who changed what and why. The full history is in Stock Ledger.

Expiry dates (food, medicine, cosmetics)

Tick Has an expiry date on a product. Every time it comes in, on a purchase order or through Stock In, you enter the expiry date of that delivery. Inventory → Expiring and the dashboard then list what has expired and what expires soon (30 days unless you change it in Settings). Press Write off to take expired stock off the shelf: its cost goes to stock loss. Invotron assumes the earliest-expiring stock is sold first, so put older stock at the front. The POS warns the cashier when an item has expired stock but still lets the sale go through.

Serial numbers (electronics)

In electronics shops every phone, laptop or appliance is tracked by its serial number. Serials are scanned in when a purchase order is received and scanned again when the unit is sold. Open Serial Numbers and scan or type any serial to see whether it is in stock or sold, who bought it and when its warranty ends.

Device services and reminders (electronics)

For devices that need regular servicing, such as air conditioners, edit the product and set Service every (months), how many Free services come with it and the Service charge for the paid ones. Every unit sold from then on gets its first service scheduled automatically. Open Device Services to see what is overdue or coming up, and remind the customer with one tap on Call or WhatsApp (the message is written for you). Press Mark done after the visit, enter the charge (filled in for paid services) and how it was paid (cash, card, bank transfer, or owed by the customer), and the next service is scheduled. A charged visit becomes a normal sale in Sales History, its receipt prints, and the charge goes to Service Income in your books. Add the customer's phone number at the till when selling, so they can be reminded.

1. Purchase Orders → New: choose the supplier, add the items, quantities and unit costs, and save. Mark it as ordered when you send it.
2. When the goods arrive, open the order and press Receive. Enter the quantity that actually came, which can be less than ordered. The order shows Partially received until everything is in, then Received. Electronics shops scan each unit's serial number here.
3. Receiving adds the stock at the order's cost and adds the amount to what you owe that supplier.
4. When you pay the supplier, record it as shown in Paying suppliers.

Each supplier has payment terms: the number of days after a delivery you have to pay. Set it when you add or edit a supplier (30 days unless you change it, 0 means pay on delivery).

Recording a payment

1. Open Accounting → Receivables & Payables and press Pay / statement next to the supplier, or use Pay supplier on a purchase order.
2. Enter the amount. You don't have to pay everything at once: any amount is accepted, and it clears the oldest unpaid bills first.
3. Choose how you paid: Cash, Bank transfer, Card or Cheque. Add the transfer reference if you have one.

Owe a supplier for something that didn't come through a purchase order, or from before you started using Invotron? Press + Add amount you owe a supplier under the suppliers table, choose Owed from before Invotron or Bill for a service or expense, and enter the amount and bill date. It is then paid off like any other bill. Choose Other: reminder only to just be reminded to pay something on a date: it isn't added to your books, and you press Done on the supplier's page when it is dealt with. To pay one, pick it under For in the payment form: it then goes into your books as a bill and can be part-paid or paid by cheque like the others.

Each purchase order then shows Paid, Part-paid, Unpaid or Overdue, with what is still outstanding.

Cheques

• Enter the cheque number, the bank and the date written on the cheque. Post-dated cheques are fine.
• The supplier's balance drops straight away, but your bank balance doesn't change until the cheque is paid.
• When the bank pays it, press Cleared on the supplier's statement. If the bank returns it, press Bounced: the payment is cancelled and the bills it paid are open again.

Reminders

The Dashboard and the Receivables & Payables page list bills that are overdue, bills due in the next 7 days, and cheques dated within the next 3 days, so you can make sure the money is in the bank.

Open POS. On a till with counters set up, pick the counter the first time. The header shows the counter and the cashier who is logged in.

Adding items

• Tap a product photo in the grid. Use the category chips to narrow the grid down.
• A product with several sizes, colours or other options shows as one card with “N options”; tap it and pick the option you're selling.
• Electronics shops: tapping a product lists its units in stock by serial/IMEI number. Pick the exact one you're selling (type part of the number to find it), or scan the serial instead.
• Scan a barcode, or type part of a name or code in the search box. A scanned code goes straight into the bill.
• Each card shows how many are left. Items with 5 or fewer turn amber, and sold-out items can't be added.

Changing the bill

• Use − and + for quantity, or tap the number and type it.
• Line discount: type an amount (250) or a percentage (10%) in the “Disc. / %” box on a line.
• Bill discount: the Discount box under the subtotal also takes an amount or a percentage, such as 5%.
• Tax %: adds tax on the bill after discounts.
• The bin icon removes a line; Clear empties the bill.

