For shop owners

You probably came to thola because someone said it would make the counter faster. Let's get you there. Thirty minutes total. By the end of it, you're billing customers in under ten seconds and your stock updates by itself.

What you need

• A phone (Android or iPhone) — newer the better, but a 3-year-old phone works fine
• A Bluetooth thermal printer (the ₹2,500–4,000 ones from the usual brands all work)
• Your product list (even a written list is fine — we'll digitise it)
• A working internet connection for setup (after that, the app works offline)

If you also have a barcode scanner or use a desktop till PC, both work too. We'll set up the phone first; the rest follows the same pattern.

The 30-minute setup

Minute 0–5 — Install and sign in

1. Open the Play Store or App Store, search thola, install
2. Open it, tap Register (or Login if your accountant already created your workspace)
3. Verify your WhatsApp number with the OTP
4. The first thing you see is Home with a "Set up your shop" card

Minute 5–15 — Add your products

The fastest way: drop in a CSV or Excel. If you don't have one, no problem — we have three options:

• Photo import — take a photo of your product list / price book. We OCR it. Preview, fix mistakes, confirm.
• Bulk add — type each product into a fast 4-column entry (name, price, HSN, stock). Aim for your top 50 items first; add the long tail over the week.
• Voice add — tap the mic, say "Add chai for ₹15, 100 in stock" — it adds.

A retail shop typically has 100–500 SKUs. Adding the top 50 covers ~80% of your bills.

→ See: Add your products

Minute 15–20 — Configure the counter

Open the POS screen. The home tile grid is what you'll see every billing transaction. We arrange it for you:

• High-frequency items get bigger tiles (chai, milk, bread, eggs)
• Items get auto-grouped by category
• The grid changes by time of day (morning shows chai/biscuits prominent, afternoon shows different items)

You can rearrange manually under Settings → POS → Layout. Most owners leave it at default.

If you have a Bluetooth printer:

1. Tap Settings → Devices → Printer
2. Power on the printer, set to pairing mode
3. Tap Scan for printers in the app
4. Pick yours, test print

If the test print works, you're done.

Minute 20–25 — Pair the staff

Two patterns work for most shops:

Single-cashier shop: you log in on the counter device, you're done.

Multi-cashier shop: add each cashier as a member with the Cashier role. They install the app, log in, and the counter device shows their name. Each shift, the cashier signs in fresh. End-of-shift reconciliation tracks who billed what.

→ See: Invite teammates

Minute 25–30 — Run one bill

Test it now, while no customer is waiting:

1. Tap two or three products on the grid
2. Tap Customer → search or skip (anonymous works)
3. Tap Cash or UPI for payment
4. Tap Print — receipt prints

You just rang a bill end to end. Time it next time — it'll be 9–12 seconds on a busy counter once you have the rhythm.

→ See: Bill a customer in 9 seconds

The features you'll use most

Voice quick-order

Tap the mic icon, say what the customer asked for ("two chai, one biscuit"), release. thola adds those items to the bill. Works in 6 languages (English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam) and recognises local product names.

If a customer asks for "kaapi" or "chai" or "paal", you don't have to type. Speak, tap print. Done.

Barcode scanning

Tap the barcode icon, point camera at the product, it adds. Works on any phone with a camera. No special scanner needed.

If a barcode isn't in your catalog, thola pops up "Add new SKU" with a quick 4-field form.

Offline billing

The app keeps a full copy of your products, customers, and recent bills on the phone. If the network drops mid-bill, nothing changes — you keep billing, you keep printing receipts, the system queues everything locally. When the network comes back, it syncs by itself.

You'll see a small status pill in the header:

• 🟢 Online — connected
• 🟠 Offline — billing locally, will sync
• 🟡 Syncing — catching up after reconnect

Nothing for you to manage. The pill is just so you know.

Udhar (credit ledger)

If you sell on credit (the customer pays later), tap Udhar instead of Cash/UPI when finalising the bill. The customer's balance updates. Every credit sale + every later payment is recorded.

Tap any customer profile to see their lifetime spend, last visit, and current Udhar balance.

Promotions

If you run promotions ("buy 2 get 1 free", "10% off above ₹500"), they apply automatically when you check out. No mental math at the counter. The receipt shows the discount line-itemed.

You set up promotions once under Settings → POS → Promotions.

→ See: Set up a promotion

End-of-shift reconciliation

At the end of every shift, the Counter Reconciliation screen lets you close out:

• POS-billed amount (the system total)
• Cash drawer total (you enter what's in the till)
• UPI/card totals (auto-pulled)

Any difference is flagged. You explain it (refund, comp, error). The shift closes clean.

If you run this religiously, the Process score on your dashboard stays high. Skip it for a week and you'll see why it matters.

→ See: Reconcile a shift

What your dashboard will tell you

Once you've been billing for two weeks, the dashboard will show you:

• Daily revenue vs the same day last week
• Top 10 products by volume and by margin
• Repeat customer rate (% of bills going to known customers)
• Slow-moving stock that hasn't sold in 30 days
• Stockouts about to happen (predicted from your sell-through rate)

Ask the Planner in chat:

Which items should I reorder before Saturday?

You'll get a list with vendor suggestions and quantities. Approve, send PO, done.

→ See: Reorder stock automatically

What thola doesn't do (yet)

We're honest about gaps:

• Multi-warehouse stock allocation beyond branch level — planned for v2
• Loyalty programs beyond simple credit / discount tracking — third-party integration planned
• E-commerce sync with Shopify / WooCommerce — planned
• Recipe-based BOM (for restaurants needing multi-ingredient recipes per dish) — planned

If any of these are deal-breakers, tell us. We're sequencing by what most customers need.

A note on confidence

A lot of shop owners we work with say something like "I'm not very technical, will my staff be able to use this?"

Three things to know:

1. The app works in your language. Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali — pick yours, the whole interface changes.
2. Voice and barcode mean your cashiers don't have to type. They can talk or scan.
3. The number-one user feedback is "it's faster than the notebook" — within the first week. Even from owners who were sceptical day one.

You'll be fine. The cashier who's scared on Monday is the one demanding the manager use it by Friday.

Where to go next

• Operations recipes — every shop-floor flow
• thola mobile guide — the deeper mobile guide
• Troubleshooting — when something doesn't work

Welcome to thola. Let's make Friday evenings less stressful.