Software for hardware stores

A builders' merchant carries thousands of lines, and half of them do not sell by the piece: cement by the sack, cable by the metre, tiles by the square metre, paint by the litre. In Refresh every product has its own unit and stock is held in it, so twelve metres never becomes twelve pieces in a report.

Entering a range like that by hand is pointless. The catalogue is imported from a spreadsheet and prices are updated in bulk rather than card by card. Search works on name, SKU and barcode, because the person at the counter is looking for "cable 3x2.5", not browsing a category tree.

A large share of building materials is bought in dollars and sold in somoni. If the cost price is recorded in somoni at the rate on the day of purchase, a month later you are calculating margin from a number that no longer reflects reality.

Refresh tracks cost in more than one currency and stores the rates, so a purchase in dollars stays a purchase in dollars. When the rate moves, the catalogue can be repriced instead of recalculating each line by hand.

Purchase orders and what you owe suppliers live in the same system as sales: you can see who you owe and how much, and what has not yet arrived against an order.

Selling to builders and regular contractors almost always happens on credit. Refresh keeps a debt ledger per customer — total owed, partial repayments and the remaining balance — and repayment goes through the till and into the reports.