Customer, salesperson and remarks

• Open Add customer and start typing a phone number or name. Past customers appear as you type; tap one to fill in their details and see their loyalty points. A new phone number creates a new customer when the sale completes.
• Sales by: pick the staff member who made the sale, for commission. This is separate from the cashier.
• Remarks: a note that prints on the receipt, such as “Gift wrap”.

Taking payment

Press Charge. The receipt opens and prints, showing every payment, the change, the salesperson and any remarks. Reprint in the POS header opens your last bill again.

When a customer steps away to fetch something, press Hold (or F4). The bill is parked and the screen clears for the next customer.

• Recall (or F6) lists every held bill in the shop, from all counters, with the counter, the person who held it and the time. Tap one to bring it back.
• A bill held on one counter can be finished on another.
• A held bill can only be recalled once. If two tills try at the same moment, the second one is told it was already recalled.
• If you recall a bill while another one is open, the open bill is held first, so nothing is lost.
• The bin icon in the list discards a held bill you no longer need.

To give a customer a price before they buy, build the bill in the POS as usual (items, discounts, tax and the customer), then press Quote. Choose how many days it is valid for and it prints as a full-page quotation with your letterhead.

• Quotations (under Sales) lists open, accepted, expired and cancelled quotes. Print one again, or cancel it if the customer says no.
• When the customer buys, press Convert to sale. The quote opens in the POS at the quoted prices, even if your prices have changed since; take payment as usual. The quote is then marked accepted with a link to its invoice. In electronics shops, scan each unit's serial number to fill the quoted lines.
• Every sale can also print as an A4 invoice (a tax invoice when your VAT number is set in Business Details): use A4 invoice on the till receipt, or Print A4 invoiceon the sale. To email one, print it and choose Save as PDF.

Under Business Details → Warranty types and terms, keep the list of warranties your shop gives or passes on (Shop, Company, Software, Parts, or your own) with the terms printed for each: what is covered and what voids it. Then edit a product and set how many months of each it carries.

• Every sale of that product records its warranties with their end dates. The receipt and the A4 invoice list them (with serial/IMEI numbers) and the terms, so the invoice is the customer's warranty card, even for a shop warranty with no card of its own.
• When a customer comes back, open Warranties (under Sales) and look up the serial/IMEI, invoice number or phone. You see each warranty as valid or expired; press Open claim and note the fault.
• On the claim, mark it sent out (to the company or supplier), ready with the outcome (repaired, replaced or rejected) and finally collected. Print the claim slip for the customer when you take the item in.
• Returning an item cancels its warranties.

Electronics shops can take in any customer's device for repair, whether or not you sold it. Open Repairs and press New repair: the customer, the device (type, brand, model, serial/IMEI), the fault, what was left with it and its condition, a technician, a promised date and any advance paid (cash, card or bank transfer). Print the job card for the customer.

For a repair done at the customer's place, tick Repair at the customer's place and add the address and visit time (or book the visit later from the job). The slip prints as a Service visit, the WhatsApp message tells the customer when the technician is coming, and the On-site visits tab lists the visits in time order as the technicians' schedule.

• Move the job along as you work: diagnosing, send estimate (waiting for the customer's approval), waiting for parts, repairing, ready. The WhatsApp button has the message written for the stage, such as the estimate or “ready to collect, balance…”.
• Add what was used: parts from stock (scan or type the name; they come out of stock), labour, and parts bought in for the job.
• When the customer collects, press Charge & print invoice. The advance is taken off, the balance can be cash, card, bank transfer or credit (or a mix), and you can give a repair warranty in months. The repair becomes a normal sale in Sales History and your books, and the invoice is its warranty card.
• If it can't be repaired, cancel it with the reason; you can still charge an inspection fee.

Cash in / cash out

Use Cash in/out (or F8) whenever money goes into or out of the drawer without a sale. Cash in is for topping up change during the day (the opening float is entered when you open the counter). Cash out is for paid-outs such as tea, a courier or small purchases. Enter the amount and the reason. Each one is recorded against the counter and cashier and posted to the accounts. They also appear in the sales report's drawer figures.

Setting up the cash drawer

The drawer plugs into the receipt printer, and the printer opens it. An owner or supervisor sets each till up once: POS → gear icon → Drawer settings.

• Printer driver needs no extra software. In Windows, open Printers, choose your receipt printer, then Printing preferences, and set the cash drawer to open at the start of each document. The drawer then opens whenever the till prints. To print receipts without the print dialog, start Chrome with the --kiosk-printing option.
• QZ Tray opens the drawer only for sales that include cash and for No sale, and works with USB, network and serial printers. Install the free QZ Tray app on the till, press Find printers, choose your receipt printer and the command set (ESC/POS for most brands, or Star), then press Test.

No sale

No sale (or F7) opens the drawer without a sale, for example to give change. Every No sale is logged with the counter, the cashier and the time, and the sales report counts them for each cashier.

