Multi-Branch Retail: One Owner, Three Shops, One View

How do I run three shops from one system?

Running multiple shops from one system means each branch sells independently with its own stock and staff, while the owner sees consolidated figures across all of them, stock transfers between branches are recorded as single documents with two ends, and each branch manager can only see their own branch's data. One catalogue, one customer list, separate stock, controlled visibility.

The alternative — a separate system per shop — means three catalogues to maintain, three sets of reports to add up by hand, and no reliable way to know where anything is.

What actually breaks with separate systems per shop?

Four things, and they get worse as you grow.

The catalogue drifts. A new product is added at Branch A with one name and price, at Branch B with another, and at Branch C not at all. Within a year the three shops are selling different things under different names and no report can combine them.

Stock is invisible across locations. A customer wants an item that Branch A has run out of. Branch B has six sitting on a shelf. Nobody knows, so the sale is lost and the stock eventually ages out.

Reporting is manual. Consolidated figures mean exporting from three systems and combining them in a spreadsheet, monthly, by hand. It is slow and it is where errors enter.

Nobody knows which branch is actually performing. Comparing branches requires the numbers to mean the same thing, which requires one system computing them the same way.

How does stock work across branches?

Each branch holds its own stock, and the system tracks quantity by location rather than as a single company-wide number.

That distinction matters. "We have twelve units" is useless if you cannot serve the customer standing in the shop that has zero. Branch-level stock means the question "where is it" has an answer.

Transfers between branches are recorded as documents with a dispatch end and a receipt end, belonging to one record. This is the part manual systems consistently get wrong — stock leaves one branch, arrives at another, and only one side is entered. The company total nets out correctly, so a top-level report looks healthy while both branches are wrong.

POSFORRETAIL handles branch transfers as documented movements, so both ends belong to the same document and a transfer in progress is visible rather than lost.

Can a branch manager see everything?

No, and that is usually the point.

Branch-level data scoping means a user assigned to one branch sees that branch's data. A manager at Gulberg sees Gulberg's sales, Gulberg's stock, Gulberg's staff. They do not see the other branches' figures.

The owner, with company-level access, sees everything consolidated.

This matters for ordinary commercial reasons more than security paranoia. Branch managers do not need each other's margins. Staff do not need company-wide revenue. And when someone leaves, their access ends without a scramble to work out what they could see.

POSFORRETAIL enforces this on both the backend and the interface, so a restricted user cannot reach data outside their branch by navigating around the UI.

What stays shared across branches?

The things that should be consistent: the product catalogue, customer records, suppliers, and your staff roles and permission structure.

One catalogue means a product added once is available everywhere, with the same name, the same barcode, and prices you control. One customer list means a customer's khata balance is theirs regardless of which branch they walk into — a customer who buys on credit at one shop and pays at another should not have two separate balances that need manual reconciliation.

That last point is worth pausing on. In shops running separate systems, a customer with credit at two branches effectively has two accounts, and the total is whatever someone works out on paper. With one system, the outstanding balance is a single number and the credit limit applies against all of it.

What does the owner actually get?

A consolidated view, and comparable branch figures.

Consolidated sales, consolidated stock value, and stock positions per branch — so the question "should we transfer stock or reorder" is answerable from a screen rather than three phone calls.

Comparability is the underrated part. When all three branches record sales the same way, compute tax the same way, and categorise products the same way, comparing them means something. Branch C's margin being four points below the others is a real signal worth investigating. When each shop runs its own system with its own conventions, that difference could just as easily be a data-entry habit.

What does multi-branch cost?

Multi-branch support with stock transfers and branch-level data scoping starts on the Professional plan at PKR 5,999 per month — roughly 20% less billed yearly. That plan covers up to 3 branches, 3 till devices and 10 staff users, plus quotations, sales orders, restaurant mode, and a 15-day offline window.

Beyond three branches, Enterprise at PKR 11,999 per month gives unlimited branches and users, 10 till devices, double-entry accounting, payroll, an audit trail and a 30-day offline window.

The Starter plan at PKR 2,999 is single-branch and does not include transfers or scoping.

For a business that has grown past one shop, Professional is usually the answer until you need books and payroll in the same place.

Does each branch need its own internet?

Each till keeps working without one.

POSFORRETAIL is offline-first: a branch whose connection drops keeps selling, and its data syncs when the link returns. The offline window is 15 days on Professional, 30 on Enterprise. In a country where connectivity and power are both unreliable, a branch that stops trading because head office's internet is down is not acceptable.

Two honest notes on how that works. Sync is cloud-mediated rather than device-to-device — branches reconcile through the cloud, not by talking directly to each other, so consolidated reporting reflects what has synced. And the accounting module is cloud-only, unlike the till.

Activating a new till also needs an internet connection once, at setup.

When is it worth moving?

Usually at the second shop, and definitely by the third.

One shop can be run on a single system, or honestly on a good notebook. Two shops is where catalogue drift and invisible stock start costing real money. Three is where manual consolidation stops being feasible and starts being wrong.

If you are opening a second location, moving before the second shop opens is far easier than migrating two divergent systems into one later.

See pricing for the full comparison — Professional covers up to 3 branches, with a 14-day free trial and no card required. Our blog covers stock accuracy and inventory control if you want the single-shop fundamentals right first.