How to run stock and sales across optical shop branches

Opening a second branch doubles more than sales. It doubles the places where stock can go missing, the people who can give a discount and the cash drawers to check. Owners who run branches well, and the optical chain software that supports them, follow a few simple rules about what is shared and what is kept separate. This guide sets them out.

Decide what is shared and what is separate

Customers should be shared. A customer tested at one branch may collect at another or return to a third, and staff everywhere should see their prescriptions, orders and balances. Separate customer lists for each branch lead to duplicate records and lost history.

Stock, sales and cash should be separate. Each branch owns its shelves and its drawer, so that a difference in either can be traced to a place and a team. Reports should show each branch on its own and the business as a whole.

Move stock with a record, every time

Stock between branches is where chains lose control. A box of frames carried across town without a record makes one branch look short and the other look rich, and soon neither count can be trusted. Every movement should be a transfer: the sending branch records what it sends, the stock leaves its count, and it enters the receiving branch's count when that branch receives it.

Check transfers that were sent but never received. They are either still in a bag somewhere or they are your first sign of loss.

• Send and receive every transfer in the software
• Count transfers as they arrive
• Review transfers sent but not received each week
• Never adjust stock to hide a transfer difference

Staff, access and discounts

Give every staff member their own login and limit them to their branch. Someone who works at two branches should have access to both, not a shared password. Owners and managers see all branches.

Discounts are where margins leak in chains. Set discount rules centrally, such as a maximum percentage, a seasonal offer with dates or codes for particular customers, and let staff apply them rather than type their own. The same goes for prices: one price list across branches avoids customers comparing and staff arguing.

A weekly owner review

Pick one time each week to compare branches on the same few numbers: sales billed, money collected, balances owed, jobs past their promised date, stock adjustments and their reasons, and transfers waiting to be received. Look for the branch that differs from the others rather than at every number.

A branch with good sales but poor collections needs a follow-up routine. A branch with many late jobs may be using a slow lab. A branch with frequent unexplained stock adjustments needs a closer look at its stock handling.

A worked example: a weekly review of two branches

An owner with a main shop and a newer branch sits down every Monday with the week's numbers. Both branches billed similar amounts, but the newer branch collected much less and its balances owed keep rising. It also shows four jobs past their promised date against one at the main shop, and two transfers of frames sent from the main shop that it has not marked as received.

The actions are clear. The newer branch starts the daily follow-up list for balances. The late jobs all went to one lab, so the owner calls that lab. The two transfers are found unopened in the stock room and received the same day. None of this needed a visit to the branch, only the same numbers for both, every week.

Common mistakes

Chains run into trouble with separate customer lists per branch, stock carried between branches without a transfer, staff sharing one login, each branch setting its own prices and discounts, and an owner who only looks at total sales instead of comparing branches on collections, dues and late jobs.

Labs and suppliers across branches

Chains usually get better terms by buying centrally. Keep one supplier list, record purchases against the branch that receives the stock, and track each lab's turnaround and remakes across all branches. A lab that is late for one branch is usually late for all of them, and the numbers make the conversation with the lab easier.

How Optical Mart handles this

On Optical Mart's Hospital plan, branches share customers while keeping branch-wise records, with stock transfers between branches and branch comparison, and up to twenty-five user logins with roles. Discounts run through owner-set coupon codes. Branch and transfer work is done in the web app; the offline desktop counter handles a branch's daily billing.