Each till works in shifts. A closed counter can't take money: the POS shows Counter closed until someone opens it.

Opening

Count the change in the drawer and enter it as the opening float, then press Open counter. The float left in the drawer at the last close is filled in for you.

Closing

1. Press Close counter (the lock at the top of the POS). Hold any open bill first: it is not kept.
2. Count the drawer by notes and coins (5000, 2000, 1000 and so on), or type the total. You don't see what the system expects until you close, so count carefully.
3. Enter the float to leave for tomorrow. The rest is shown as cash to take out for the safe or the bank.
4. Press Close counter. You then see whether the drawer balances, or how much it is short or over, and the end-of-day slip (Z report) prints: sales by payment method, cash in and out, refunds, no-sales, expected and counted cash.

Expected cash is the opening float plus cash sales and cash in, less cash out and cash refunds made at that counter. Cash taken outside the POS (a repair advance, a device service) counts too.

For the owner

Reports → Counter Closings lists every shift with who opened and closed it, expected and counted cash, and any difference, with a link to its slip. Shortages and overages are booked to the Cash Over/Short expense account automatically, so the Cash account always matches the drawers. Owners and supervisors can open a till that is still running to see its takings so far.

These shortcuts work on the POS screen, which makes keyboard-and-scanner tills fast.

1. Go to Returns & Exchanges → New and enter the invoice number from the receipt.
2. For each item coming back, enter the quantity being returned. You can never return more than was sold.
3. Refund: leave Exchange empty. The refund is paid from the cash drawer and the item goes back into stock.
4. Exchange: scan the barcode of the item the customer is taking instead. The returned item goes back into stock and the new one comes out.
5. Add a reason if you like, then save. Every return keeps a link to the original sale.

Your returns policy

Set your policy under Business Details → Returns & exchanges: no exchanges or refunds, exchanges only, or exchanges and refunds, how many days customers have, and any other conditions (one per line, for example “Items must be unused with tags attached”). It prints on every bill. When you open a return for a bill outside the policy, Invotron shows a warning. You can still go ahead if you choose to make an exception.

• Customers are added automatically when you enter a phone number at the POS. You can also see and search them under Customers, with each one's purchase history.
• Loyalty points: customers earn 1 point for every LKR 1 spent, recorded on every sale that has their phone number.
• Credit sales: what each customer owes, and for how long, is shown under Receivables & Payables in age bands (0–30, 31–60, 61–90 and over 90 days). When they pay, record the amount there and choose whether it was paid into cash or bank. Payments clear the oldest amounts first.

1. Add each service under Catalog → Services with how long it takes, and add your team under Staff.
2. Appointments → New appointment: choose the service, the staff member, the date and time, and the customer's name and phone, and add notes if needed.
3. Move each appointment through Scheduled → In progress → Completed, or mark it Cancelled.
4. Take payment at the POS. Services appear in the grid alongside any products you sell, such as shampoo or spare parts.

1. Open Tables and tap a table to start its order.
2. Add dishes from the menu grid, then press Save to table. The tab stays open, and you can add to it all evening.
3. When the guests ask for the bill, open the table and press Charge. The sale is recorded and the table is free again.
4. For takeaway orders, use the POS directly without a table.

Staff

Under Staff, add each employee with their role, joining date and monthly basic salary. Tick EPF for staff who are registered for EPF/ETF.

Salary advances

On the Payroll page, use Salary advances to record money given to a staff member before payday, and choose whether it came from cash or the bank. Outstanding advances are shown until they are recovered.

Running the monthly payroll

1. Choose the month.
2. For each person, check the basic salary and add any allowances or overtime. Service commission for the month is already filled in (see Services and commission).
3. Enter how much of any outstanding advance to recover this month.
4. Invotron works out EPF at 8% from the employee and 12% from the employer, and ETF at 3%, all on the basic salary, then shows the net pay.
5. Choose whether salaries are paid from cash or the bank, and press Run payroll. Each month can only be run once.
6. Open the run under Past payroll runs to print a payslip for every employee.

Payroll posts everything to the accounts automatically. EPF and ETF are held as money you owe until you pay them; when you do, record it with Journal → Quick entry → EPF/ETF payment.

Invotron keeps a full set of double-entry books for you. Most entries post themselves:

Journal: quick entries

For everything else, Journal → Quick entry records the common transactions without debits and credits:

• Expense: rent, utilities and other bills. Choose the expense type and whether you paid by cash or bank.
• Tax payment: paying the tax you collected on sales.
• EPF/ETF payment: paying the EPF and ETF owed from payroll.
• Owner money in: money you put into the business.
• Owner money out: money you take out for yourself. Always record it, or the cash won't add up.

