Stock tracked by IMEI, not by rough count

Why phone inventory isn't like accessory inventory

A charging cable is fungible — one unit is interchangeable with any other unit of the same SKU, so a stock count of "14 in stock" is a complete answer. A phone shop's inventory holds both kinds of stock at once: fungible accessories, where a quantity count is genuinely all you need, and individual handsets, where it isn't, because two phones that are nominally the same model can have different storage, colour, condition, purchase cost and sale history. Mobile POS keeps both in the same product catalogue but treats serialised stock — phones and other devices with an IMEI or serial number — differently under the hood from bulk accessory stock, without splitting them into two separate systems a member of staff has to remember to check.

What tracking by IMEI actually changes

Every serialised product in the catalogue carries device specifics — RAM, storage, colour, network status, and a device-model link to a standard make and model list — so a listing is specific rather than generic. Where a phone was bought in as a used-phone purchase, its IMEI carries forward from that purchase record into the stock listing, so the same identifier that verified the handset at intake is what a staff member scans to find it again, and what shows on the receipt when it's sold. That matters practically: if a customer later disputes which specific phone they were sold, or a handset needs tracing back to when and how it entered the shop, the answer is a lookup against a stock record, not a memory of which box it came out of.

Stock movements as an audit trail, not a running total

Every change to a product's stock level — a sale, a manual adjustment, a purchase order being received, a used-phone purchase converting into resale stock — is recorded as its own stock movement entry with a type, a quantity delta, and who made the change, rather than the system only remembering the current total and discarding how it got there. A manual stock adjustment specifically requires the person making it to leave a reason, so a count correction two months from now can be checked against why the adjustment was made rather than a bare number with no context. This is the same append-only principle the till itself runs on — a correction is its own new entry, never an edit that erases what the record used to say.

Barcode labels for stock that didn't come with one

A new phone in its retail box usually has a barcode already. A used handset bought over the counter, or a repair part taken out of a bulk box, often doesn't. Mobile POS can generate a barcode candidate for a product that lacks one and print a label sized for small stock — phones and repair parts both use a compact label format distinct from the wider label used elsewhere, so a technician labelling a stack of screens for the bench gets a label that actually fits.

Bringing stock in from a spreadsheet

Stock doesn't have to be re-keyed one item at a time to get into the system. Existing stock can be prepared as a CSV or Excel file and imported with column mapping, so a shop switching from another system, or from a paper stock book, can bring its full catalogue across before going live rather than rebuilding it from scratch on day one.

Low stock without false alarms

Each product carries its own minimum stock level rather than one blanket threshold across the whole catalogue, so a fast-moving accessory and a slow-moving repair part can each have a sensible reorder point instead of both triggering — or both failing to trigger — the same generic low-stock warning. The dashboard surfaces what's currently under its minimum alongside how far short it is, which is what actually drives a reorder decision rather than a raw stock count on its own.

Bringing in stock from a supplier

Stock doesn't only arrive through the till or a used-phone purchase — a purchase order against a vendor tracks what was ordered, at what cost, and how much of it has actually been received against the order, so a partially delivered order stays visible as partially delivered rather than the whole order being marked received the moment any of it turns up. Receiving against a purchase order creates the same kind of stock movement entry a sale or an adjustment does, keeping one consistent trail regardless of how stock entered the shop.

IMEI tracking isn't a standalone inventory feature — it's the thread that connects a used-phone purchase to the eventual sale, and it's what makes a Margin Scheme invoice defensible, because the purchase price behind that invoice is tied to the specific handset being sold, not an average across a batch. The same stock record a technician draws a repair part from is what the till sells from at the counter.