Notes for owners · Industry-Specific Software Guides
Flooring Stock in Excel or Software: Counting Boxes by Shade Lot
Excel is enough while one person keeps the sheet and every box sells from the counter. Software earns its place when stock must be counted by shade lot, boxes go to sites and come back, and customers reorder a year later. GullySystem’s Tile and Sanitaryware Showroom Software is the closest fit for flooring.
Ganesh HS, Strategy and Technology, GullySystem · · 3 min read
What a spreadsheet does well
A stock sheet is free, familiar and quick to change. One owner can list planks, laminates, vinyl rolls, SPC and WPC with their box coverage. For a small showroom, that may be all the record needed.
It also works for quotes. A formula turns square feet into boxes with a wastage rule. The trouble starts when more than one person edits it.
Where the sheet loses track
Shade lots are the first gap. Boxes of one design differ between production lots. A sheet that counts the design but not the lot cannot tell you whether a repeat order will match.
Site movement is the second. Boxes leave on a challan, leftovers return weeks later, and planks crack in loading. Each event needs a row, and rows get skipped on busy days.
- Boxes counted by design but not by lot
- Returned boxes never added back
- Breakage written off at stock-taking with no cause
- Stock promised to two customers at once
What a stock system adds
A system enters the lot number when a truckload is received. It reserves a customer’s boxes from one lot where enough remain. The counter and the godown read the same box count.
Each load carries its own challan and box count. Unused boxes come back against the delivery and are credited. Breakage is logged where it happened: loading, transit or site.
Quotes and wastage, sheet against system
In a sheet, one salesperson adds five boxes for wastage and another adds none. Margin then varies from job to job. A system applies the same rule per product every time.
Room-by-room quotes help too. Underlay, beading, skirting and laying sit on separate lines. Each revision is kept, so the customer and the counter refer to the same version.
- One wastage rule per product, set once
- Rooms quoted separately, revisions kept
- Area converted to sealed boxes on every quote
How to decide for your showroom
Ask three questions. Do you deliver to sites? Do builders or designers buy on account? Do customers come back for more boxes of the same floor?
If all three are no, keep the sheet and lock it to one editor. If two or more are yes, the sheet is already costing you mismatched lots and lost returns. Count a month of returns before deciding.
Shade lot stock sheet
A stock sheet with columns for design, size, finish, shade lot, boxes in godown, boxes reserved, boxes at site and boxes broken. Fill it for your ten best-selling designs and see how many lots each one already holds.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Is there software made only for flooring?
Not as a product of its own. The tile and sanitaryware showroom software sits closest, because it already counts boxes by shade lot and quotes room by room. Your plank and roll ranges go in on top.
Can planks, tiles and vinyl rolls sit in one stock?
Yes. Each item carries its own unit, box coverage and wastage rule, so one count holds all of them.
Can a customer reorder the same shade a year later?
Only if the lot was recorded on the original invoice. Then the showroom knows what to match. If that lot is finished, you know before promising anything.
Does our accountant keep working in Tally?
Yes, but not through a built-in link. Sales, purchase and stock figures can be read in the system, and an export is sized once your ledger heads are known.