Your accountant can also post full manual journal entries on the same page.

The other accounting pages

• Accounts: your chart of accounts with balances. Add accounts such as a new expense type here; click any account to see its ledger.
• Receivables & Payables: who owes you and who you owe, by age. Record customer payments and supplier payments here.
• Bank Reconciliation: tick each entry that appears on your bank statement. When the ticked total equals the statement balance, your books agree with the bank.
• Petty Cash: the cash box for small spending. Top it up from Cash or Bank, record each payout with its category (Transport, Refreshments and so on) and a receipt photo, and the balance shows what should be in the box. A mistake is voided, not deleted, so the log stays complete.
• Recurring Entries: set up a monthly entry such as rent once, and it posts itself every month.
• Fixed Assets: equipment, furniture and vehicles. Each one is depreciated in equal monthly amounts over its useful life, automatically.
• Financial Reports: Profit and loss, Balance sheet, Trial balance and the Sales tax summary for any dates. Close the books locks a finished period so its figures can't change.

Invotron keeps your books but does not file tax, VAT or EPF/ETF returns for you. Share the reports with your accountant.

Dashboard

The dashboard shows today's sales against yesterday, this month's sales and gross profit, stock value, cash and bank, what customers owe you, what you owe suppliers, low stock and open purchase orders. It also has the supplier payments due (overdue, due this week and cheques about to be presented), stock that has expired or expires soon, a 14-day sales chart, your top sellers, recent sales, the items running low and recent stock activity. The money figures are visible to owners only.

Reports

• Sales: totals by day, plus a By counter table that splits every counter and cashier's takings into cash, card, bank transfer, other and credit. It also shows cash in/out, the cash that should be in each drawer, and the number of No sales.
• Best sellers: your top products by quantity.
• Slow moving: products with little or no recent sales, so you can clear them.
• Stock valuation: what your stock is worth at cost.
• Profit: revenue, cost and profit for any period.
• Low stock: everything at or below its minimum level.

Choose the dates at the top of a report. The Sales and Profit reports have an Export button that downloads a CSV file you can open in Excel.

Opening

1. Each cashier logs in on their till. The POS remembers which counter it is.
2. Count the change in the drawer and open the counter with it as the opening float.

During the day

• Sell, hold and recall bills, and take returns as described above.
• Record every paid-out with Cash out and the reason.
• Check Low Stock and raise purchase orders before items sell out.
• Glance at the dashboard's Supplier Payments Due and Expiring Stock cards: pay what is due, mark cleared cheques, and write off or move forward stock that is about to expire.

Closing

1. Each cashier presses Close counter, counts the drawer and keeps the end-of-day slip with the cash taken out.
2. Check the slip's card total against the card machine's settlement slip.
3. The owner looks over Reports → Counter Closings: any shortage, and a high No sales count on a slip, is worth a conversation.
4. Each cashier logs out with the icon at the top right of the POS.

Month end

1. Run payroll and print payslips.
2. Record rent, utilities, tax and EPF/ETF payments that are not already set up as recurring entries.
3. Reconcile the bank account against your statement.
4. Review Profit and loss and the Balance sheet, send them to your accountant, then Close the books for the month.

• Plans and prices are on the Pricing page. Every plan includes every feature.
• To pay, the owner opens Billing and presses Pay for next month. Payment is made securely through PayHere by card or the other methods it offers.
• Each payment covers one month. Subscriptions never renew automatically, so you are never charged without pressing Pay.
• See the Refund & Cancellation Policy for cancelling and refunds.

“Can't reach the server right now” when logging in

Check the internet connection and try again after a few seconds.

The POS keeps asking which counter it is

The counter is remembered by the browser. Clearing the browser's data or using a private window makes it ask again. Pick the counter once more. When a shop has more than one counter, Change in the POS header switches it.

“Enter the customer's phone number to sell on credit”

Credit sales, including a credit part of a split bill, need a customer phone number so the debt has an owner.

“Not enough stock for one of the items”

Another till may have sold the last units. Check the item's stock, or bring in stock with Stock In or a purchase order if your count is wrong.

“That bill was already recalled on another till”

Another counter took the held bill first. It is now open on that counter.

The print dialog appears every time

Start Chrome on the till with the --kiosk-printing option so receipts go straight to the default printer.

The cash drawer doesn't open

• Printer driver mode: check that the driver's cash drawer setting is switched on, and that the drawer cable is in the printer's drawer (DK) port.
• QZ Tray mode: make sure QZ Tray is running on the till, the right printer is chosen, and Test works. Try the other command set if it still doesn't open.

A user can't see a page

Pages are limited by role. An owner can change the user's role under Users & Counters.