Worried about how to keep track of items sold at holiday shops?
Recently a parent in a PTA forum, asked a question on how to keep track of items sold at holiday shops?
Perhaps you have also wondered about the same thing.
In this article we will address how to do this the easy way.
PLUS — You won’t have to use an old fashioned cash register like the one above unless you want to!
So, how do you keep track of items sold in a school holiday shop?
Common problems keeping track of items sold at school holiday shops
Here are two common scenarios PTA’s face when tracking holiday shop merchandise.
DIY school holiday shops
- You will need to keep close track of the items you purchased. Save your receipts so you can return any items to the store you purchased it from.
- Watch for items that you are running low on so you can send someone to the store to get more.
- You will need to pay a return shipping fee for items bought online.
How to keep track of items sold at a school holiday gift shop — Other Holiday Shop Companies
- You will need to count your school holiday inventory as soon as you receive it.
- Furthermore, you will need to count everything you sell. This can get complicated when you have several volunteers collecting payments for the gifts purchased.
- You might want to have a volunteer at the door to double check gift bags and receipts to catch any mistakes.
- At the end of your holiday shop you will need to count up what is left and send it back to the holiday shop company.
- This is how to keep track of items sold at holiday shops the hard way.
How to keep track of items at sold SHS easily
You will be happy to know there are four simple systems to help you keep track of what you sell during your sale.
1- Cash Register Apps
Firstly, forget that old cash register. This is because you get a free cash register app when you select SHS as your school holiday shop company. How does that help your PTA?
For instance, some schools use an old fashioned adding machine to tally up all sales. This can slow down your checkout line. On the other hand, schools that use our free cash register app can have several volunteers checking out children at the same time. You can download the cash register app as many times as you like at no charge,
2- Bar Code Stickers
Secondly, before we send you any holiday shop gifts, you get to select if you want to mark up the prices at all.
For example, did you know that many schools use the holiday shop as a fundraiser? So, you can either keep the list price or mark it up 10-20% for a profit. Normally this can get confusing for your volunteers to mark up all of the products and keep track of them all. Here at SHS we eliminate all of the hassle for you.
How do we do it?
Simply tell us if you want to mark up the products or not. If so tell us how much. Finally, we will put a bar code sticker on every item for you. All you have to do is scan the code with the free cash register app to keep track of the items you are ringing up.
Can you see how much easier this will be for you?
3- Custom website portal for your school
Thirdly, you get your very own custom school holiday shop website for your school. It is conveniently available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Here you can keep track of your merchandise including online re-ordering, online tracking, and online invoicing of merchandise and supplies.
4- No Count Inventory Option
You get to choose how to do your final inventory.
Some people like to count up all of the leftover holiday shop items before they send them back to us. Others just want to box them up and send them. We will count them for you.
As you can imagine, schools love our no count inventory option! You can choose either option when you set up your program.
Got questions?
We hope found these tips helpful on how to keep track of items sold at holiday shops.
If you have any other questions, please email us and we will gladly write a blog post to answer all your questions for you.
On the other hand, you are always welcome to call us at our 1-800 number to talk to a “live” agent and have all your questions answered.
