BlueDuka

BlueDuka user guide

A short guide for shop owners and staff. The same guide is in the app under Help & guide.

1. Getting started (owner)

  1. Settings: shop name, phone, KRA PIN, receipt footer, and the payment methods you take.
  2. Inventory: add each product once, with selling price, buying cost and opening stock. The same name can't be added twice. To record more of a product, open it and add stock.
  3. Team & Roles: invite staff by email.
    • BlueDuka emails them a temporary password; they log in, choose their own password and join your shop.
    • Pick a role (Cashier, Manager, ...).
    • With several branches, also pick the branches they work in. They only see those branches.
  4. Subscription & Billing: your plan and paying by M-Pesa. New shops get 14 days with every feature.

2. Selling

  • Point of Sale: tap products or scan a barcode, then Charge.
    • Pay by cash, M-Pesa or another method, or Pay later (on credit, needs a customer).
  • M-Pesa: there are three ways to take a payment.
    • Type the code from the customer's message.
    • Tap Find the payment in my till to pick it from payments that arrived.
    • Send a PIN prompt to the customer's phone.
  • Receipts and returns: every sale has a receipt. Returns are made from the receipt, and the stock goes back by itself.
  • Print or send: from any receipt, invoice or quotation, tap Print (A4 page, PDF, or an 80 mm receipt printer) or Send on WhatsApp or SMS. The customer gets a message from your own number with a link to view, print or save the document. For a walk-in customer, type their number; you can also save them as a customer.
  • Live updates: pages update by themselves. Sales on other tills, stock and payments appear within seconds.

3. Till shifts

  1. Open till. BlueDuka shows the cash the last shift left in the drawer. Count it, then confirm it or enter what you found.
  2. During the shift, M-Pesa and other electronic money is worked out for you. The expected cash is not shown to the cashier.
  3. Close till.
    • Count all the cash in the drawer and enter the total.
    • BlueDuka compares it with what the records say should be there: Balanced, Short or Over.
    • That count is where the next shift starts, whoever opens it.
  4. Each shift keeps its sales, electronic money, credit given and debts collected. It also keeps what customers owed at the start and at the end.
  5. Reports show the busiest hours and each cashier's shifts (hours, sales per hour, short or over).

4. Customers and debts

  • Credit sales: sell on credit to a customer, with an optional credit limit. Customers & Debts shows who owes what.
  • Payments: record a payment, or send an M-Pesa prompt for the debt. When the customer pays, the debt goes down by itself.
  • Automatic matching: money a customer sends to your till counts against their debt automatically. This happens when:
    • it comes from their own number, or they used their number as the paybill account; and
    • no sale used the payment within 10 minutes. The owner can switch this off in Integrations > M-Pesa.
  • WhatsApp reminders: no setup, no API keys.
    • Remind on WhatsApp opens WhatsApp with the amount and message ready, sent from your own number.
    • Remind everyone overdue on WhatsApp goes through everyone who has owed for more than 30 days, one tap each.
  • SMS: on a phone, the SMS app opens with the message ready. Automatic texts work once the BlueDuka team has switched on its SMS account.

5. Stock and purchases

  • From each product you can:
    • receive deliveries;
    • count stock;
    • adjust stock, with a reason.
  • Low-stock alerts show what to reorder.
  • Expiry dates (food, drinks, medicine, cosmetics): turn on "Track batches & expiry dates" on the product.
    • Each delivery then asks for the expiry date on the pack, and a batch number if it has one.
    • Sales take stock from the batch that expires first. Returns go back into the batch they came from, and transfers keep the batch and its date.
    • Inventory > Expiring lists what has expired or expires soon, what it is worth and a suggested discount (10% with a month left, 20% with two weeks, 30% in the last week). Set a clearance price or write the batch off from there. Write-offs follow your approval rules.
    • The warning period (30 days by default) is in Settings.
  • Purchases: suppliers, purchase orders and goods received. Bills and supplier payments are for the owner.
  • What to order (Purchases): products at or below their low-stock level, or that will run out within two weeks at the rate they sell, less what is already on order. They are grouped by the supplier who last delivered them, with that delivery's cost. Tap Make order, check the quantities, and place it.
  • Send to supplier: WhatsApp, SMS or email the order's link. The supplier opens it without an account, prints it or saves it as a PDF, and replies: confirm with a delivery date, or can't supply with a reason. The order shows "seen", "confirmed for 14 Oct" or "can't supply", and Late once the date passes without delivery.
  • When the goods arrive, Receive goods on the order: stock goes up, and a supplier bill is created.
  • Several branches: stock is kept per branch, and you can move stock between branches.

6. Online shop (Starter plan and above)

  • Online Shop > Shop page & link (owner): switch on "Taking online orders", choose collection, delivery (with a fee and the areas you cover) and whether customers may pay on delivery or collection.
  • Share the link on WhatsApp (status, groups), Facebook or Instagram, or print the QR code for the counter.
  • Customers see your products and prices, add them to a cart and order with their name and phone number. With M-Pesa connected in Integrations they can also pay with a PIN prompt when they order.
  • Never shown online: buying costs, stock values, other customers, staff. To hide a product, open it in Inventory and switch off "Show in the online shop".
  • Online Shop lists the orders. For each order:
    • Confirm it;
    • mark it ready or out for delivery, with one tap to tell the customer on WhatsApp;
    • when the customer has the goods, record the sale. Stock then leaves the shelf, and the money (M-Pesa paid online, plus cash or M-Pesa taken at the door) goes into today's sales.
  • If a price changed since the order, the app asks before using today's price. Cancelling needs a reason, which the customer sees.
  • The customer gets a private link to follow their order and to message the shop on WhatsApp.

7. M-Pesa, KRA eTIMS and other connections (owner)

  • M-Pesa: connect your own till or paybill in Integrations, or use Lipana, so payments are detected by themselves.
  • KRA eTIMS: register your branch for OSCU on the KRA portal, then connect it in Integrations.
    • Every sale is then sent to KRA.
    • Receipts show the KRA details and QR code.
  • API keys and webhooks (Premium): connect other software. See DEVELOPERS.md.

8. Windows app and working offline

  • Download: BlueDuka for Windows is on the Computers page.
  • Computers per plan: each plan allows a number of computers. The owner can remove a lost one.
  • Without internet:
    • it keeps selling (cash, typed M-Pesa codes, credit) and records debt payments and expenses;
    • everything uploads by itself when the internet is back;
    • the strip at the top shows what is waiting.

9. Privacy and safety

  • Staff only see the shops and branches they were given, and only do what their role allows.
  • A worker belongs to one shop. While on a shop's team they can't open their own shop, join another shop, switch shops or change the shop's settings. Once the owner removes them from the team, they are free to start their own shop or join another.
  • Sales are never deleted or edited. Mistakes are corrected with returns, and important actions are kept in the Activity log.
  • Removing someone from the team logs them out at once and closes their login. Nothing they recorded is deleted: their sales, shifts and payments stay in your books, and Team & Roles > Former staff shows how each of them did.
  • Never share your password. If a phone or computer is lost, the owner removes the person or the computer.