Using a phone app for records: what you need and what you don't

A beginner usually thinks of an app as a magic wand. They download a big program with forty features, enter three hundred items in one evening and a week later stop opening it: it is complicated, slow and full of sections nobody needs. A phone app can work well, but only if it fits your needs. Here we praise no brand; we explain what to check when choosing any app.

What a beginner needs and what is surplus

Five things are enough at the start:

• an item list: name, unit of measure, code, price;
• fast entry of receipts and issues;
• automatic balance calculation;
• a minimum stock flag, so the app warns you when an item runs low;
• export to Excel or a CSV file.

Not needed at the start: full accounting, several warehouses, payroll, a customer database, complex reports and many integrations. They may help later, but at the beginning they only burden the app.

Seven selection criteria

1. Language. Buttons and labels in Uzbek or Russian, so that your helper understands too.
2. Speed. How many taps does it take to record one sale? If more than three, you will start entering "all at once" in the evening and mistakes will multiply.
3. Offline use. At a market, in a basement or a garage there may be no signal. Is the data kept on the phone and synchronised later?
4. Export. You must be able to take all your data out into Excel. This is the emergency exit: if you want to change app, the history stays.
5. Data and backup. Where is the data stored, what happens if the phone is lost, is there a password or a code to get in?
6. Several users and permissions. A helper can record issues but cannot change prices. A log showing who changed what is a plus.
7. Price. Does the free plan limit the number of items or features, what does the subscription cost in so'm and how is it paid? Do not pay a year in advance; test first.

A seven-day trial

You cannot judge an app without using it. This plan is enough:

1. Day one: enter only 20 items, not all of them. Export at once and open the file in Excel: did all the data come out?
2. Days two to six: record every receipt and issue both in the app and in your old notebook.
3. Day seven: compare the balances in the app with a real count on the shelf.

An example: of 20 items, 18 matched and two were off by one piece. On looking for the cause, both turned out to be unrecorded sales, so the human erred, not the app. Recording took 8 minutes a day on average. That result says the app suits you. If it takes more than twenty minutes a day, or balances change for no clear reason, try another.

During the trial, note every place where you got stuck or found the app slow. By the end of the week that list says more than any advertisement.

When you need an app and when a notebook is enough

Not everybody needs an app. With fewer than 50 items, a few dozen sales a day and records you keep yourself, a notebook or a plain Excel sheet is every bit as good: it does not depend on the internet and needs no training. An app pays off when you have over 100 items, several sellers, a need to see balances from a phone anywhere, or you want to read barcodes with the phone camera. The deciding question is this: how many minutes a week does the app save, and how many does it take?

Common mistakes

• entering hundreds of items on the very first day: you tire and give up;
• writing the opening balance "roughly" and then blaming the app;
• one shared password for everybody;
• trusting the word "best" in an advertisement and paying for a year untried;
• skipping backups: the day the phone is lost, all the records go with it.

Conclusion

An app is only a tool: it does not change the figure you enter, it just calculates faster. So the opening balance matters most: first really count the goods, then enter them. Many apps let you load a list from a file, so check that in advance. If you have no time for the opening count, the Sanab team counts the goods and hands over the result in an Excel table, which you can then move into whichever app you choose.